Maximize Your Efficiency: How to Select the Perfect POS System in 2024

To customers, point-of-sale (POS) systems are where they pay for their goods and services. However, for businesses, POS is a vital part of daily operations, from accounting to inventory control. Selecting the right POS system with an enterprise PC can increase revenue, improve customer satisfaction, and help meet short- and long-term goals. 

What is a Point of Sale System?

Point of sale is simply the place where sales are made. In the past, this would have been at a cash register. 

Today’s POS systems are mobile, cloud-based network affairs. While they can be located in a brick-and-mortar store, sales can also be performed in a food truck in the middle of a park. Square is an example of a mobile POS solution.

Many online payment pages are also considered points of sale.

Examples of where typical POS transactions occur include:  

• Convenience stores
• Grocery stores
• Hardware stores
• Lawn and garden centers
• Liquor stores
• Mobile vehicles like food trucks
• Online pages
• Retail and consumer goods stores
• Tobacco stores and smoke shops
• Wine & spirits stores

POS payments are usually made through noncash means like debit and credit cards. Smartphones are increasingly used in POS transactions thanks to digital wallets such as Apply Pay and Google Pay.

Importance of POS Systems in Business

Effective points of sale positively impact business in several ways. 

Better Customer Service

POS systems can help businesses improve customer service. For example, they can reduce wait time by scanning items with barcodes, speeding up transactions. Such an operational improvement may also improve customers’ perceptions of the business, creating a solid level of trust, a strong reputation, and repeat patronage. 

Simplify Business Operations

Many business owners wear multiple hats, simultaneously being the founder-owner, accountant, HR, and marketer, to name a few. Juggling so many roles can lead to mistakes, fatigue, and burnout. POS systems can reduce such chances by:

• Automating accounting: Many systems can plug directly into accounting systems to handle time-consuming tasks like tax preparation.
• Manage employees: POS systems are available that can create employee schedules, make payroll, and handle time-off requests.
• Manage inventory: POS’s ability to process item sales, returns, and restocking makes it easy to keep track of inventory.
• Provide competitive analytics: Point-of-sale solutions can generate charts, graphs, and heat maps. Businesses can use these to understand their company’s health against nearby competitors and in relation to industry standards.

Marketing Opportunities

Businesses can use the metrics provided by POS data for advertising and marketing purposes. 

For example, they can create personalized promotions and targeted emails. Additional built-in marketing tools, like loyalty program setup and management, can make marketing more effective and straightforward to set up and execute. 

Choosing the Right POS System for Your Business

For most businesses, there are usually two major steps to go through when selecting the perfect POS system.

Step One: Determine your company-specific needs 

In this step, business owners gather information about their business practices and the specifics of how POS is the right solution. They should ask:  

• What is the current state of the business? Example: Are you a new business? Or are you well-established and looking for a new POS system? 

• What are your business struggles? Example: Your current POS system cannot process digital wallets. 

• What tasks can a POS system help simplify? Example: Speedier customer transactions, especially during the holidays. 

Step Two: Choosing the POS system

Once a business answers Step One, the next step is researching POS systems to see which match the desired goals. A business owner should look at the following:

• Hardware requirements: A small business like the above food truck may need no more than a business tablet, a card reader like Square, and a cash box to process transactions. Larger businesses, on the other hand, will need terminals, receipt printers, barcode or QR scanners, etc. 

• Software features: The programs and applications for processing various payment cards and digital wallets. Add-ons like email marketing, loyalty tracking, team management, and payroll software should also be considered.

• Support for point of sale: Nothing can be more devastating for a business than being unable to process customer payments. Businesses should check out warranties, help desks, and other forms of support from hardware and software vendors. 
• Budget: Many POS vendors have tiered pricing models, where the cost is broken down by the business’s number of stores (if any), customer demographics, sales products, number of terminals, and desired features like inventory tracking. 

Other items for businesses to consider include the ease of use of the point-of-sale system, the availability of a trial or demo model, and the system’s ability to scale as the business grows. 

Let Cybernet Pair the Right Computer with Your Perfect POS

Point of sale makes it easy to process sales transactions wherever they happen: in the supermarket checkout line, at the food truck in the middle of a parking lot, or with the game store vendor at a massive gaming convention. 

Is your business looking for the right computers for your POS? Contact the team at Cybernet Manufacturing! Our team members will happily discuss the numerous features like fanless design that make our enterprise computers excellent for POS systems. And as an Original Equipment and Design Manufacturer, we can further customize our products to meet your exacting needs. 

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By Joel Arellano