5 Must-Have Features of a Retail Store POS System

POS systems are in great demand in the retail industry. Retail brands are rapidly adopting them to run their business better and allow staff to focus their attention on customers.

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The systems keep track of the inventory and manage all the business-related issues conveniently and efficiently. It's no surprise every retail store uses POS systems these days, that’s why its market is heading for enormous growth.

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The global Point of Sale (PoS) market was valued at USD 22.08 billion in 2021 and is projected to grow from USD 25.24 billion in 2022 to USD 70.75 billion by 2029, exhibiting a CAGR of 15.9% during the forecast period. Before you go ahead to shop for the best retail store POS system, It is essential to identify the must-have features of a POS system.

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1. Omnichannel Integration

A retail store POS system should provide these essential omnichannel integration features to accept orders, payments, and seamless customer engagement from all channels.

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Payment integration: Among all the integrations, payment integration should be a top priority for a retail brand as this is where the overall revenue comes from. The retail store POS should provide all the necessary integration with different payment gateways to accept payments 24/7/365 and enable in-store prices, online ordering, and payment using UPI, credit/debit cards, QR codes. Example of popular POS: Shopify POS, Lightspeed Retail

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Marketplace integration: If a retail store has its own e-commerce store, it can be integrated into a marketplace to tap customers visiting the online stores of different brands. The marketplace integration features of a POS system ensure you grow your retail brand visibility, customer loyalty and get additional orders from online channels.

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Accounting software integration: The POS system should provide integrations with accounting software to manage tax and compliance for retail stores, e-commerce stores, and brand stores.

Vend by Lightspeed POS offers accounting tools like Gusto and QuickBooks to manage them.

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Omnichannel selling integration: Square POS offers essential omnichannel selling features such as a free online store, features to sell on social media channels, an innovative website builder, automatic inventory sync, and omnichannel tools like in-store pickup and local delivery.

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2. Inventory and Stock Management

Whether you have ten stores in your shopping mall or hundreds of stores across the country, a point of sale (POS) system's inventory management module must be adequately equipped to provide complete visibility and accountability of inventory at the store level. 

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At any point in time, the POS system should be able to view in real-time lot-wise inventory, SKU transaction history of outbound and on-the-shelf inventory, and keep complete visibility on transactions at all times.

They also allow the business owners to have multiple sales locations and track inventory at each site without being present.

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For example, Square’s intuitive inventory management lets you manage unlimited items and product categories, create and print barcode labels, view stock levels across your retail stores, and set email alerts for when stock levels of a particular product are running low.

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3. Reporting & Analytics functionality 

POS systems are an excellent source of data about your business's performance. It can provide reporting and analytics functionality for

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• Accounting reporting: These reports on the POS system provide a detailed account of assets, liabilities, customer deposits, accounts payable, and more.

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• Sales level reporting: Sales reports track all of your sales, as well as a summary of your highest and lowest-selling products, total revenue, average order amount, orders by the time of day, sales tax breakdowns, and deposit history. 

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• Inventory reporting: This report gives an overview of the current inventory in stock. It can save the staff’s time as they do not have to rush to the stockroom and manually check on inventory if a live report is available. 

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• Employee reporting: You can view labour reports of each employee and check information like their average hours worked, moderate sales amounts, the average number of transactions, and the percentage of total labor costs based on individual or job title.

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• Customer reporting: It can pinpoint how often repeat customers make a purchase and how many new customers versus repeat customers you have.

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The analysis of each of these POS systems reports evaluates your retail business's progress, detects problems, and identifies areas of possible growth and development.

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Example: Lightspeed POS has more than 40 built-in reports that cover inventory, sales, employee performance, and more in one analytics dashboard. What sets Lightspeed apart from other POS is that it translates data into actionable business tips. 

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For example, it can take sales and traffic data and translate that into staffing and inventory reports to help you prepare for peak business hours. It also automatically sends daily sales reports to your email each night to stay on top of things daily.

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4. Loyalty Program Tracking

Custom loyalty programs are the new way to keep customers returning to your store. But they can be challenging to design and implement when you have uncountable number of customers.

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The POS system lets you create custom profiles and store customers' purchasing information. It can immensely help retail brands trying to retain customers using loyalty programs.

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This way, retailers can get precise details about the money spent by an individual customer and launch custom discount programs, gifts and rewards for each customer. If you haven't implemented custom loyalty programs, you can do so easily with retail POS software. Shopify POS helps set marketing preferences and build loyalty programs for customers. 

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5. Employee Management

The retail POS system should include employee management features like individual sales tracking and timecard reporting. It should allow customized user logins and permissions for staff, require employee passwords for each sale to track performance and get register and shift reports.

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Example: Vend's unique feature is setting individual employee and team sales goals and average basket sizes.

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Square for Retail Plus plan includes advanced team management features like shift scheduling and swapping, custom permission settings, activity logs, and advanced reporting. You can set employee permissions, manage timecards, and view individual employee performances from your Square POS dashboard.

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Signing Off

You have read the must-have features of a retail store POS system. Each one contributes immensely to making complex tasks of a retail store easier. That means no error in inventory management, report analysis, employee management, and improving a store's visibility and business prospects in your retail store, ecommerce store, and other marketplaces.

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Fynd powered retail stores access ultra-modern POS for maximum sales without going anywhere. You can give a personal touch to every visiting customer with loyalty points and convert muted sales into actual sales by engaging customers online or offline.

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‍Book a demo today to get invaluable insights from experts and learn how premium features of Fynd POS can supercharge every task of your retail stores and grow sales from non-traditional channels.