Cash Registers vs. POS Systems For many years, cash registers were the only real option when completing sales in a store, shop, or restaurant. But with the advent of technology, the options have now expanded to a variety of systems, allowing you to find the one that works best for your business. …
4 Ways Businesses Can Build Customer Loyalty (and Why it Matters)
Shoppers have infinite options for services they seek, products they buy in person and online, and within the hospitality and entertainment industries. Because of this, the need to build customer loyalty has never been greater. More than ever, businesses need the value that repeat customers bring to …
Streamline Your Business Operations with a POS System
In today's fast-paced environment, businesses must continuously improve their efficiency and productivity to remain successful. A point-of-sale (POS) system is one of many pieces of technology that can help companies achieve this. A POS system is so much more than a means to the checkout process. In …
The Future of Retail: Integrating Online and In-Store Shopping
Online shopping is nothing new and has become a part of life for most of modern society. Online shopping experienced significant growth, especially in the past few years, particularly due to the global pandemic. As we continue to move forward, consumers and business owners alike wonder what we can …
3 Tips to Maintain Retail Holiday Success
The holiday shopping season has come and gone, and retailers are looking ahead to the new year. If your store or brand had a successful retail holiday season, you may be wondering how to maintain that momentum in the quieter months to come. We have a few tips! How to Maintain Retail …
Take Charge of Omnichannel for Retail Success
Today’s retail customers are constantly moving between in-person and online shopping. A shopper may browse online and purchase in-store, or order online and exchange in-store, to list a few examples. Whatever the scenario, it’s important for retailers to be aware of their store’s omnichannel …
Use POS Analytics to Increase Holiday Sales
Holiday shopping season is here, and retailers are working hard to overcome the challenges of the last few years and finish 2022 out strong. A point of sale system can help by providing robust data about products, customers, and trends, providing guidance that will help maximize customer spend. Here …
Is Your POS System Ready for the Holiday Shopping Season?
At Retail Tech, our retail customers are our #1 priority. We want to help you have a successful holiday shopping season and end the year strong. A functional, efficient, and up to date point of sale system will help you achieve that. For a limited time, Retail Tech is offering Holiday Point of …
How to Create a Customer-Focused Return Policy
Today’s retail customers are shopping online more than ever. There are several reasons for this – ease and convenience, the continuing fluctuation of the pandemic, wider availability, and more. Although online shopping can boost retailer sales, it also leads to an increase in returns and exchanges. …
What is Compassionate Retail?
Amidst rising prices, supply chain challenges, and economic wariness, it’s a tough time for both retailers and consumers. As we navigate a changing retail landscape, we should work together to make life and business easier for all of us. That’s the concept behind compassionate retail, a new movement …
How to Update Retail Merchandising for Spring and Summer
Retailers are always working a season (or more) ahead. Holiday preparations start during the summer months, spring styles arrive in winter, and brands start working on back to school before the previous school year even ends. As the spring and summer shopping seasons get in full swing, here are a …
7 Benefits of Point of Sale Systems
Today’s point of sale systems are highly functional, with capabilities far beyond processing orders and taking payments. POS systems collect, organize and present information that helps retailers and restaurant owners save time, money and effort. In short, point of sale makes business operations …
Retail Lessons from Convenience Stores
In the vast retail landscape, convenience stores are easily overlooked. However, if you’re a retailer or small business searching for new ways to build your customer base and increase sales, you may want to look at the practices of the modern convenience store. The c-store model has takeaways …
4 Marketing Tips for Retail and Small Business
There’s a lot of buzz about digital marketing these days. And while digital efforts – email, blogging, social media – can have a huge impact on a retail store or small business’ success, it’s important to maintain those more traditional marketing tactics. To make it easier, we’re sharing a few …
5 Necessities for Retail Technology
The retail environment has been changing for many years, but the pandemic significantly accelerated those changes. But while customer behavior has shifted, many foundational practices and preferences remain the same. As we move through and out of the pandemic, retail technology will play a …
How to Avert Supply Chain Challenges Using Point of Sale
By now, most U.S. retailers and consumers have felt the effects of the supply chain issues that have plagued much of the world for the last several months. As the holiday shopping season approaches, brands and retailers are working overtime to secure the products they need to sell in order to meet …
What Should Retailers Keep in the Post-Pandemic Era?
As in most industries, there is no “back to normal” for retail after the pandemic. Customer behaviors and expectations have changed significantly over the last 18 months, and many of those changes are here to stay. So what should retailers keep in the post-pandemic era, and what should they leave …
How to Increase Sales in the Checkout Line
The checkout line is one of the best and easiest ways to increase customer engagement and spend. And because it’s generally the last step in a shopping trip, the checkout can either make or break a customer’s in-store experience. But many busy retailers overlook the checkout line and cash wrap. …
As Shoppers Return, Focus on Experience
The pandemic turned all of us into online shoppers, whether that’s our preferred way of shopping or not. Many people like shopping in person, and, as vaccines become more readily available, are eager to get back to their favorite stores. But COVID restrictions are still in effect in many parts of …
How POS Data Can Improve Digital Marketing
When doing digital marketing, it’s easy to get caught up in likes, retweets and subscriptions. All of those are important to some degree, but for retailers, the ultimate goal of digital marketing is simple: to sell more products and increase overall revenue. By integrating marketing efforts with …
6 Lessons From 2020 for Retail Success in 2021
After a tumultuous year, retail store owners and managers are beginning 2021 with some degree of clarity on what the year will hold. Hopefully, retail will look more like it did pre-pandemic, but it’s likely that current conditions – capacity limits, mask requirements, and customer hesitation – will …
Get Ready for Holiday Shopping with a Register Health Check
At Retail Tech, retail is our business. Over the past several months, we’ve heard from our customers about the significant challenges and severe impacts that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on their businesses in 2020. Retail Tech wants to help retail stores end the year strong. As retailers prepare …
How to Transition to a New Rewards Program
A loyalty or rewards program can be a powerful tool for a retail store or restaurant. Customers will feel known and valued, and the prospect of saving money keeps them coming back. But what happens when a loyalty program is no longer a cost-effective solution for a business? Making a change could …
What is Unified Commerce?
And how can it help retail stores boost business in the new retail landscape? The shift from physical retail toward e-commerce was well underway before 2020. But when the coronavirus pandemic hit, with store closures and stay home orders, the move to digital retail went full speed ahead. Now, as …
Managing Returns and Exchanges as Retail Reopens
Returns and exchanges are an inevitable aspect of retail, and that is truer now than ever. Studies show that e-commerce has up to three times the return rate of brick and mortar retail. Stores that pivoted to online sales or curbside pickup during coronavirus closures may be facing an influx of …
Save Time and Boost Efficiency with Point of Sale
A point of sale system is a retailer’s best friend. Not only can it perform the basic function of a retail store or restaurant – processing payment – but it can streamline processes, improve efficiency, and ultimately save a significant amount of time and money. Here are a few ways a point of …
Focus on Customer Service for Holiday Shopping Success
At the heart of everything in retail – from conversion and sales to customer loyalty and brand reputation – is one essential, often overlooked tool: store associates. Customer service is a hugely important part of the customer journey. It can have a significant impact on store performance. It’s also …
Use Your POS Data to Improve Product Performance
Retail analytics and performance metrics can be powerful tools for understanding customer behavior, seasonal trends, inventory issues and all other facets of retail management and operations. One benefit of using these tools is that they are already available to store owners and managers – in your …
Best Tips to Run Effective Promotions
Sales, specials and promotions can be an effective tool, both for drawing new and existing customers into a store, and getting them to spend more once they’re in. But when promotions are executed broadly, haphazardly, or without a specific goal or target in mind, they can actually hurt the bottom …
Build Customer Loyalty Through Returns
Returns are expensive, disruptive, and time-consuming, but they’re an inevitable fact of life for retailers. A 2018 survey by the National Retail Federation found a median return rate of 10 percent in U.S. retail stores. This adds up to about $370 billion in returned merchandise. Further, return …
Use Retail Trends to Improve the Customer Experience
As we move into the new year, retailers are focused on the bottom line, working to continue the fight against online shopping and improve in-store sales. There are many debates over the best way to do this, but ultimately, it’s pretty simple. By paying attention to retail trends and continually …
Focus on Inventory and Pricing to Maximize Sales
Shoppers tend to have heightened expectations when shopping at a brick and mortar retail store. This can be both good and bad for retailers who are looking to maximize sales. On the positive side, a happy shopper who had previously only shopped online, but who has a positive in-store experience, is …
Turn Holiday Shopping into Year-Round Success
The holiday season creates many opportunities for small business success. During this busy shopping season, especially with the recent movement to “shop small,” local retailers can attract new customers, increase sales, and build momentum for the year to come. However, those things don’t just happen …
Maximizing the Checkout Experience
In today’s retail market, it’s important to take advantage of every opportunity to increase sales and build customer engagement. However, many retailers aren’t fully maximizing one of the most important aspects of the customer experience: the checkout. In a recent study of grocery customers, …
Using Retail Analytics to Drive Sales
Analytics are a key indicator in any type of business, but they’re especially important when sales and customer satisfaction are key to success. We’ve previously written a blog post on the importance of evaluating restaurant analytics, but, of course, restaurants and retail stores can be quite …
Cut Costs and Save Money with a POS System
Not only can a POS system do more than a traditional cash register, but it could also improve the efficiency, organization and overall function of a retail store or restaurant. This, in turn, could improve business operations, saving a significant amount of time, effort and money. But how, …
Refresh Your Retail Merchandising for Spring
Spring is on the way, which means that retail stores are launching new product lines and in-store displays focused on the upcoming summer months. Spring is a time for new beginnings, which offers a great opportunity to review and think your overall retail merchandising strategy and …
New Tactics Are Essential As Retail Landscape Shifts
The increasing popularity of online shopping, combined with years of chronic overbuilding and shifting consumer preferences, has led to what some are calling the “retail apocalypse.” While the word “apocalypse” is probably much too dramatic, it’s true that traditional retail is experiencing a …
In Today’s Retail Industry, Personal Connection is Key
It seems that every article or thinkpiece that discusses the retail industry has one message: retail is dying. But, as a company that works closely with retailers of all different sizes and in different markets, we at Retail Tech know that is simply not true. Retail is changing, yes, and business …
Adapting to a Changing Retail Industry
There’s no denying it: the retail industry is changing. In fact, some experts claim that retail – or, more accurately, traditional brick and mortar retail – is dying. And in the face of falling profits, store closings and bankruptcies, it may seem as if that’s the case. But retail can’t – and …
How to Change a Loyalty Program without Angering Customers
If you’re starting a new business, it’s common to want a rewards program that offers big incentives to your customers. A high-value loyalty program is a great way to get new customers in the door and keep them coming back. But this could come back to bite you down the road, when your business is on …
Consumer Trends Call for New Retail Strategies
Reinventing Retail for 2020 Shopping is a large part of every culture. Whether it is getting the basics or going for the new and fun items, retail has been around for over 100 years. Shopping has evolved from the “mom and pop” shops to giant global corporations that offer just about anything. Now …