AllPoint Retail CEO Sean Quinn Shares the Basics of Point-of-Sale Systems for Franchises
It can be frustrating to figure out what point of sale (POS) system is going to be best for your franchise business. There are so many options; even the basics can sound more like acronym bingo than a checklist of features and benefits you can find your way through. It is, however, a critical decision. Your POS is key to streamlining your operations, supporting a strong customer experience, and supporting your sales. It can also be a major component of your inventory management and customer throughput.
Never fear. I’m here to walk you through the ABC’s of a POS system so that you can peruse your options and make a decision you feel confident about.
POS Basics
At its core, a POS system is a combination of hardware and software designed to facilitate business transactions at the point of sale — like, where the customer is standing. It goes beyond the capabilities of traditional cash registers by integrating sales, inventory management, and customer relationship management (CRM) into one (hopefully!) seamless operation.
Not all POS offerings are the same, but most of them can check off the following attributes:
- Efficiency: Automates sales processes, reducing checkout times and improving the customer experience.
- Accuracy: Minimizes human errors in pricing, transactions and inventory management.
- Insights: Provides valuable data analytics on sales trends, inventory levels, and customer preferences, enabling informed business decisions.
- Inventory management: Keeps real-time track of stock levels, automates reorder points and helps manage supply chains more effectively.
- Customer management: Helps build customer profiles, track purchase history, and tailor marketing efforts to enhance loyalty and repeat business.
An important filter to look through when deciding what POS system is right for you is your growth plan. The problem is that most POS platforms are built to support a small number of stores (1 – 5) or a large footprint (1,000 – 10,000). Because most don’t support the path to growth, ensure that the choice you select now doesn’t box you into an expensive corner later. Here are some considerations.
- Transparent: You will want a solution that supports mobility and real-time inventory across all locations – with no delay. With this model, you can support any customer associate with the power of your entire chain to fulfill expectations in real-time. You will also ensure that you can ‘carry it anywhere’ and have access to real-time data by store or channel, permanent or pop-up location.
- Modular and scalable: Retail businesses learned the hard way from 2020 that you must expect the unexpected… and your POS needs to scale up and down in features and functions without a hitch when you need to pivot. So don’t get locked in.
- Stable and redundant: Networks, software platforms, and the internet can fail without warning. Ensure that your new solution keeps the registers up regardless. This happens when a solid contingency is built into your software and store network environment. Redundancy and data backup are key.
- Omnichannel: Your POS/OMS system must be able to integrate easily with other critical systems like e-commerce, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), loyalty, and WMS (warehouse management system) if it applies. It must be able to handle customers and order fulfillment across multiple channels with one system of record.
- Iterative: The retail industry is never done… is it continually innovating and iterating to support evolving customer needs, business models, and other platforms — and so should your POS solution. Your new POS needs to be up to par with modern features/benefits but also be in active, evergreen development mode. Many retailers invest in what seems to be tried and true today, but it can’t migrate. Don’t make this mistake–your software should be growing at least at the pace you are.
Barriers to a POS System
Any new technology brings with it some barriers. I implore you to flip the perspective — they are necessary investments to get the most out of your business!
Biggest barriers
- Training
- Upfront costs
- Time and complexity for data migration
The most important facts to consider
- Omnichannel capabilities
- What and how it can support your customer experience
- Inventory and order management
- Real-time business intelligence at your associates’ fingertips as well as your own
Choosing the Right POS Solution
When selecting a POS system for your franchise, you will want to consider the following things.
- Business needs: Assess your specific needs based on your business size, industry, and operational complexity. Do you need a simple system for processing transactions, or a comprehensive solution that includes inventory management and customer insights? What are key features of your business that need to be accomplished within POS?
- Ease of use: Look for a user-friendly interface that minimizes training time and maximizes productivity. Your staff should be able to learn the system very quickly and use it efficiently.
- Integration capabilities: Ensure the POS system can integrate with other software tools you already use, such as accounting software, e-commerce platforms, and loyalty program solutions.
- Hardware requirements: Determine the hardware necessary for your POS system to run smoothly. This can include tablets, desktop computers, barcode scanners, receipt printers, and cash drawers. Keep it agnostic and standardized across the board if you have multiple locations.
- Cost: Evaluate the cost structure, including upfront hardware costs, software subscription fees, system migration, process review, training and any additional charges for updates, support, or additional features.
- Support and training: Choose a vendor that offers reliable customer support and training resources to help you maximize the benefits of your POS system, both on the initial installation and training and with ongoing support.
It’s also important to think about internal adoption. You are going to want an easy and modern interface and workflow and the reason is simple–the easier your POS is to train people on and use, the quicker your associates will adopt it. The outcome?
- Happy employees
- Lower cost of training
- Better experience and throughput for your shoppers
- All customer and product info available in real time
Data-Based Upsides
Successfully implementing a POS system involves careful planning and training. Start by setting clear business objectives, such as improving checkout speed or gaining better inventory control. Remember, business processes and goals drive the technology solution… not the other way around. Then, train your staff thoroughly on how to use the system, emphasizing the benefits it brings to their daily tasks and overall business efficiency.
Do not underscore the critical importance of the data capabilities of your new POS system. Spend the time digging into this and ensure that you see what your solution can do via a demo with real data, and make 100% sure that what you’re seeing is in real-time. Also, lean in on the following:
- Reporting: You will need access to all your data, options for visualization of it and integration capabilities to more advanced business intelligence platforms, if desired. Also, the data needs to be comprehensive and detailed enough that, through analysis, it can quickly produce strategic, actionable business intelligence. Many of the options out there have limited capabilities, with canned reports that are either not useful or not supported. So, ensure you know what you are looking for and ask for it!
- Migration: What will it take to migrate your current data to the new system? Are there additional costs or complexities involved? Make sure to find out.
- Security/Privacy: Ensure that all credit card transactions are protected, but your customer data as well. Also, get the details on how it supports both local and federal privacy guidelines such as GDPR, CCPA and any other mandates that will show up in the future.
Empowering Your Inventory Through POS
Many cloud-based mobile POS options out there for mid-tier retail do not have strong inventory control options, but it’s critical for profit.
The MOST important imperative? Make sure your new solution can easily integrate with 3rd party apps that may not be necessary now, but could be later — and you don’t want to replace your POS again to manage it! Things to think about are:
- Warehouse Management
- Order Management
- Customer Loyalty
- Points/Rewards
- E-commerce
- Mobile POS
- Marketing platforms such as email, SMS, chat, social media (just remember to make it bi-directional)
Ask if your system has a stock ledger so that you can go back and reproduce inventory levels at any point in time and also see which user made changes, and at what time.
Franchising: a Whole Different Wrinkle
To add another layer to this POS checklist, the fact that you’re in franchising adds another wrinkle that most systems can’t handle — how to meet the needs of the franchisor and the franchisee. The franchisor wants one common system that covers off on a standardized product mix and offering, standardized reporting, visibility to real-time revenue and royalties. The franchisee needs the independence to run his/her stores how they see fit. They also seek the ability to add to their product mix, change pricing, do their own promotions, manage inventory and associates across just their locations, and have their data and stores protected so that other franchisees can’t see their stores (and vice versa). Very few systems can do this on their own, but there are platforms out there that can achieve both that are also POS agnostic.
Get Going!
THIS is the biggest mistake retailers make! They may explore, they may demo, they may even pilot, and then they don’t take the leap. Make the move! The longer you wait, the more behind you get.
Here’s the golden rule: if the system you choose and the reason you choose it isn’t going to affect your bottom line by a significant percentage of sales, either by growing sales or saving through efficiencies, then don’t buy it. Don’t change! However, if you go through the process we’ve described in this article, a new system will certainly achieve both revenue growth and savings through efficiency and intelligence. From what we’ve seen, you may very well recoup your investment 10X fold!
All Point Retail, with decades of in the trenches experience with all genres of POS solutions, is happy to share this ‘quick reference’ checklist. Driven by the many mistakes and “I didn’t think of that” snafus we’ve both witnessed and come in to clean up, use this to ensure that your next POS solution is both bulletproofed and future proofed.
About AllPoint Retail
AllPoint Retail helps franchises manage retail operations from one unified platform to work smarter, move faster and think bigger. For more information, reach out to contact@allpointretail.com or email marketing@allpointretail.com.
