7 Signs to Upgrade Your POS Software for Supermarket

Let’s face it! Are you drawing the maximum value from your POS Software for Supermarket?

Is it helping you grow customer loyalty, assisting your marketing efforts, and streamlining your cash flow?

As per relevant stats from Retail Consulting Partners:

In 2020, 52% of North American retailers expressed a wish to enhance their existing POS system. After that, a total of 41% of retailers prioritized their POS upgrade or replacement.

So, if you are thinking on similar lines but are confused about whether or not your POS needs an upgrade, here are –

1. Your POS Software for Supermarket offers Limited Integrations

Do you still have to manually upload your sales, purchase, and transaction data in your accounting software? Moreover, are you constantly switching back & forth on systems with your supermarket data?

If that is the case, you surely need a POS for Supermarket that integrates seamlessly with other supermarket management software.

Retail management has evolved. Therefore, your POS software must evolve. Above all, it must streamline the supermarket data flow for you.

Your POS software for supermarket must allow integrations with:

A) Accounting Software:

Managing a supermarket is one of the important factors a supermarket. Knowing how to increase sales in retail stores or supermarket brings plentiful accounting responsibilities on your plate.

Furthermore, your accounting efficiency influences your cash flow, tax management, purchase decisions, profits, etc.

As a result, This integration offers hassle-free accounting and a comprehensive look at your growth and finances. With this data, you now have a say in your long-term business decisions.

B) ERP Software:

An ERP software facilitates higher staff productivity, cross-department data flow, enhanced customer relations, etc. But, unless your POS isn’t feeding sufficient data to your ERP, it renders inefficient.

Therefore, if your existing POS Software for Grocery Store doesn’t integrate with your ERP system, it is time for an upgraded POS. 

C) Email Marketing Platform:

The average ROI from email marketing is 4200%. That means you can expect $42 worth of sales for every $1 you spend on email marketing.

That’s pure music to a marketer’s ears! Consequently, your POS software for supermarkets must seamlessly integrate with your choice of email marketing platform. As a result, You can streamline customer data, plan promotions, build customer loyalty, and boost repeat sales. What more could you ask for?

2. Your Inventory Is Blocking Your Cash Flow

Inventory is the most basic and most important factor of supermarket management. In other words, If you need to walk around your stockroom every week to note your stocks on a spreadsheet, your POS system is failing you.

Your retail inventory management is synonymous with your supermarket’s success.

In case you are stacking way too early or way too much, you are blocking your cash flow. On the other hand, what’s worse is that you have not even planned for the inventory expiry schedule. Conversely, if your stacks are empty on a busy shopping weekend, you are losing sales. Empty stacks are also off-putting for your customers, and it fades customer loyalty.

The key takeaway is that your POS must have Inventory Management Software for you. 

• It must be able to record and track each inventory unit.
• You must receive alerts about inventory expiry and stock replenishment schedules.
• Gives you the ability to check your best-selling products, and also the ones that are not moving.
• Your supermarket software must automate the supply chain.
• And you must have data to manage vendors and cross-store stock procurement.

If your current POS software isn’t bringing these features to your desk, consider upgrading it.

3. You are Failing to Build Customer Loyalty for Your Supermarket

75% of consumers prefer buying from companies that have a reward program in place.

Moreover, a 5% growth in your customer retention rate can increase your profits by 25% to 95%.

Therefore, your ideal POS software for supermarkets must help you set up a customer

retention strategy. After that, you can reward your store customers with loyalty points and personalized discounts. Furthermore, you can record customer data and purchase history for personalized promotions.

More than 65% of your supermarket business is most likely to come from existing customers. Therefore, if your POS isn’t helping you manage customer loyalty programs, consider upgrading it.

Also Read: Store inventory management Best Practices

4. Your Supermarket Software Provides Inadequate Reporting

A crucial part of supermarket management is data-backed decision-making. In the same vein, you must know your best-selling products, top-selling stores, inventory damage data, staff productivity, etc.

Is your current POS system offering these business-critical reports? And is it assisting you with data-backed decision-making?

If not, you must consider upgrading to advanced POS software for supermarkets.

Some of the key retail reports that your POS system must generate for you include:

• Top-selling inventory across stores
• Slow-moving inventory and inventory shrinkage data
• Sales across different stores, months, and peak times
• Repeat sales data and best-performing customer loyalty programs
• Best-performing and worst-performing promotions or deals
• The individual user and staff performances

5. You Witness Abandoned Carts and Long Queues at Tills

If you are witnessing abandoned shopping carts and a slow checkout process, your POS isn’t doing its job right.

You may experience these inefficiencies owing to factors like:

• Outdated payment processing, where your existing POS isn’t compatible with mobile wallets and digital payments.
• Your POS doesn’t offer features to hold, prioritize or deprioritize billing processes between customers.

• Supermarket software isn’t compatible with the upgraded hardware.
• Your POS doesn’t allow you to create quick buttons for faster transactions and billing.
• Your POS doesn’t allow you to display related products, substitute products, or variants.
• It doesn’t allow the till operators to showcase upsell or cross-sell offers at the time of checkout.

Each of these limitations belittles your in-store shopping experience. Most importantly, it affects overall sales. Therefore, it is a crucial sign for you to upgrade to a feature-rich POS software.

6. You Are Witnessing Inefficient Customer Support

Your POS Software for Supermarket remains at the center of your business management.

That said, it needs to be up & running at all times.

Imagine you face a bug or downtime in your software on a busy shopping weekend. In conclusion, you try to connect with your POS provider, but their support team just keeps you waiting.

As a result, you can lose thousands of dollars in sales. In addition to that, it will also affect your customer experience.

Therefore, you need a POS software provider who brings prompt support into the picture.

The provider must be able to arrange efficient call support 24×7 and also on-premise support.

Many providers now offer dedicated account managers for efficient assistance.

Moreover, they should provide enough Help data on their site to refer to and resolve common issues. In short, if your current provider isn’t in line with these points, you must switch to a credible POS provider.

7. You are Struggling to Manage Your Multiple Stores

Do you have to physically run back & forth between your multiple stores to keep a check on processes and data?

If you are shaking your head, you must consider a POS system upgrade. 

The lack of multi-store pos features welcomes many critical inefficiencies in supermarket management.

After that, you have to allocate crucial dependencies to your store managers.

Moreover, you would have a limited view of your staff productivity.

It also raises security concerns around access management and inventory management.

Moreover, a significant part of your time goes into manually tracking processes across multiple stores.

It’s better to upgrade to supermarket software that brings forth easy multi-store management.

You must be able to centrally manage data, accesses, promotions, and inventory across stores. Moreover, your system must intuitively scale with the no. of stores and store size.

The Step Ahead

The step ahead would be to assess your POS for these 7 signs as discussed above. Furthermore, you could evaluate how the inefficiencies (if any) are impacting your business & sales.

If you are compromising at the cost of your sales, consider switching to a feature-rich POS. Also, check Ari POS Software for Supermarket, and you might have to look no further!