POS systems have become a common sight in many retail stores and restaurants in Dubai. Small businesses are benefited by moving their business processes to a digital platform that handles inventory, sales and transactions more easily than would the old pen and paper mode.
Managing hardware stores with a POS system is an up and coming trend. Hardware stores in Dubai usually provide home improvement tools, electrical and plumbing supplies, gardening equipment and auto repair tools. And just like other retail stores, a Point of Sale Software Dubai would enable retail hardware stores to better manage their business operations and expand easily. Let us look at the ways in which this is made possible.
Handling Inventory
The uniqueness of shopping at a retail store is coming across those nifty items that you never knew you wanted. And now that you have seen it, you must add it to the cart. This goes for small stores as well as large retail chains with multiple stores. In the case of hardware stores, this diversity carries a prospect of inventory errors – there are quite a few different varieties of the same product like screws and wrenches. Managing this inventory can be quite a laborious task for store employees.
Hardware store employees would be able to manage their inventory better and fetch products without error using the mobile-based POS app. Fetching an item in conventional POS systems would be based on part number or name, but with the POS app, more fields can be used to identify and categorize products. This includes the supplier name, product description, or even a custom category name. And barcode scanning would not need specialized hardware for a POS app – smartphone devices themselves can be made to scan products easily.
Multi-user Interface
A mobile-based POS app offers the advantage of being accessible by all employees of your store so they can perform their tasks more effectively. The POS app, unlike a static POS system, offers mobility to users – billing operations, inventory and other store operations can all be performed right from the app, with the data being independently updated by employees to prevent any duplication.
Access privileges for the POS app is managed by specifying the information made available to each role, allowing employees to use the same POS app for different store operations without being encumbered by data that is irrelevant to their assigned tasks. Data security is made possible by password access for store employees. This keeps all your store data secure from unauthorized access.
Smart Checkout
Customers do not like waiting in long queues at all. Shopping convenience is one of the reasons why ecommerce platforms are popular with many customers. Scanning each item and fetching the products on the POS terminal would be similarly inefficient. Moving the entire checkout process to a Mobile POS App would allow faster checkout for customers. Sales staff can move around the store and assist customers check out their purchases using the app on their smartphone devices. This also presents an excellent opportunity for your staff to upsell products or suggest suitable add-ons for their products.
Mobile payment solutions are much more efficient than the old cash or credit option. The simplified interface of a mobile POS device or smartphone makes it more easier to initiate and process transactions than would conventional card swiping machines or cash registers. With QR code scanning options, secure transactions can be made at any time with just a smartphone device. Transactions via the POS app are error-free and can be retrieved for future reference as well.
Staff Management
Overseeing employee activities and their schedule and payroll can be managed better using the POS app. Small hardware stores with few employees, as well as large chain stores spread across disparate locations can simply add their employees to the app. With the multi-user interface, all employee activities can be managed and their performance can be evaluated right from the app. Evaluating the performance of each employee also makes it possible to set rewards to incentivize employees or even training modules to improve performance.
Stores operating in more than one location may find it challenging to maintain a unified record of inventory and sales. With a POS app, all you need is another mobile device to run the operations and manage all business processes in each store independently. This would enable store managers to oversee operations in multiple locations under a centralized platform.
Expanding to an Online Store
Building an online presence for your store helps you become more visible to potential customers. Leveraging this online presence using this POS app would make it possible for increased sales across multiple channels. The POS app integrates the online store feature with various social media platforms to showcase your store’s products to a large network of potential customers.
The integrated inventory feature for both online and offline sales allows stores to complete orders on both fronts efficiently, without duplication of inventory values. Integrating shipping solutions will also make it easier for customers to get their orders delivered without hassles and help you manage product returns more effectively.
Engaging your Customers Better
The key to gaining more customers in retail business is to present a personalized customer experience, especially for in-store shoppers. This is made possible with a CRM that maintains detailed customer profiles – contact information, purchase history, payment preferences as well as shopping frequency and product affinity. This information can be used to modify the product display at your store so that customers would be more likely to buy those products based on their needs.
Hardware stores can also come up with more personalized marketing campaigns and loyalty programs based on customer preferences. Better customer experience through customized checkout experience would be made possible when you know how customers prefer to make their payments. Analyzing sales trends for each customer would help you identify high and low selling products and categorize them based on customer demographics.
Analytics and Reporting
Wondering why some products have been sitting on the shelves for months? Finding what customers want, when they want it, and how much they will buy – all of this can be predicted by matching inventory and sales information. The POS app is capable of generating reports using this data so that you have the right stock of products for customers at any time.
The analytics module also looks at purchasing trends to determine which items can fetch higher profit margin and suggests reorders based on this data.The POS app shows your assets and liabilities for each quarter along with the financial analytics for sales and inventory. This helps you run accounting processes more smoothly, and get a clear picture of your store’s financial status at any point.
Exceptional POS Software Guaranteed
SingleCart allows you to realize your business objectives within a short time using a modern POS System for Small Business. Our handy POS app will help you manage your store and expand your customer base online easily. We review your business workflow in detail to identify the best ways to streamline these processes through our POS app. If you are looking to grow your hardware store, we will be right behind you!
