1. What will you and your
customers want in three or five years?

It’s easy to get absorbed in looking at the here and now. However, when it comes to deciding which EPoS system is right for you, it’s essential to look towards the future to protect your investment and stay ahead of your competition.

The millennium shopper is fast paced, driven by technology and demanding – constantly pushing the boundaries of the online and physical world.

You need to ensure any new system you invest in can cater for your plans today and tomorrow e.g. new stores, an ecommerce site, selling on eBay, mobile PoS, instore mobile show rooming or new aspects not yet seen.

Scalability, responsiveness and flexibility are critical to avoid systems becoming insufficient, redundant and costly.

2. How many sales outlets do you have?

If you’re not selling through more than one channel (or preferably three!) you’re probably losing out.

Never has it been so easy and affordable to reach new customers, sell more and make more profit.

Any retail EPoS system you choose needs to cater for your current and future sales channels.

Even if you don’t have an ecommerce site yet or maybe think eBay is not for you, or perhaps you can’t see the relevance of temporary Pop-Up shops, the truth is, retail is changing fast and you can’t be certain you won’t be looking at a new sales channel in the future.

3. What are your stock management & inventory needs?

Stock is every retailer’s most important asset but getting the right levels of stock for many is a ‘fine art’ – especially if you operate more than one store or have online and physical outlets.

Your EPoS system should help make it an exact science to reduce risk and maximise profitability by enabling you to carry the right stock, at the right time, in the right location and clearing stock at the right moment.

With the retail environment changing so quickly, it’s wise to look at how your stock and inventory needs may change and the flexibility and scalability of your preferred system.

4. Can your EPoS system enhance your customer experience?

Giving your customers the very best experience is what we all strive to do. Whether it’s our people, shop layout, personal touch or brand, our business is all about loving our customers more.

EPoS today is becoming more a point of service – somewhere that maximises sales and provides customers with a great shopping experience.

Whether your shop is online or instore, the right system can give you the edge you need to give your customers the personalisation they deserve (and expect).

The beauty of retail technology today is it has enabled independent retailers to do many of the things previously the preserve of the big boys.

No matter the combination of sales channels you use, your system should have the ability to give you tools to upsell, promote loyalty and attraction, deliver a purchase history of your customer and extend their choice.

5. How could mobile PoS work for you?

The buying nature of the always on the go millennium shopper means you can’t afford to not consider mobile PoS and technology in your retail system to get up close and personal with your customers (and increase your sales!).

Mobile PoS goes way beyond just payments. It’s an avenue to create new customer experiences, new forms of product displays, extend choice, improve instore personalisation and speed up transactions.

There are so many ways you can use mobile technology with your retail system to benefit your sales and service.

When considering investing in a new system, look for how well the MPoS function works and integrates into the backend systems and inventory – and whether it can all be housed in a virtual head office to enable you to access the system at any location with online access.

6. Do you need promotions & loyalty programs?

We all aspire to think up great loyalty initiatives to keep our customer happy and coming back to us.

Different systems offer different opportunities and restrictions for the type of loyalty programs you can run. If you are great at thinking up new customer loyalty schemes, then ensuring your system’s loyalty program can be customised will be important to you.

If you are selling through more than one channel, e.g. ecommerce site and instore, you may also want to check you can run universal promotions across the channels.

Or you may want to personalise your promotions for each channel or even for different customers. Being able to schedule in advance or instantly make live are also important elements.

7. Data security & PCI Compliance

The truth is, your EPoS system and its data are of business critical importance to you. You need to ensure downtime, risk, theft and breach of PCI compliance is minimised to pretty much zero – and this means assessing how your data is transferred and stored.

Retail systems can be stored either on a local server at your premises or externally in what is known as the “Cloud” (quite simply a highly secure network of servers where you can host your data in a private space, with the highest level of security and availability just like Amazon do).

Deciding if you should use a Cloud based system or software stored on your own local server, will influence which system suits your requirements best.