POS Retail
Article | May 10, 2024
For every business leader, growth is the key goal. No matter what the size of the business one leads, their strategies revolve around the overall growth of the company. However, the main challenge that they had to face is to gain the lead most cost-effectively and feasibly.
Nowadays, businesses are utilizing technology to integrate, automate or redesign their process operations. It has helped them in acquiring streamlined processes, minimal cost, and enhanced production.
But how technology can help in strategizing for business growth? Here, the digital transformation of the business is the force driving success and growth. So let’s understand what is needed to gain exceptional results.
Cloud Computing & Business
Cloud computing has been around for a long time now. It can not only increase efficiency but also offers better security and fast process operation. To make it highly effective and enjoy its full benefits, it’s important to take help from an experienced team. Also, businesses can choose from the wide range of cloud service providers available in the market according to the requirements.
Applications
Honestly, the number of smartphone users has increased in recent years. So to make the product and services reachable to a larger range of customers, organizations need to hire developers and develop web or mobile apps that are responsive and user friendly. It is the best way for gaining success in any business.
Social Media
Social media like Instagram, Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, etc. have changed the way people interact with each other and brands. It makes the social media platform a gold mine for businesses. All that an enterprise needs to do is create a business profile and start targeting the potential customers while connecting and engaging with them. It helps in increasing attracting, offering, and sharing products or services with the audience.
Big Data Analytics
The last and most important factor in any business growth is data. The growth strategy of a business should be supported by relevant and valid data. To use data effectively, business leaders need to learn the way to collect data around the internet and analyze it for achieving valuable insights. With the right data in the pocket, companies can easily adapt powerful strategies, approaches, and plans instantly to give an unbeatable boost to their business.
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, technology gives a high potential for strategizing foremost business plans. But, the entire process of digitizing business will take time. However, by listening to the customer and identifying the right tools, businesses can enjoy digital value. All that organizations need to do is keep themselves updated with new technology tools and trends that can highly impact the business growth.
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POS Solutions, Ecommerce Merchandising
Article | June 7, 2024
Introduction
The hospitality industry has always been challenging and full of obstacles, such as low-profit margins, high competition, and turnover management, irrespective of the type of restaurant or level of owner experience. However, rapidly changing business dynamics and current conditions have increased these challenges enormously.
Changing customer preferences, including high customer service expectations and an emphasis on the sourcing of ingredients and nutrition values, affect the entire operation. Also, the growing importance of reviews and word-of-mouth referrals makes brand management both more crucial and complex.
Thus, several restaurant owners are increasingly investing in innovative solutions, such as restaurant POS systems, to improve the consumer experience, empower business owners to manage restaurant operations more efficiently, and increase ROI.
Top 5 Ways How Restaurant POS Integration Can Boost ROI
Due to the fast-paced nature of the restaurant sector, coupled with ever-changing customer needs, business owners encounter numerous challenges in keeping up with the changes and meeting customer expectations while maintaining perfect control over all aspects of their operations.
As restaurant POS systems provide solutions for these challenges while also improving workplace efficiency, automating several tasks, monitoring employee performance, and enhancing security, these systems are gaining massive popularity in the hospitality industry.
Out of all the new features that restaurants can get from POS integrations, such as delivery management, accounting, and more, these are the most important ones that help owners get the best return on their investment:
Create Data-driven Campaigns
Modern POS solutions enable restaurant owners to collect valuable data about their customers, such as their preferred food choices, their addresses, how often they visit the establishment, and others. These actionable insights can be used to create personalized campaigns, increasing their chances of responding to a customized offer and improving ROI.
Support Omnichannel Communications and Payments
With the advent of e-commerce, food can now be ordered and paid for via multiple channels, including the restaurant's website, third-party applications, the phone, and others. Therefore, it has become essential for restaurant owners to increase contact with their customers.
Integrating a restaurant POS system enables owners to facilitate omnichannel communication and payments and discover the optimal way to communicate with consumers, thereby increasing food order flow from both offline and online channels.
Improves Customer Relationship
As the restaurant sector continues to become more competitive year by year, it is becoming crucial for restaurant owners to improve their relationships with customers. With restaurant POS systems, customers can make the payment using their preferred methods, such as cash, credit or debit card, QR code, UPI, and others.
These systems also reduce the time for placing food orders as well as decline the chances of order misplacement. This results in providing better customer service, improving customer relationships, and increasing customer inflow.
Streamline Restaurant Operations
From front-of-house to back-of-house operations, modern POS technology assists restaurant owners in streamlining various business operations such as inventory control, labor management, payment getaways, and order tracking and delivery, among others. Thereby reducing the overall cost, declining the chances of errors, and improving profit margins.
Final Thought
Today, POS technology is clearly a necessity for the hospitality industry, irrespective of the type of establishment, such as fine dining, fast food, cloud kitchen, hotels, and others, to enhance restaurant operations, provide a smoother customer experience, and improve ROI.
With the introduction of customizable POS solutions and a growing shift towards cashless payments, modern restaurant POS systems are anticipated to transform the ways of food ordering and payment in the forthcoming years.
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POS Solutions, POS Retail
Article | January 12, 2024
For many years, payment terminals have been a vital tool for businesses that complete their customer transactions in-store. The familiar hand-held devices have reliably taken card payments and offered simple additional services like mobile phone top-ups, cashback or electronic tipping solutions.
However, with recent technical innovation, boosted by the urgency surrounding Covid-19, the humble payment terminal is shedding its hard exterior - no longer is it, as some would argue, simply a commoditised, hardware-based necessity. As many within the payments space have predicted, the payment terminal is truly becoming a digital enabler and vital pivot point of modernisation for any business that accepts electronic transactions.
The Android Operating System leads the way
Today, payment terminals come in many forms. Though the traditional, handheld counter-top devices remain, many businesses now use off-the-shelf smartphones or tablets enabled with SPOC and CPOC technology.
Regardless of their physical form, truly modern payment terminals share a commonality – enhanced functionality which allows businesses to update and adapt quickly to changing performance, environments, and customer needs.
The Android operating system has been at the centre of a latest wave of innovation, facilitating the rise of mobile payment devices - pushed hard by the likes of Visa - and supporting the budding versatilities presented by Open Banking and PSD2 initiatives.
Combined, this new choice and flexibility has the potential to deliver significant advantages to businesses deploying Android point-of-sale (POS) solutions. These include integrated EPOS, strong authentication, and an array of alternative payment methods such as bank-to-bank payments, QR codes and even crypto currencies.
It’s about more than being just Covid-ready
Getting the timing right to make adjustments and improvements is now a focus for businesses across the UK as we start to emerge from Covid-19 restrictions and resume face-to-face interactions. The conventional payment terminal can play a central part in engineering the essential adjustments needed to create a Covid-safe environment – the new £100 contactless limit being the most obvious example.
However, functionality provided by the latest payment terminals allows businesses to do more than just make their premises Covid-ready.
For more commercial gains, payment terminals running on the Android OS allow for this same POS functionality but combine it with other essential business systems such as stock management, visual itemisation, and centralised booking systems.
As well as providing greater visibility of a business’ health and finances, more information also means friction points such as wait times and queues in store can be better managed. More data about customer behaviour also makes the in-store experience more customisable, for example, businesses can use this data to identify their busiest periods, explore seasonal changes or test new product lines and structure their staff planning and stock levels accordingly.
Coupled with more vital operational efficiencies, payment terminals can allow for a speed and flexibility of payments that can directly enhance the bottom line.
As the pace in retail environments ramps up to match that of the pre-Covid days, meeting new customer expectations and new environmental changes will be critical in staying relevant. An ability to accept the latest types and methods of payment could actually play a part in helping a business survive through difficult economic times.
Bolstering cash flow will also take on added importance as businesses rebuild. Payment terminals powered by better internet connections mean transactions are already faster, but internet speed alone is not enough. Today, terminals can be updated in ways that allow merchants to process those transactions faster still and get funds deposited into bank accounts in batches throughout the day, often completing within the hour.
Payment terminals and Big Data
With data becoming the bedrock of all modern businesses, it is the Android operating system’s ability to generate such an impressive wealth of data that adds to its compelling proposition. The value of Big Data and analytics to filter large volumes of information and uncover actionable insights is well known to the business world. Useable information can help leaders learn about their customers, make better decisions and, ultimately, produce more revenue. Customer data, for example, makes it possible for a business to learn about the buying behaviours of an individual customer or of defined customer segments.
When a business knows the time of day (or night) their customers shop and what type of purchases they make, it becomes easier to plan when inventories are stocked and with what items. Android payment terminals can provide data in a way that offers easy visibility of key trends and which specific hours of the day produce the most sales, allowing businesses to investigate possible reasons and react accordingly.
Such knowledge can then be used for a variety of purposes including the ability to upsell to future customers with greater success and the tactical arrangement of items in store. Crucially now, it will also enable businesses to maintain a Covid-safe environment by planning ahead for in-store activity and capacity limits.
With hundreds of applications already available to download from the app store, it’s important that SMEs are able to use this scale of choice to their advantage rather than become overwhelmed or distracted by it. Indeed, by taking the time to explore the apps available, smaller businesses can find the tools which allow them to level the playing field by bringing their operational efficiencies in line with larger brands and by leveraging the solutions that allow them to compete on customer service.
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POS Retail
Article | May 10, 2024
Savvy retailers partner with leading marketplace software providers to dominate the digital marketplace with unified retail. Read the article to unlock the ingredients of successful retailing.
Contents
1. Unified Retail Management: The Inducer of Selling Prowess
2. Multichannel Versus Unified Commerce in Retail
3. Unlocking Operational and POS Success with Unified Retailing
4. Top Companies Dealing in Unified Retailing Software
4.1 Tackle.io
4.2 Anchanto
4.3 Logicbroker
4.4 JungleWorks
4.5 Appscrip
4.6 NuORDER
4.7 CS-Cart
4.8 AppDirect
4.9 Convictional
4.10 Mirakl
5. Summing Up
1. Unified Retail Management: The Inducer of Selling Prowess
Unified retail management is a distinct approach to retailing that involves managing diverse retail operations, from inventory management to checkouts, through a single, integrated system. By ensuring personalized shopping experiences, offering impressive integration with POS systems and checkout options, and simplifying digital marketplace processes, the unified approach benefits B2B businesses in many ways, transforming them into true selling prowess.
Over 66% of all software spending in retail is now focused on the concept of unified commerce.
[Source: Research and Markets]
With the apparent shift toward unified retail management, businesses adopting this approach today hold a competitive edge in the market. A single, integrated system comprising marketplace optimization tools helps them streamline operations, enhance productivity, reduce manual work, and gain greater visibility into their activities.
2. Multichannel Versus Unified Commerce in Retail
Representing different strategies in the retail sector, both multichannel and unified retail management approaches aim to offer customers an exceptional shopping experience, enhancing loyalty and satisfaction. While multichannel retail management involves maintaining and managing diverse sales channels, a unified approach combines them to ensure a uniform customer experience across all touchpoints.
A prominent distinction between the two is their respective points of focus. Notably, the unified approach focuses on rendering consistent customer experiences, while the multichannel approach aims to ensure a harmonious appearance of the brand. Yet, unlike the complex infrastructure that the multichannel platform entails, a unified retail management software consolidates all retail operations on a single platform, overcoming operational inefficiencies and data inconsistencies that can emerge in the former approach. The simplicity of the unified software further ushers in the desired agility in operations and decision-making prowess. Significantly, with features like consolidated platforms and real-time data synchronization, which are hard to find in a multichannel platform, unified commerce software limits the chances of discrepancies and errors, elevating business growth and profits.
3. Unlocking Operational and POS Success with Unified Retailing
As customer expectations shift and the retail environment matures, businesses worldwide are increasingly implementing unified retail management for enhanced POS strategies and peak financial gains. This transition ensures that separate channels don’t usher in frustrations with inconsistencies in customer experiences. Importantly, with online marketplace optimization tools for unified retailing, B2B businesses further stand to bridge potential gaps, unlocking operational and POS excellence, marked by:
● High Operational Efficiency
Unified retail management systems streamline various retail operations, including merchandising, marketing, and customer relations, combining different aspects of retailing to reduce manual work and increase overall operational efficiency. It further improves inventory management and ensures that overstock situations at POS are averted.
● Process Simplification for Better Customer Experiences
Whether it is simplifying crucial processes such as easy returns or ensuring seamless transactions via faster checkout and payment options, unified retail management builds trust and loyalty among customers by rendering them hassle-free experiences across all digital marketplaces and touchpoints.
● Integrated POS and Effortless Checkouts
In a unified approach, efficient transaction processing is made possible by effortlessly integrating the POS system with inventory management. This allows real-time updates of inventory levels and integrated reporting for better decision-making. It also lets businesses add effective self-checkout options, encouraging higher purchases and seamless checkout experiences.
● Better Insights and Visibility
With unified retail management systems, retailers gain greater visibility into their operations, as data and analytics are centralized. This centralization enables them to optimize POS strategies and view real-time information on variables like sales performance, customer behaviors, and stock levels.
● Personalized Selling
Unified retail management systems easily consolidate customer data from different sources into a single, centralized database, allowing for personalized selling. They also enable B2B businesses to implement dynamic pricing, offer tailored recommendations at POS, and carry out targeted promotions based on such data, cultivating stronger customer relationships and overcoming inconsistencies.
Companies that grow faster drive 40 percent more of their revenue from personalization than their slow-growing counterparts.
[Source: McKinsey]
● Cost Saving
Despite the initial investment, a transition to unified retailing promises marketplace optimization tools, which increase cost efficiency, curtail manual errors, and reduce the costs associated with handling separate channels and systems.
● E-commerce Integration
Unified retail management software easily integrates with e-commerce platforms. It allows retailers to manage online storefronts, align data across different channels, and process online orders, ensuring smooth functioning and optimum profits.
● Omnichannel Capabilities
With a unified approach, retailers could further organize omnichannel marketing campaigns, providing consistent offers, pricing, and messages across multiple touchpoints. This would also ensure customers get personalized recommendations at POS and promotions, regardless of their chosen channel.
● A True Competitive Advantage
From enhanced flexibility and customer experience to robust security and supply chain resilience, the unified approach renders a true competitive advantage to retailers, enabling them to become industry leaders and grow their customer base effectively.
4. Top Companies Dealing in Unified Retailing Software
With business optimization at the core, leading marketplace software providers are empowering businesses to attain success with the unified retailing approach.
Here’s a list of the top companies that are rendering forward-looking unified retail solutions to businesses:
4.1 Tackle.io
Founded by industry veterans, Tackle.io is a unified retail software provider that aims to simplify B2B software retail processes. Considering the present-day cloud era, Tackle.io offers an impressive platform to businesses, rendering them high earnings potential from cloud marketplaces and allowing them to launch products quickly without wide-ranging engineering resources.
Offering a comprehensive Cloud GTM platform, Tackle.io aims to support various aspects of cloud-generated revenue for enterprise-level businesses, including co-selling and marketplace integration. It employs a data-driven approach to enhance customer satisfaction and increase profits. Significantly, its easy integration with hyperscale cloud ecosystems simplifies partner collaborations and automates co-selling workflows.
4.2 Anchanto
Facilitating online sales and shipping for retailers, brands, and logistics companies, Anchanto is a notable unified retail management software provider headquartered in Singapore. The company offers a comprehensive technology stack to businesses and streamlines their retail operations through solid integration capabilities, data analytics, post-purchase services, etc., enabling them to achieve operational excellence.
The company boasts advanced SaaS technology to offer retailers scalability, cost-effectiveness, and regular updates. Furthermore, with impressive integration with more than 150 POS systems, global marketplaces, ERPs, and web stores, Anchanto allows for real-time data access and enhanced decision-making. Correspondingly, it renders customized solutions to 3PL businesses and eliminates customers’ WISMO queries, ensuring high customer loyalty.
4.3 Logicbrocker
Logicbroker is a leading multi-vendor commerce solution provider that links trading partners seamlessly, regardless of their integration methods. Offering a wide range of products, the company helps retailers enhance their brand presence by fostering connections and managing operations. Predominantly, the solution provider serves mid-market and enterprise manufacturers and retailers in different industries, including consumer electronics, health and wellness, home improvement, etc.
The company’s distinct product onboarding center cuts down manual tasks, while its dropshipping solution helps retailers widen their product range without requiring additional warehousing space. Furthermore, with tools for more straightforward payment processing, split payments, dispute resolution, visibility, and control, the solution provider supports business development, ensuring security and regulatory compliance, including CCPA, SOC, and GDPR standards.
4.4 JungleWorks
JungleWorks is a notable unified retailing software provider that renders no-code solutions to businesses wishing to manage hyperlocal operations like on-demand delivery or home services. It offers various solutions for faultless on-demand operations of companies of all sizes, from establishing online marketplaces to facilitating transactions and managing logistics.
The company aims to help on-demand service providers foster enhanced customer engagement through personalized marketing campaigns and omnichannel capabilities. It streamlines fleet operations, ensuring robust vehicle tracking and monitoring of real-time driver activities. It also provides headless e-commerce solutions, enabling businesses to leverage limitless API-driven integrations and customization options.
4.5 Appscrip
Powering mobile-first business models, Appscrip is a technology solution provider that caters to diverse businesses such as social, on-demand, shopping, messaging, discovery, etc., facilitating their technology management and modernizing their businesses through augmented reality, IoT, and telematics. With scalable, aesthetically appealing mobile apps, the solution provider is helping retailers expand their businesses by focusing on their products and ensuring high customer satisfaction.
Correspondingly, the comprehensive solution provider offers end-to-end IT and development services to retailers, helping businesses through the whole product development cycle, from ideation to implementation. Furthermore, with its specialization in mobile-first models, dedicated POD teams, and impressive tech stack, it prioritizes user experiences, enabling businesses to launch their products rapidly, scale their businesses, and ensure high customer engagement through an intuitive interface.
4.6 NuORDER
Lightspeed, a leading B2B platform provider, offers the NuORDER solution to businesses, which carries the right ingredients for retailing success. The comprehensive NuORDER software promises users compelling features like integrated payment solutions and virtual showrooms, simplifying wholesale transactions for brands and retailers worldwide. Acquired by Lightspeed in 2021, the software further facilitates automated workflows and data-driven decisions for B2B selling with integrations with over 120 POS systems, ERP, and PLM. Moreover, through its impressive attributes, NuORDER streamlines retail operations, allowing retailers to optimize inventory allocation, view unified catalogs, and work with teams across diverse brands and stores.
The company’s strong suit lies in its ability to facilitate data-driven decision-making, allowing error reduction, enhanced control, and better business outcomes. With the platform’s easy compatibility with chain stores, department stores, and online retailers, NuORDER renders solutions for diverse retail environments, increasing order efficiency and fine-tuning range plans across all stores and departments.
4.7 CS-Cart
CS-Cart is a leading e-commerce software that provides businesses with a self-hosted multivendor solution. Its open-source architecture allows retailers to customize and scale their e-commerce websites and caters to SMEs and enterprises. The solution has distinct features like payment dependencies and vendor-to-admin payments, which renders an excellent POS experience.
Furthermore, the company offers tools for automating tasks, handling marketplace workflows, optimizing order processing and product management, and simplifying seller onboarding, which boost sales and augment retail operations. The company also provides easy integration with over 70 payment gateways and diverse payment options, implements comprehensive security measures, and ensures compliance with industry standards like GDPR and PCI DSS.
4.8 AppDirect
Headquartered in San Francisco, AppDirect is a cutting-edge B2B subscription commerce platform provider that connects technology advisors, businesses, and providers to simplify retail processes associated with technology solutions. Correspondingly, the company aims to help enterprises collaborate successfully and gain high efficiency in the B2B technology sector.
Notably, AppDirect's software offers multiple features to retailers, including a custom cloud marketplace, advanced merchandising tools, fast checkouts with diverse payment options, industry-specific solutions, and a catalog of over 300 pre-integrated SaaS and IaaS providers, which ensure tailored online marketplaces for businesses for enhanced customer experience and strong brand presence.
4.9 Convictional
Recognized as a leading modern dropship platform provider, Convictional helps established retailers launch new dropship, cross-selling, and marketplace programs. With advanced tools for marketplace dominance, robust vendor management, and integration capabilities, it allows retailers to onboard and dropship with various brands, ensuring quicker assortment growth, limited onboarding time, and increased online sales.
Convictional further allows retailers to expand their product range quickly without manual efforts and ensure smart decisions through data-driven insights. The company’s software boasts impressive collaboration tools, encouraging transparency and establishing a win-win situation for retailers and suppliers. Its impressive attributes also include automated payouts with flexible payment options, making for smooth invoicing and greater customer convenience.
4.10 Mirakl
Founded in 2012, Mirakl is a leading technology partner promising digital growth to businesses worldwide through its innovative features. The company offers unmatched expertise and assistance to retailers through its comprehensive solutions for all operations, from implementation to development. With the ability to manage millions of API calls, SKUs, and stock updates, Mirakl promises retailers seamless digital business advancements and optimum profits.
The company further boasts an impressive retail media experience, enabling businesses to monetize their platforms through targeted advertising. From launching platform businesses to maximizing product ranges, Mirakl effectively empowers enterprises to enhance their digital presence through impressive marketplace and dropship solutions. It also renders tailored solutions to industry-specific retailers, including fashion, grocery, health and beauty, and so on.
5. Summing Up
Unified retail management promises B2B businesses the ability to outperform competitors in the market, serving as a driving force behind enhanced selling competencies. From ensuring excellent customer experiences to streamlining operations and enabling data-driven decision-making, the marketplace software platform for unified retail empowers businesses by increasing their efficiencies, reducing costs, and helping them meet their business goals. Importantly, with the retail sector quickly transforming, companies investing in unified retail management software firmly set themselves up for sustained growth and business excellence in the digital marketplace.
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