Retail software is a critical purchase for a small retail business running a retail shop. Choosing retail software wisely can increase the amount of sales made, make your business more efficient and also make your customers happier. Whereas selecting poorly can have a negative effect, restricting how many sales are made, slowing down processes and frustrating your customers (not to mention your staff). Here are few of the essential factors to consider when your selecting your retail software

Retail Software – Web Based or On-premise?

The first thing to think about is whether you would like to have the software on-premise or hosted in the cloud so you can log in via an internet browser. Having it on-site gives you the advantage of immediate access if something were to go wrong with the software so you can fix it yourself. However, you will need the IT skills to be able to repair it yourself, or else have to employ someone to do it for you. You will also need to buy hardware for the software to run on, as well as a backup system in case the hardware fails. You will be responsible for the systems security too, and need to complete any software upgrades that might be necessary.

Generally, when you choose to host software in the cloud you will sign up for a SaaS (software as a service) model. You pay for your software on a month-by-month basis as opposed to having to fork out a lot of money upfront as you would with an on-premise solution. Getting web based retail software means that you would not need to buy hardware or be responsible for system security, backups and software upgrades. All this is done for you by the software vendor. The one thing you are reliant on though is the internet, as without connectivity you will not be able to access your software, so you will need to make sure you have budgeted for a high quality connection if you opt for this type of solution.

Retail Software - CRM, Accounts and Inventory considerations

You will need to work out which different areas of your business need to share data when selecting your retail software.  The main systems to think about are CRM, accounts and inventory. Each area has information about the products you are selling, such as what products have been sold (inventory), how much were they sold for (accounts) and who did you sell them too (CRM). By making sure this data is distributed across all these system you will start to be more efficient and make more sales.

All-in-one software solutions are a great way to get these systems working in harmony as they integrate them in a single piece of retail software. This eliminates the need for lengthy data transfers between software programs that may not even be in the same format. You save a lot of time with this type of solution and the other advantage is that all your systems will updated simultaneously rather than waiting for the data to synchronize so everything is available in real time.

Retail Software - Staff considerations

The people who will use the retail software to make sales are your staff.  So when you’re making a choice about retail software make sure you bear them in mind. Select software that will make their lives easier and they will be more likely to provide a good service to your customers. Higher customer satisfaction will ultimately result in more sales and more repeat business.

Speak to your staff members about what they think would improve their working day. They are doing these things every day and may have some useful insight into the processes that could be made more efficient. This will help you to assess the features that would really benefit them and what type of system will best fit their needs.

It’s not all about the staff though; you must make the choice based on what suits your business as well. You need to make sure that you are able to limit the amount of access your staff has to your back-end systems appropriately. Whilst you might want them to be able to see stock levels, you probably won’t want them to have free rein over your accounts. Select retail software that works for you both.

Retail Software - What hardware will you need to accompany it?

You will need to buy some hardware to go with any retail software you buy. On-premise solutions will require a server, a backup system and a firewall as well a secure cabinet for this equipment to be stored in. Web-based solutions do not need this much equipment, but both solutions will entail the purchase of some additional hardware. A central cash till for cash payments and credit receipts is essential, and you need to connect this to your retail software so the till is triggered to automatically open when a sale is made.

Having a barcode scanner will allow you to quickly scan products in so they are automatically picked up by your retail software. If you have  multiple staff members working at once that it will be worthwhile to invest in a few of these scanners so multiple sales can be made at the same time. You will also need to produce a receipt once a sale has been made so make your that the retail software you select can be hooked up to a thermal printer that allows you to print these automatically.

Retail Software – Your company, your decision

No two companies are the same so make sure have thoroughly assessed what functionality it is that you need. Identify your requirements and research the market properly so you can find the best retail software for your business. All in all it is your company, so make sure the decision you make is the best one for you.

Brightpearl’s business management software for small and medium businesses is designed specifically to save time, increase sales and make customers happier. It’s multi-channel retail software solution that integrates your inventory, accounts, CRM, order management and more with your online web store, POS and online marketplace listings.

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POS Terminal: How many should I purchase?

1. Peak customer volume – When handling peak customer volume, you need to have a plan to be able to sufficiently serve them all.
2. Number of employees taking orders – One station per 3-5 servers would be sufficient in a table service environment. High volume areas such as bars and cashier stations may need to have a dedicated station for that purpose. When switching from a standard cash register to a POS system, many people unintentionally forget that their POS system is not only used to conduct sale transactions but for order entry as well.
3. Restaurant layout – A good restaurant layout affects your employee’s service. So if you have a bar, assigning a separate station for your bar tender would be easier since he can serve customers from there quickly.
4. How and where you plan to have customers pay for their meals – Having proper locations where customers can pay for their meals is also important, you don’t want to keep them waiting do you? For paying at the front, you should have one or two dedicated cashier stations to allow speedy transactions.

What type of POS computer should I use for my business?

Desktop – The standard desktop type has the following pros

• Least expensive computer option
• Has onsite warranty for 3 years
• Takes more space but can be hidden away under a counter
• Flexible enough for adding extra ports
• Latest CPU speeds and memory
• Screen and computer are separate; if ever technical difficulties occur, it’ll be isolated.

Small form factor (SFF) – Originally phrased as shuttle form factor, a smaller type of computer.

• More stylish than the desktop
• Has 3 years standard onsite warranty
• Saves more space
• Fewer options for expandability
• Latest CPU speeds and memory
• Screen and computer are separate; so you can easily isolate which ones has technical difficulties.

All-in-one terminals – Combined touch screen and computer.

• More efficient because it requires fewer wires least space, even more stylish
• 1-2 Year Manufacturers Warranty (Not onsite)
• Comes standard with sufficient ports for almost any operation
• CPU speed is generally slower than the other two options but sufficient for the Point of Sale needs.
• Screen and Computer are one unit

How many cash drawers are ideal for my retail business?

This is probably fairly self-evident, but unless your servers carry their own cash bank you should have a cash drawer at every station you want for ending transactions.

Should I have Credit card processing on POS?

• You can easily process and track record of every credit card transactions using your POS system in one location.
• With the advance of high speed internet transactions processing time can reduced to 3-4 seconds per transaction.
• In case you do not have high speed internet, a standalone terminal can be used for processing.

How many printers must a typical restaurant have?

• Having one kitchen printer would be sufficient for your restaurant, not unless you have different sections serving different dishes inside your kitchen then it would be better if you place printers on all sections.
• For example, appetizers can be printed on one printer and have your entire main dish printed on another.
• We recommend dot-matrix printers over thermal printers for kitchens and bars because their loud printing alerts cooks and bartenders that an order is coming through and because tickets printed on thermal paper become unreadable when exposed to heat.

Is it essential to have more than 1 receipt printer?

• Since you’re going to have more than one station, you would likely need more than just one receipt printer.

Do I need a back office computer?

• A back office computer is good for allowing managers to run reports, access the system to make changes to menu, check inventory levels, or adjust employee time clock times, without disturbing servers and cashiers.
• It’s not quite necessary to have a back office computer for your restaurant, if you only have 2-3 stations. It is however a great idea to host the database on a back office computer if you have 4 or more stations so that none of the stations has the additional load of running the database.

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Failure to do so is not only a blow to the brand but might severely impact the business’ profitability and future viability as excess inventory will have to be sold at scrap value. Nowhere is creativity and innovation more closely intertwined than in the fickle world of fashion.

Such was the challenge for PEPPO Fashions Group, an apparel distributor in Thailand, which manages labels such as Guess, Guess Baby/Kids, Guess Accessory Stores, Mango, Marciano and Castro. It has 12 standalone retail outlets and presence in 50 department store consignments in the country.

1. Operational Nightmare – According to Palakorn Khisalang, IT Manager for the Group, department stores constantly refresh their layouts, and require tenants like PEPPO to move within the building several times a year.

“It’s a time-consuming and costly exercise for us to re-architect our IT network after each move,” Khisalang says. “Moreover, department stores often run promotional bazaars at central locations, making it difficult for our staff to conduct customer transactions away from their regular in-store counter. This in turn causes discrepancies between the actual transactions conducted and the receipts that were generated.”

As the Group expands, managing the IT operations based on a distributed architecture introduced significant network latency and became prohibitively challenging for a small team. This has a negative impact on the efficient collection of accurate sales data and thus hindered management’s running crucial sales analysis.

“Our staff needed to be able to get real time updates on stock availability from our back-end warehouses and head office in Bangkok. Although we had moved from a manual system to bar-coding, we still needed a solution that would allow the staff to register inventory while on the move, instead of having to return to a central computer terminal to enter data,” Khisalang explains.

2. Re-architecting IT around the business process – The company evaluated a number of solutions including deploying GPS and ISDN to ensure access to a single repository of data containing retail sales, inventory at the warehouse, and in-transit movement of goods. Each proposal failed on either cost or effectiveness.

One solution that appeared viable, however, was to introduce wireless technology at the retail sites and at the warehouses. The plan is for retail outlets to be equipped with thin client laptops and sales operators with wireless PDAs. This would allow staff to easily move around within the store and between stores as well.

A centralized delivery mechanism for all applications was also deemed critical for the overall solution to work. The company evaluated a number of technologies and chose the Presentation Server from Citrix.

The Citrix Presentation Server centralizes the delivery of all the client applications the staff need – such as Microsoft Excel to run sales projections – without having to physically install these applications onto each device. The staff in turn can access multiple applications from any location.

“We enlisted the help of a Citrix Solution Advisor to implement the Citrix Presentation Server 4, with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 running on two HP ProLiant servers in the firm’s data center in Bangkok,” says Khisalang.

At the warehouses, the company used SYMBOL handheld devices to conduct inventory checks online via Citrix, with security over the network provided using a VPN combined with a two-factor authentication procedure comprising an RSA SecurID token and password.

Citrix was used to optimize inventory management process. As the access infrastructure foundation, Citrix Presentation Server provides staff with real-time access to a proprietary ERP solution called “PEPPOS” that is customized for retail management via PCs and wirelessly over PDAs.

As goods move in and out of the warehouses, the bar code attached to each item is scanned, allowing the staff to track inventory movement. Previously, they had to walk to a LAN terminal to manually enter the data.

The new wireless solution resulted in a more efficient model for keeping track of inventory back at the warehouses, with front-line sales staff now having online access to the most updated information from virtually any machine in a secure manner.

“All of these factors played a strong part in our decision to deploy the Citrix solution to enable a mobile and wireless enterprise, and we believe that this innovative application of technology has enabled us to build a highly adaptable retail model,” adds Khisalang.

Part of the initial requirement in the choice of technology was the concern of user training. With only four members in the IT team, PEPPO needed a solution that would require minimal training for everyone involved in the use of the new mobile devices. PEPPO put considerable effort in identifying the right combination of hardware and software to effectively mobilize its staff and ensure safe and efficient access to company information.

PEPPO, however, still faces a number of business process and technical challenges to realize the full potential of wireless technology across the entire operations. From a business perspective, enabling a wireless IT infrastructure isn’t immediately possible across all of its locations because of constraints imposed by department stores. Even where possible, it can sometimes take a few months to finalize negotiation with the management.

3. Benefits gained through centralized delivery model – By centralizing application delivery and management on Citrix servers, and providing virtualized application access on PDAs, PEPPO is able to more easily handle department store counter relocations and periodic sales from central bazaars without having to reinstall point of sale terminals and other equipment, which saves time and money.

At the same time, productivity for retail staff has improved because they no longer need to walk to and from fixed terminals to capture the data. Similar productivity improvements have also been observed at warehouses using real-time inventory tracking.

Centralized management has enabled PEPPO to keep IT headcount at four people, despite a significant increase in the number of stores and IT users. What used to take two weeks to install or upgrade software company-wide now takes only one hour.

“With the Citrix Presentation Server solution, we have been able to provide approximately 340 staff at 50 different locations throughout Thailand with secure remote access to critical business applications wirelessly via a 128 kbps ISDN connection from PDAs over a 802.11b/g WLAN interface,” beams Khisalang. These applications include Microsoft Office 2003, Oracle Database 10g, and PEPPOS.

Looming Challenges: The Emergence of the Wireless Provider Retail Market Model

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“We can now literally link data to a retail outlet anywhere in Thailand or the world overnight, unencumbered by the typical technology hurdles that other companies face,” adds Khisalang.

Surprisingly, the new solution has resulted in a significant downgrade in the bandwidth requirements of PEPPO. The company uses a 128 Kbps connection at each location back to the Citrix Servers at head office. Conventional technology would have necessitated a 512 Kbps or 1MB bandwidth demand. PEPPO estimates that it was able to save up to $1,600 in bandwidth costs per location alone.

“I recently attended a retail conference in Bangkok, where the focus was on how IT can be used as an enabler for retail enterprises. Some of the technologies mentioned were the ones PEPPO have used several years ago. Many have yet to integrate these with wireless technology. I think companies in the retail industry stand to benefit from these technologies,” concludes Khisalang.

“Now that we have found the right formula to enable a mobile enterprise, we will continue to establish wireless infrastructure in our new stores as we expand our presence in Thailand.”

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