Point of Sale...Not Just about Sales!!

Point of Sale tool is the front-end tool that a retailer uses to conduct sale transactions. It is used to create the transaction where in the sale associate scans items and then finally generates the print receipt for the customer and accepts tenders from the customer for the sold merchandise. But is that the only function that the point of sale system is expected to perform?

Point of Sale system being the only front end system for the retalier; can be put to use in lot many areas for the retailer to better execute his business.

Firstly, the point of sale tool could used to manage customer and perform analytics on cutomer information in order to serve the customer better .The business interaction between a customer and the retailer is done via the point of sale system. Hence capturing of customer information such as customer address, customer birthday could be done at the point of sale system. While making a transaction for the customer the transaction could be linked to the customer and this information could be persisted for analysis. The customers’ buying basket could be analyzed from such persisted data. The customer buying basket data could then in turn be used to create custom promotions for the customer.

Secondly, promotion is a crucial component for a retailer to increase footfalls in its shops. For a retailer that has shops spread across geography a given promotion might not succeed at all places. Instead of cascading a centrally defined promotion across all shops the retailer might execute local promotions via the ponit of sale tool itself.

Thirdly, the sale data captured via the point of sale system could be shared by the retailer with a supplier if the retailer enagages with the supplier in a VMI model. Instead of forecasting demand on the orders made by the retailer the supplier would now forecast demand based on the point of sale itself and hence the demand forecast would be more accurate as in doing so the “bull whip” effect is eliminated.