Significance of POS for small retailers to overcome COVID-19 challenges

SME’s have been the most affected by this COVID pandemic and as specific segment retail is the worst one. Profitability, liquidity, inefficiencies and visibility are the pain points of SMEs through its business journey and, the single answer to these issues is a strong, agile, sophisticated and automated digital backbone. What is meant by a complete digital back-end is that digitization and automation of all core functions like billing, banking, accounting, tax, payments, expenses, and cash management – over a single application.
Business dynamics and complexities have changed to a significant extent, and small business is dealing with much larger product categories than it was dealing earlier, larger & different types of customers and platforms, accepts 5-6 different kinds of payments i.e. cash, credit cards, UPI payments, IMPS receipts and even the age-old ‘Udhari’, make payments through multiple modes the list goes on. Managing all these without a single app is next to impossible. Here is the role that comes for as efficient POS. Now, POS is the face of the retails business and it captures the whole business data.
Here are the benefits of the POS and how it can be a special help to the business during this pandemic and in the future.
Data is the king – POS captures a list of data in terms of sales, purchase, customer details, payment terms, payment modes, product list sold and purchase, customer experience ratings to the business and staff, agent sales data, and many more. All these data acquired or captured though out the business can give a great scope for cognitive data analysis. Results of the data analysis can help the business to think on the product line, the customer segment, the behavior pattern of the customer and supplier, the favorable receipt/payment modes and many more and in a nutshell benefit the business in terms of its profitability.
Help in sourcing liquidity – Liquidly is one of the 4 pain pillars and now has become more difficult to source. The informal and secondary sources of capital and lending are significantly drying-of forcing businesses to approach institutional capital and lending for capital and lending needs. To avail funds from institutional one have to maintain proper business data for their business and POS helps in this to a great extent.
Removing the inefficiencies – Inefficiencies in a business can be in many terms like in the way of doing business, the labor, the customer handling process and many more. Implementation of a POS helps to extinct the inefficiencies largely. It eliminates the employee dependency in terms of the data, managing business, key business nuisances and helps in making an informed and quick decision. It also helps in measuring the key performance matrixes of the employees, staff, resources and market behaviors. It helps to identify extra, unnecessary, under-utilized, and aged resources and helps the owner to manage the ideal resources profitably and efficiently.
This leads to greater productivity and a strengthened workforce, with more customers adding capacity every hour. The enhanced efficiency of POS software helps to boost long-term revenue for a company.
Speeding up payments – Using a POS program to build a more efficient checkout process will let clients know they can easily get through the lines. That can mean the difference between your choice of potential customers or the competition.
Understand your customer – Point of Sale system helps to transform massive customer relationship management (CRM) and customer engagement. You can find records of single or multiple customers easily so that they can return or swap the purchased goods in no time. This day being ready to return or trade is an important factor. It allows you to understand the potential customer segment and design offers, gifts, discounts, promos and many more to woo them.
Easy to adopt – Every company is special and has its own specific needs. The POS systems can be easily tailored to suit the unique needs of each business. A POS method may be substantially different from a food outlet to an apparel shop. Keeping this in mind, POS systems can be synchronized according to the specific needs of small businesses so that special reports can be generated for best-selling products.
Hassle-free reporting – POS helps to maintain business reporting and also can be connected with horizontal business process areas such as sales, marketing, and finance in one place increases efficiency. Your integrated POS may remove reports from various applications and directly answer questions about your business.
Cost-saving benefits – A small investment in a new POS system may go a long way to overcharge your profitability. Every year, no matter how much money the company brings, saving 10 percent can have a significant effect on the end result. Can you afford not to turn to a new POS site with so much money at stake?
As there are various options available in the market today, businesses are bound to get confused. But, one must be cautious while choosing the right software.