By Peter Johnson
Director POS Support
OK this article is really about my dream store, but I'm betting you'd love this store for yourself. If I could have a store, I would sell electric violins. Now, I can't imagine anywhere that I could stay in business selling electric violins, but I do know what I would want to run the store.
First, I would choose Microsoft’s Retail Management System for my software. Yes, there is other software that would work very well, but I love the user friendliness of Microsoft's Retail POS Software. It’s solid and it's not hard to train employees. Plus I like the way I can customize the reports and export them.
I would have a simple but modern register counter, think IKEA Since I’m creative I might build my own or I might just look atwww.AmericanRetailSupply.com and find a simple register counter. I would put the computer down below and make sure it had good airflow to keep it cool. I definitely won’t go cheap on the quality of the computer, but I don’t see the need for a revved up version either. I would use a simple, standard, easy to maintain computer.
Touch screen monitor with a credit/debit card swipe built in? OH YA - Definitely! People just love touch screen monitors. But I would still have a keyboard and for sure I would have a thermal receipt printer,that oozed ‘sophistication’ with the silent speed.
I would have two other things to speed up transactions, make sure my clients were comfortable, and look "up-to-date"...
1. An Ingenico Signature Capture Device for credit and debit cards.
2. A customer facing flat screen monitor for showing the sale and advertising.
For me the client facing monitor is a no-brainer. I would have it showing short videos of performers, and likely have some 'add on' sales information and information about upcoming events so it gives an ‘in the know’ impression. This is a big impact for no more cost than a traditional pole display so why wouldn’t I?
Without question I would have credit cards integrated over the internet and of course a barcode scanner... that's a given. The Metrologic Voyager would be perfect and not too expensive. Another no-brainer is a second computer in the backroom. This computer would have two functions:
1. It would be situated where the product is received and handled the most. I would set up a Zebra label printer and invest in either a wireless scanner to receive product or better yet a hand held device. The Opticon H19 wireless hand held computer would be nice but any hand held for collecting SKU’s could be used for physical inventory, adjusting min/ maxes, etc.
2. This would be the backup for the Point of Sale computer. I would have the system set up so that if either computer went down the other would run the entire operation. It's really cheap insurance!
My backups would be saved to an external hard drive that could be moved to any computer to restore data in case of an emergency.
At this point even though I have the knowledge to do everything I've talked about I have a ton of other stuff to do to get my store up and running and I know American Retail Supply can take care of everything I've talked about here for around $8,900 and I could get to about $5,900 without the wireless hand held device and signature capture device, but hey, this is my dream store and looking at the long-term ROI. But I've budgeted $10,000 for my complete POS system so I'm going for my ultimate dream store.
Yahoo!!!!! I figure I'll have someone up front helping clients and someone in the back receiving and stocking and a bunch of other stuff so I want another computer that's hooked into my POS system on which I can work and take care of emails, web browsing, messaging, spreadsheets, marketing, accounting, bookkeeping and everything else I want to do without it affecting the POS system. For instance, I don’t want the selling screen slowing down because someone sent me a 10GB attachment by mistake.
For sure I'm going to get remote access. I can actually work from home, 15 minutes here an hour there. I can check data any time I want, and get work done while I'm on the road. I won't feel guilty going home with work yet to be done.
The last piece is to add an integrated web store. But I don't want a huge learning curve. I don't want to create my own web site from scratch but I want it to look like I did. I want it to be affordable and I want to get it up and going without a lot of headaches and taking forever. So I'm going to be sure to ask my sales rep at American Retail Supply about LAN Services.
So there's my dream store and you know, some day I might open it, but for now I love creating dream stores for clients like you.
To learn more, click here to get our FREE Retail Success Kit. The FREE Retail Success Kit Includes:
- Case Studies - How 8 Independent Retailers Use POS Software to Grow Their Business in Any Economy.
- Free Book - The 10 Questions You Must Ask Before You Invest in a POS System For Your Store.
- DVD Video - Demonstrating how easily and effectively independent retailers are making the switch from either cash registers or outdated software to newly updated versions.
Click here to get our FREE Retail Success Kit
