Three decades ago, the cash registers stay at the heart of retail value chain in the USA. They were the only game in the town to take care of the business operations.
It looks something like this…
But, with time, they fade away. Why is it so?
The cash registers become extinct species because every time they need to update manually which eats up a lot of time and efforts. Besides, in the real-time, the retailer cannot get insights into the overall sales, inventory and revenue generated.
All these were making the cash register handling difficult. This need has given birth to the point of sale systems leveraging advanced technology where the machine handles all types of transaction, be it cash, credit card, debit card, NFC or via wallet in a real quick.
The point of sale solutions become the new frontier of the retail industry, which was also helping the brick-and-mortar stores to takeover the Ecommerce threat by enabling the customers do shopping with great convenience.
Post POS innovation, the point of sale has become the new norm for the retail industry.
Do you want to know what actually the POS system is? Let’s take a quick look at it.
The point of sale includes the POS hardware and POS software where the hardware includes the desktop, printer and bar code reader. The retailer can scan the product with the machine, the pos system automatically displays its price and accept the payment. In seconds, after the customers make payment, the receipt came out, that’s handed over to the customers.
With the pace of time, the POS system has also evolved and enhanced to improve the in-store checkout experience. There are so many issues which were addressed and what make a way to the market is- Mobile POS solution.
There is one more reason to make a shift to the mobile POS.
The increased usage of mobile phones and internet users in the market, and the online retailers that are reaping its advantages in abundance. It gives a hint to the retailers to follow the footsteps of the customers to grow with them.
The mobile POS, a hand-held device is a wireless POS solution that occupies less space on the retail counter and accepts all types of the payment in a second alongside alleviating the need of sales person in the store to stay at the counter only, as it can be moved anywhere in the store.
According to the Forrester research, “The mobile payments will play a vital role in the retail industry and they are anticipated to amount to $90 billion by 2017.”
It sounds great!
The mobile POS solution that’s created to help the retailers run the business efficiently has brought along a lot of advantages for the retailers. What are they?
Take a glance at the benefits of mobile point of sale that’s morphed into the retail operations:
1) Retail selling is transformed
With traditional POS, the sales consultant can make the suggestion to the customers on the retail counter only, which is less impactful and that generally customers listen and move out of the store.
The same suggestion if sales consultant made to the customers on the spot when they purchasing the item, then the chances of increasing the average ticket size will increase in the guise of complementary gifts.
The consultative approach has proven to be more influencing in the retail stores and helping the retailers to drive in more revenues.
2) No long queues remain
This is the most heard phenomena of mobile POS that you have certainly heard of. Long Line was the major concern for the retailers, which is uplifting the customers’ frustration and cart abandonment rate. Especially, during the peak hours, the situation was unmanageable.
After mobile POS, in the retail stores no long queue concept would remain as in the store there is a number of sales consultant standing at different corners to ease the transaction.
It reduced the congestion, increased the store occupancy as customers can easily checkout, decreased the cart abandonment and augment the sales volume.
3) Real-time insights into inventory
The sales consultant are not updated about the items in the stock in the real time and the same thing customers expect from them. If unavailable, it hurts the customer experience.
With mobile POS, the sales consultants are aware of the availability of the items in the stock or the price of an item because the mobile devices are connected to the POS and inventory management system. This way the consultants can answer the customers’ questions quickly.
It heightens the chances of sales as the customers are getting help off-the-bat.
4) Handle the returns seamlessly
Sometimes, the retail store accepts the returns during certain occasions to ensure best customer experience.
With cash registers, when the customers come to the store, the cash registers were searched and then retailer deal with the customers. It was time-consuming and satisfying the customers was a hard nut to crack.
With mobile POS, the things have turned upside down because now sales consultant can spend more time with customers in convincing them for the product rather than looking into the bulky registers.
5) Drive innovative campaigns
With mobile POS, the retailer is getting the golden opportunity to capture the customer information. The customers’ data and the sales history can be largely used to target the customers with personalized deals. The wave of personalized marketing is re-inventing the retails store wheel.
The usual marketing campaigns are like shooting in the dark where retailers would either hit or miss. But, the info helps in taking intelligent decisions and sending the right marketing message to the right customers at the right time become viable.
6) Reduce the carbon footprints
The POS also supports another digital initiative that’s email receipt where instead of printing the physical receipts, the billing receipts are sent as an email to the customers. The move to go green is an excellent step that customers also appreciate. Although the mobile POS are capable of printing the physical receipts and sending the receipts as an email.
7) Nurture customers relationship
Customers are the biggest treasure for the retail stores. Strengthening the bond with them means converting the potential customers and increasing the loyalty.
With POS solution, the retail stores can make it happen as they have all the customers data right in their hand leveraging which they can establish a connection with them just the way online retailers are doing.
Also, with mobile POS, the customers don’t have to stand in the queue and wait to get an answer to their questions. It’s handy and worth rewarding as it delights the customer and let them shop quickly and easily.
8) Keep 100% transparency
With POS, computing the overall sales, measuring the benefits and generating the reports became the work of a few seconds. All the information is available in a snap.
The real-time view into the stock and sales help the retailer in gaining the great insights whether there is any theft issue or misselling involved by the sales employees or not.
Additionally, no extra efforts are involved in finding the information and getting the reports. The transparency run the business efficiently and grow boundlessly.
9) Upsell or cross-sell
At the Dominos, you might have observed at the point of service counters, the sales consultants generally suggest the customers to order some more items to get the certain benefits. In the form of the extra benefits, the customers increase the order value and ultimately consultant get succeeded either in upselling or cross-selling.
Right? You might have also experienced the same. Well, don’t get confused with yummy Pizzas as we are talking about upselling…
Similarly, the retailers can also enhance the sales and revenue employing the mobile POS solution by letting the sales consultants suggest the customers when they are shopping just one item.
10) Use just when needed anywhere
It’s amazing! The retailers can use the mobile POS only when they have need of such as during festivities or special occasions. The subscription-based mobile POS is great where the store can invest and manage the sales according to their needs.
Furthermore, the mobile POS can be transferred to another location, if the retail store is having more branches. It makes more sense when the retailer has organized a special weekend sale on one store, then to better manage the crowd, using the mobile POS at that store is a good alternative. Later, the POS can be transferred to another location.
It is excellent as the store is getting more in less investment and without any restriction.
Ubiquitous outcomes…
The new era of mobile POS has changed the retail world to ensure the results must be up to the mark. The wave of mobile POS has created ripples in the market with the assort of advantages. Leading retailers have already embraced it to reach the new heights.
For instance: Disney store has implemented the mobile POS service across its stores in the seven countries geographically to enable the customers checkout quickly and efficiently. It has improved the in-store sales experience and the 30% rise in the store sales during the holiday seasons.
There are a lot more examples that illustrate retail store’s amazing success with mobile POS. But, the winning outcomes come only when the retail store gets teamed up with right mobile POS solution provider.
Brainvire is one of the leading mobile POS solution provider that has helped the retail stores to increase the conversion, uplift the sales and upsurge ROI with impeccable mobile POS solution integration.
Do you also want to garner the excellence deploying Mobile point-of-sale system? If so, don’t wait anymore to reap the notable results.
