Cash Registers for Small Business: Are They Worth it?

Small business owners keep things simple — maybe you’re a one-person show, or manage a 20-person team of stellar employees. And if you’ve been using a traditional cash register to run your retail business, it might be difficult to understand the importance of upgrading to a modern point of sale (POS) solution — but that may no longer be your best option.

Here’s how you can upgrade your simple cash register setup to take your business to the next level, and make running it even simpler.

Speed Up the Retail Checkout Process

Time is money, for cashiers and customers. Your buyers don’t want to waste time standing in long lines. They want to get in and out quickly — even within 10 minutes. And 77 percent of consumers are less likely to return to a store where they had to spend a significant amount of time in the checkout line. 

With a traditional cash register, you spend unnecessary time manually checking prices, calculating discounts, and counting change.

Upgrading to a modern POS system saves you time and money. You can ring up items easily with a barcode scanner, set up and apply discounts, and immediately accept all forms of payment — directly from your POS software.

If you sell age-restricted products, some POS solutions are equipped with an age-verification feature — simply scan or swipe your customer’s ID to validate their date of birth. Don’t waste time entering this information by hand (and risking error). You’ll keep your customers safe and protect your business from major fines. 

Eliminate Costly Human Error

Even your most efficient employees are human — and humans make mistakes. While small hiccups are bound to happen every once in a while, even mini-mistakes can add up to become extremely costly in the long run. Think of the consequences of incorrectly counting inventory or inputting inaccurate payment information — in fact, 18.8 percent of all inventory shrinkage is due to administrative and paperwork errors.

Ready to reduce avoidable profit loss?

Trust a POS system to handle each transaction from start to finish — it not only saves money by cutting down on time, but it leaves no room for manual mistakes. (And you’ll also reduce opportunities for both external and employee theft!)

Improve Your Customer Experience

A modern point of sale solution keeps customers happy. It saves them time, of course — but many POS systems feature the ability to create a customer loyalty program. Have customers join a rewards program with a system that can award points based on each transaction, which can be redeemed for a later discount. Customers will return to take advantage of these rewards, increasing your profits — a 5 percent increase in customer retention can boost profits by up to 95 percent!

Customer rewards aren’t impossible with a traditional cash register — they can be created and implemented manually. But using a system that automatically tracks and redeems points ensures accuracy, and cuts down on time.

An added bonus? Storing your customers’ contact information in the POS system makes marketing efforts that much easier — some systems allow you to send promotional emails or SMS messages to your loyal customers through the software directly.

And if you keep your customers happy, they’ll be sure to spread the word — another huge profit-booster.

Streamline Your Business Operations

One of the biggest advantages of upgrading to a point of sale system is its ability to manage inventory. When you rely solely on a cash register, you spend a lot of time manually counting stock. It’s tedious.

Simplify and automate that process with a new solution. POS software tracks sales, damages, and purchase orders, keeping everything up to date — and some software can track selling patterns, so you can order top sellers and avoid reorders on hard to move product.

Other potential POS features include case breaking abilities, mix and match pricing, barcode label printing, and even prebuilt reporting. You no longer have to spend time calculating business reports by hand — you can access them easily with the click of a button.

How to Upgrade Cash Registers for Small Business

Cash registers are important to retail businesses because they secure cash — but now, they’re only part of a more powerful point of sale setup.

Using traditional cash registers for small business operations may have worked so far, but don’t settle for the bare minimum. Learn more about what a modern POS system can do for your business, and schedule a demo with one of our specialists today.