Point of Sale (POS) software is tasked with monitoring and enhancing customer experience and increasing sales via analyzing the current business strategy, service, and product quality and looking for effective changes and solutions. POS systems can be integrated with various options your company requires automating particular internal processes and daily operations, collecting data from all sources combining offline, online, and other types of sales.
The variety of ready-made POS applications for small businesses, such as posabit and many more, is very extensive offering different functions, pricing plans, and conditions of cooperation.
Things to consider before choosing the POS system
Before signing the contract with a particular POS vendor you must consider the needs and demands of your business and make sure the chosen POS corresponds to all of them to avoid problems. Among the main point to consider are:
- Define what problems your company struggles with on daily basis and what functions and technologies can you help your employees cope with them effectively;
- Available budget - the more options you want to access, the higher fee you will have to pay, so make sure your budget can afford the POS system you are going to adopt;
- Scalability - the business growth is inevitable so ensure that the POS system is scalable and can expand with your company size with no troubles;
- Software integration - if you already use any type of business software in your workflows, make sure the selected POS system can be smoothly integrated with the existing software solutions avoiding system bugs.
Commonly used POs software for small businesses
Here is the shortlist of the most popular POS systems used by many businesses all over the world that mostly receive positive feedback from customers. Each of them has its profits and drawbacks, so keep reading to find out about them.
Shopify
Shopify is the number one POS solution among off-the-shelf systems for retail businesses. It has more than 1 million users ( business companies) all over the world. The adoption process is quite easy and smooth providing the ability to customize the system up to business needs. The main reason why it suits small businesses is the capacity of scaling with the company's growth. Shopify offers a 14-day free trial period to test its functionality and make it suit the processes of a certain business. The pricing plans are affordable exactly for small businesses with an online or single offline store meaning the more your business expands, the more you will have to pay for a POS system. Additionally, Shopify takes from 2.4% to 2.9% from each transaction made through the platform. Among the basic functions Shopify provides are:
- Customer management - collects customer information and their interactions with the product\service;
- Inventory management - helps monitoring products in stock, low-stock items, bar code scanning, prediction about the demand for particular products, special sale propositions, etc.;
- Omnichannel - purchasing, buying in-store or via QR codes of the products, shipment, and returns are available within a single system.
Lightspeed
Lightspeed is considered to be one of the best market-available POS systems suitable for companies dealing with custom order creation that implies advanced inventory management. It provides the ability to create product sets\categories in the meaning of different sets with the same products showing them in the online catalog.
Lightspeed POS platform can be customized for small business needs in dashboard visualization, report generation, and metrics for data analytics.
The pricing plan with basic (limited) functionality costs approximately $69 per month. If you want to get access to advanced options of the POS system, you will have to pay more, which is not really profitable for small businesses. So, the basic functions Lightspeed includes:
- Data analytics and report generation - there are 40+ several report samples that can be partially customized;
- Inventory management - this is a must-have option for POS systems that helps track items in stock via barcodes, low-stock notifications, products for special offers, etc.;
- Ecommerce - the platform is connected with POS data providing order management options with shipment tracking, monitoring marketing activities, and interacting customers with products\brand.
Toast
Toast is an off-the-shelf POS solution suitable for restaurant chain businesses. It can be used within the restaurants as well as for the delivery, managing tables, orders, changing the menu, kitchen, product inventory, online payments for the delivery, and so on. Toast doesn't provide any trial period so before integrating this POS into your business, it is pivotal to define whether the functionality of the system matches your internal processes. Additionally, if you decide to sign a contract, it lasts for the next 2 years with the losses for your business in case of termination. The basic set of features Toast provides:
- In-restaurant options - table map and management, booking management, orders, and their status are displayed on kitchen and for waiters;
- Delivery - customers have the ability to order food online via mobile POS tracking the status and time for order delivery;
- Staff management - Toast POS system automates the calculating and sending payroll to workers, manages HR activities, creates an employee work schedule, reports on the performance of each worker including customer feedback, etc.
How to choose POS for your small business?
Businesses that implement market-available POS systems often struggle with many challenges and errors with these solutions. The reasons for these issues are various, like initially unclearly defined requirements to the POS system, an unreliable vendor with poor customer support, irrelevant technologies used in the solution, unavailability of mobile POS, and others. Although, if the chosen POS doesn't meet all your demands, you still need to pay a monthly or annual fee for the usage.
Thus, it is recommended to find a trusted custom software development company like GBKSOFT that specializes in building custom retail POS development solutions considering the individual business needs and requirements of your business.
Before choosing the software development partner, you should deeply research their relevant experience in building POS systems for various domains and sizes of businesses. Check their portfolio and ask for contacts of their previous clients to find out more about the development process in general.
