Leveraging Point of Sale
In any competitive business, the point of sale is a lot more than just a place to register the cash flow. When equipped properly, POS becomes your strategic center, your shortcut to the many business processes that help you grow your business. These processes need to be in-sync to provide the blazing fast customer service, and instill the customer satisfaction and loyalty. A powerful All-in-One touchscreen computer you can mount anywhere also helps you cut down the inventory costs, increase your POS mobility, durability, and performance.
The most important trend in today's POS systems is the increasing mobility and scalability of hardware. The ability to mount a mini point of sale computer in more areas than just the traditional cash register station significantly widens their functionality and contributes immensely to the customer satisfaction. The introduction of a mobile POS is literally revolutionizing customer-centric businesses. The ability to hand a rugged point of sale tablet into the hands of an employee for a faster customer inquiry processing leads to shorter waiting times, faster order processing, storage checking and so much more. Your client leaves your premises faster because he/she gets a blazing fast customer service instead of frustrating queues. Likewise, mounted rugged minis as POS computers make purchase processing possible virtually anywhere.
POS As A Data Collection Hub
A balanced POS combines the robust hardware capable of running not only your point of sale software that processes the cash flow in the front of the house. Its integration into the back-end processes is equally important. When your point of sale is the service hub for tracking inventory, cash flow, orders, and customer habits and preferences, its benefits of becoming the data collection center are omnidirectional.
In this respect, mini rugged computers are robust and powerful enough to run complex POS software, handle various inventory databases and accounting, and keep the complex interactions between your different departments in-sync at all times. Its connectivity capabilities allow businesses to sync data between the remote POS stations where WiFi is unavailable and the company headquarters.
Cost-Effective Inventory Tracking
Affordable mini rugged PCs and rugged tablets not only save your retail space but also your money. Inventory tracking is one of the most time-consuming and labor-intensive business processes, where having too little, or too much leads to losses. According to the National Retail Federation, U.S. retailers lose $45 billion from insufficient inventory in stock and $224 billion due to excess inventory. Thus, a robust point of sale system that is rugged and can be installed in virtually any industrial, retail or service area cuts down those costs by letting your employees keep your inventory up-to-date at all times.
Having a mini rugged as a point of sale that can also be used for inventory tracking significantly reduces the number of times shopkeepers conduct physical inventory count, too.
Consumer-Grade VS Rugged
The best POS configuration encompasses three vectors - affordability, robust hardware that can be mounted in various environments and handle power- and resource-consuming software, and the ease of use for the employees.
Basic consumer-grade computers stuffed with a regular POS system that can accept payments and process sales are no longer the solution that will keep your business ahead of your competition. Your POS system needs to cover time- and cost-saving features such as accounting, inventory tracking, customer data gathering, staff management, marketing, and task automation.
Consumer-grade PCs don't make the cut - they can't withstand the excessive dust of brick and mortar shops and warehouses, or humidity of nursery stores, or excessive heat and grease particles that populate the restaurant and fast food areas. To optimize the performance in these areas, businesses are increasingly deploying rugged mini computers that can be mounted in virtually any place or VESA-mounted near a stand. Rugged mini-PCs come with a perfect combination of robust military-grade hardware and processing capabilities that make them the exceptionally powerful point of sale computers.
Customer Database
A robust POS mini rugged PC that tracks customer preferences will let you know who your best customers are. With the point of sale computer having access to the customer database, you can see a customer's purchase history at the register. This lets you inform the customer of a new product that is of interest to him/her.
For example, a nursery owner might give a quick heads-up to the orchids lover about the new shipment of those flowers he might have failed to notice during his short soil mix shopping trip. Likewise, a manager at an auto parts store can query the availability of a spare part with the inventory database immediately. More sales, faster customer inquiry processing, more happy customers, ease of use for your employees.
Benefits of Rugged Mini
Your point of sale computer needs to be rugged, which is particularly relevant to retail and warehouse environments. The devices need to withstand the excessive dust, humidity, grease or vibration and be robust enough to provide the computing resources to power all your POS software and accompanying programs. Whether you mount them in your warehouse, in your store, along the supply chain, or in a restaurant, your POS is so much more powerful when it's rugged and made with the military-grade components.
Moreover, retail transactions can take place virtually anywhere - indoors or outdoors. So, your point of sale computers must be able to withstand heat, cold, or humidity. Combine a rugged mini PC with a rugged tablet as your point of sale computer, and you get a mobile system that's not only dust and waterproof but can withstand drops and bumps, be cleaned frequently and look presentable to feature product images to customers.
Finally, adopting technological advancements is fine, but what if you are using legacy peripherals and aren't ready to upgrade or replace them just yet? Ensure the computers have sufficient legacy and serial ports to support the hardware add-ons you use. Receipt printers, QR and RFID readers, barcode scanners, card readers, additional displays and the like - you will save a lot of money by integrating your legacy peripherals into a new POS system. Yet, to do that you can't make do with a consumer-grade PC that does not support legacy extensions.
Summary
A mini rugged as a point of sale computer does not just process payments but offers a wide range of benefits including:
- Scalable, fits almost anywhere, withstands rugged environments, supports legacy peripherals.
- Military-grade components and rugged casing lead to a 2% overall failure rate only.
- Inventory management, purchasing reports, stock replenishment orders.
- Reduces wastage by minimizing the excessive and the insufficient stock.
- Generating sales reports.
- Managing and syncing customer databases.
- Managing employee timesheets.
- Handling barcodes.
- Handling sales and promotions.
A robust POS system syncs your operations from sales to inventory and customer data, improving efficiency and productivity, decreasing errors and enhancing a customer's shopping experience. Check out Cybernet's solutions for the point of sale computers featuring affordability, cutting-edge computing power, and support for legacy systems. Combined with robust rugged casing and military-grade discrete parts, Cybernet's mini rugged PCs help businesses harness the benefits of smart technologies in their point of sale systems.