Sales are great, but the bottom line is king. A healthy profit isn’t just about selling, it’s also about controlling costs. And if your business is struggling in this area, it might be time to let an advanced ePOS system help out.
Whether you’re running an independent clothing store or a cafe, and
Minimise Wastage
Wastage and shrinkage are enemies of profit. Whether you’re losing stock through theft, expired use by dates or poor inventory management, your ePOS system can alert you to the issues before they cost your business money. Your expected inventory is adjusted after every sale and delivery, so you should be able to see where you stand on wastage at any given moment.
Imagine you’re selling chocolate bars in a coffee shop. You notice that a batch of them is due to expire in a week, so you obviously want to sell them before you have to throw them away. An ePOS system can be programmed to deliver a promotional prompt to the server on every sale. Reprogram the system with a discounted price, and encourage all your employees to offer every customer a chocolate bar with their coffee.
Setting Prices
There’s a fine line between maximising profits and putting shoppers off when setting prices. Set them too low, and you’re essentially throwing money away. Set them too high, however, people will simply look elsewhere. An ePOS system tracks sales of individual lines over a long period of time. From the reports you receive, you can identify the most attractive price points that generate the highest margins.
Efficient Scheduling
For many brick-and-mortar businesses, labour is the single largest cost being managed. Again, there’s a fine balance to be struck here. Understaff your business, and you’ll lose out on sales — or fail to meet the service expectations of your customers. Overstaff, however, and you’re throwing money away needlessly.
Scheduling is a complex process. There may be several peak trading times in a single day. Factor in issues such as minimum shift-lengths, breaks and training, and creating an efficient rota can be difficult. But an advanced ePOS system can extrapolate all of your sales-by-hour information. And by cross-referencing employee data, it can create draft schedules that make economic sense.
Hone Your Sales Techniques
It often pays to favour high-margin products over low-margin items. But not always. For example, imagine you’re selling burgers in your restaurant. You have a basic offering, as well as a premium burger that delivers a significantly higher margin. Your ePOS system will tell you which of these burgers is delivering the most profit to your business.
If sales of the cheaper option are delivering more overall profit, you might need to change the expensive burger in order to make it more appealing. Alternatively, you may need to train your staff on the art of upselling.
Modern ePOS systems deliver reports that tell you everything you need to know about the buying habits of your customers. By understanding in great details what people are looking for, you can tailor your line-up and your special offers accordingly. Use your gross margin reports to dictate the products you offer your customers.
Take the Human Error Out of Ordering
A single digit in the wrong box can often result in a delivery you just don’t need. Ordering errors and poor judgment are two of the biggest reasons for waste and inflated inventories. But you can take the human error and guesswork out of ordering by leaving it in the capable hands of your ePOS system.
Based on real-time, historic and seasonal sales data, the system can make sales forecasts. And based on your current stock levels, it can compile orders that take advantage of sales opportunities without tying up precious cash.
A modern ePOS system does involve a significant investment. But this is money your business can make back in a matter of months — through the increased profit margins you can look forward to.
Rob Gamage is Managing Editor of Modern Retail. Combining many years of experience in publishing with a keen interest in small business and entrepreneurship, Rob is passionate about sharing interesting and inspiring content with retailers to help them grow.
