If you’re a first-time business owner or manager, you’ve probably heard this phrase: retail point of sale (POS) software. What is it? Does your business need one? How much does it cost?
After some additional digging, you might have seen that the best retail POS systems often come with a hefty price tag. However, if you take the time to assess the retail POS industry properly, you might find some affordable solutions that fit your unique needs.
Overspending on a POS system that doesn’t come equipped with the features you need is a massive waste of time, energy, and money. Moreover, time spent without a suitable POS system results in serious inefficiencies, inaccuracies, and a less-than-stellar experience for your prospects and customers.
This Feature-Rich POS System is Better Than a $55K Alternative
The problem is that you can’t simply search for “cheapest POS system” and hope to find a great solution. For example, let’s imagine that you’re looking for a new car.
Would you really purchase the cheapest car on a used car lot? Probably not. In most cases, the cheapest cars cost more money over time due to constant repairs and maintenance.
The same is true with POS systems. Instead of searching for a cheap POS system, your ideal endpoint is an affordable retail POS system with everything you need to grow your business.
Our retail POS system is both feature-rich and affordable. Instead of charging you for features that you won’t use, we charge based on the value and benefits you receive. Here are just a few of the top-line features of our high-value and affordable POS system.
1. Label and Barcode Printing
Barcode and label printers allow merchants to create adhesive labels that can be used as shelf tags and barcodes. Although many items come with barcodes already printed on them, there's still a need to label non-barcoded items. Here are a few examples of business types that benefit from using label and barcode printing:
- Boutiques and stores selling locally-produced goods or unique items.
- Tobacco shops can print barcodes for individual cigars and customer displays.
- Hardware stores can individually label and add barcodes to items that don’t come with barcodes on them.
- Garden centers can print weather-resistant tags for outdoor products.
2. Inventory Management
Cheap POS systems may skimp on inventory management or exclude it entirely. Our affordable retail POS system includes robust inventory management features that go beyond simply knowing what’s in stock.
Mix and Match Pricing
Depending on what's in stock, you may be able to increase sales and move inventory with creative mix and match product bundles. With built-in mix and match pricing, our system makes it easy to create and sell grouped items.
Case Break Inventory Tracking
Liquor, wine, and beer shop owners know the pain of tracking cases when an item is removed. Our case break inventory tracking feature allows you to easily track inventory by the case, bottle, or six-pack and automatically accounts for case breaks.
Carton-Pack Inventory Tracking
Tired of counting cigarettes and cigars? Automatically record the status of cartons, packs, and boxes when individual units sell.
Automatic Purchasing
Set reorder thresholds for your inventory. Once those points are hit, automatically generate and send purchase orders to your vendors. Once you receive inventory the system automatically recalculates your inventory count.
Mobile Inventory
Use our integrated mobile handheld device to count your inventory. Once synced back to the POS, the system will generate a discrepancy report to help you identify product counts that don't match.
Real-Time Inventory Control
Remove “let me run to the back and see if we have that in stock” from you and your employees’ vocabulary. With real-time metrics, know what’s available right from your system.
See all inventory management features in our affordable retail POS system.
3. Customized Hotkeys
Streamline repetitive tasks and produce fewer errors with POS system hotkeys. Memorizing and typing in PLUs is a major time suck. Hotkeys help your employees navigate through photos on the system to find the appropriate product quickly.
You can customize hotkeys as often as you like to save valuable time for employees and allow them to ring up items at the touch of a button.
Ultimately, hotkeys reduce checkout time by eliminating sorting through the PLU, helping your employees deliver improved and expedited customer experiences.
4. Employee Management
While cheap retail POS systems only focus on clocking in and out, our all-in-one retail POS goes beyond simply tracking hours. It makes it easy to gauge employee productivity, manage schedules, set employee pay rates, institute rigorous security levels, and make better staffing decisions.
User Permissions
With job-based permissions, each employee can be assigned to a specific job or role, such as cashier, manager, or owner. Their assigned role limits their POS system access to the tools and areas necessary for their position.
For example, a cashier might only have the ability to ring up sales, while a manager can process voids and discounts.
Your specific roles and permissions can be customized and applied to multiple employees.
Clock in and Out Functionality
Forget about time cards. Each employee will be able to track working hours and break times. Schedule your entire team weeks in advance to ensure you have proper coverage at your shop. This removes the administrative burden of manually calculating hours.
Payroll Deduction Reporting
Simplify and streamline your payroll reduction reporting. Our payroll report is built specifically for employee in-house charges to be deducted from payroll to help keep your finances organized.
5. Customer Loyalty
The best customer experiences are built around customer loyalty. Unfortunately, most cheap POS systems don’t include the tools needed to build a customer loyalty program. POS Nation gives you the power to track buying patterns and create promos to retain current customers or win new business.
Customer Tracking
With our software's built-in customer tracking, use purchasing data to provide better customer service.
Rewards and Loyalty Programs
Analyze purchase patterns among your regulars and use our built-in customer loyalty functions to create a rewards program. The programs can keep turn new customers into regulars!
Our software gives you the ability to create multiple levels of achievements within a loyalty plan so customers can aim for bigger rewards — which means they spend more money at your business.
Sales and Marketing
Take the trends from customer purchases and run targeted marketing campaigns to encourage repeat business. Promote seasonal sales and stay in touch with your customers to keep them coming back.
POS Nation Powers Retail Companies Nationwide
As a first-time business owner, you have a lot to consider, including choosing an affordable retail POS system that has everything you need. You can pay less initially for a cheap POS system, but you end up paying more in support, add-ons, and headaches in the long run.
POS Nation’s affordable retail POS system can be customized to suit your specific business needs. Plus, it can handle your future growth, whether that’s increased products and volume, or even branching out to multiple locations.
The best place to start in your search for an affordable retail POS system is our buyers' guide. You can also schedule a live demo to have one of our product specialists walk you through the system and answer any questions you may have.
