Retail Portal: The Point of Sale Software

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Retail Portal The Point of Sale Software
This article is for business owners who have
brick and mortar shops. You have already taken a
big step opening a physical shop in a time where
the ecommerce environment is dominant. You
understand the value of face-to-face interaction
with your customers. This helps you maintain a
much more personal relationship with them.
The place where you interact with your customers
the most is your point-of-sale station.
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You can choose the hardware that is most
convenient for you. It can be based on the
number of devices/machines you need and where
you want to place them. You can choose between a
tablet and a computer/laptop. This hardware then
defines certain aspects of how the software will
function/or the interaction agent of the
software mouse or touch. Now lets look into a
software that can help you better your POS
station interaction a retail portal that is a
customer portal solution. Not only does it
enhance your customer relationship, but such a
portal can also provide greater visibility in
multiple aspects like employee productivity,
vendor management, customer communication,
product sales, and whatnot. In addition to the
retail portal software, the POS system will have
certain hardware modules to connect with like
payment tools and a bill-printing device. But the
foundation of this retail portal is your
Dynamics CRM and your inventory management. So
lets look at what all you can manage with a
retail portal and how it can grow your business
substantially
- Payment Integration
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• Customer Directory (for repeat customers)
• Employee Management
• Informative Dashboard
• Invoice Management
• Vendor Management
• 1. Payment Options
• Payments are no longer limited to magstripe or
  EMV chip cards. Near-Field Communication or NFC
  technology in phones and smartwatches has
  enabled us to carry around virtual cards and
  money in our regular devices. Therefore, your
  POS system will require connections with NFC
  enabled payment terminals.
• Hardware aside, the retail portal software will
  be able to create invoices and have your
  accounting specifics integrated. It will be able
  to accept payments via multiple payment
  gateways. Another useful function that it can
  have is coupons and promotions. You can apply a
  coupon code for discounts on the bills during
  discount campaigns.

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2. Customer Directory With a CRM customer portal
in the form of a retail portal, you can run a
membership program for your customers. Members
can get special benefits like priority supply and
first access to sales, point collection credit
and longer exchange and return periods. With a
customer directory, you can also note down their
frequent purchases, and product specifications.
You can notify them once a product they want is
back in stock. And the use cases are
countless. If you dont want to have a membership
program, you can use a customer directory for
your walk-in customers as well. This can help
you build future email campaigns and ad
campaigns that can help you understand your
customers
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• and their needs. Targeted marketing begins when
  you know whom to target.
• Employee Management
• The retail portal can have an integrated
  employee management system. This way it can only
  unlock for employees. These systems can work as
  employee check-in, check out systems too.
  Another thing that you can track is, which
  employee was on duty when each item was sold.
  This makes it easier to check employee
  performance.
• You can also assign role-based access to this
  portal to your employees. Everyone can have
  access to invoice generation, catalog
  management, inventory view access and
  modification rights to the customer directory.
  Whereas managerial employees can have rights to
  approve leaves, arrange shifts for other
  employees and create sales reports.
• Informative Dashboard
• Since each employee has their own account, they
  can also have a personal dashboard for quick
  information. This dashboard will have details
  like their shift schedule, leaves, working
  hours, break hours, etc. Along with this, it will
  also have access to the customer directory and
  the inventory.

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The inventory module on the dashboard lets them
quickly check if a product is running low or if
a perishable product is nearing its expiration
date. The dashboard also has details like the
products they have sold, the discount coupons
they have offered and the invoices they have
made. 5. Invoice Management With such an
advanced system, it will be convenient to do
away with paper invoices too. You can use the
customer directory to email/SMS invoices
directly to them and save a copy in their
accounts on your CRM. Since this is a CRM
customer portal, you can also give customers
their own
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credentials, so they can see their purchase
history and invoices. While creating an invoice,
the retail portal can show complementary items
to the one that a customer is buying. This can
help the employee at the desk to upsell or
cross-sell items. 6. Vendor Management The
retail portal can also act as a great tool for
vendor management. When you see a dip in the
stock of a certain product, you can simply send
an alert to the vendor to restock your
inventory. With the POS system being your
connection with the purchases, you can also send
sales reports to your vendors to share how their
products are doing in the market. Such real-time
and periodical feedback can help vendors make
better decisions in terms of which store needs
what amount of products and if they need to make
any changes in their products. Point-of-sale
customer portal solutions go beyond writing up a
bill now. It can aid you to build a better
relationship with your customer and can make
your busiest day easier to handle. Your
employees will not call in sick for no reason
and your customers will come back.
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Elevate your store point-of-sale system from just
a screen to your favorite employee with the
integration of a retail version Dynamics 365
portal.
Source h ttps//www.crmjetty.com/blog/retail-port
al-the-point-of- s ale-software/
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