Retail Performance

Point of Sale System is a frightening purchase because few retailers have experience in selecting a point of sale system and with such a large investment required they will have to live with their decision, be it good or bad, for quite some time. This document lists the essential items that retailers should consider in their POS buying decision.

While the very term “POS systems” evokes an image of a stand alone box on a checkout counter, a point of sale system is actually a combination of elements working together. A good point of sale system will likely include hardware, software, transaction processing, network and support. Let’s start with the single most critical element, the software.

There are literally hundreds of different software packages available. A quick search on Google will reveal software in a wide variety of price ranges designed for a wide variety of market segments. Software is the most critical piece because it is the element that will deliver the ‘feature functionality’ that retailers desire; the other elements of the system are present simply to facilitate the software. As a result, the type of software you choose will largely determine the requirements for the other elements of the system. Being the most critical element in the POS system software is also the most expensive.

The hardware is the next element of the POS system to consider. The hardware requirements will be largely determined by the selected software. It is best to choose retail specific hardware from a reputable hardware manufacturer.

The next consideration is the ability to accept debit and credit cards or transaction processing, which comes in two forms, stand-alone and integrated. Stand-alone debit/credit machines have two major draw backs. They do not communicate with the POS system and they utilize a phone line to transmit data. Integrated debit/credit is connected to the POS and shares the POS system’s high speed network connection.