What is a POS System?

POS stands for Point Of Sale.

This can be defined as the merchandising aids, displays and business transactions.

In here, we will be talking about the hardware and software that runs both the front counter and back office operations of your business.

In a small souvenir shop, a basic POS system would consist only of a computer, cash register (can have a built-in cash drawer), receipt printer and the appropriate POS software. A service organization, like a lawn care company, wouldn’t need be a cash drawer or a receipt printer.

Although, they might want a laser printer for their service invoices.

Then again, you can easily customize a POS system for your business needs.

The centeral nerve of your Retail POS system is the computer running the POS software.

We understand the temptation to use an older computer or perhaps those really low cost computer models available at “superstores”.

But remember, once up and running, your business will be depending on these cheap equipments, so a good quality computer is very important. 

All custom built-systems use high quality, name brand parts and you can depend on it for many years!

This also goes for all the other POS components.

Your basic cash drawer may be able to get the job done, but the heavy duty models are built to last longer.

A CCD barcode scanner is more reliable than the old pencil type wands, but they’re still designed to work with flat, easy-to-read barcodes.

About laser scanners, they not only have a greater range, but they also have the ability to scan barcodes on wrap around bottles, bags or follow irregular shapes much better than the CCD models.

While barcode scanners are improving, so is the printer technology. The workhorse of the industry used to be dot-matrix printers, and they’re still fairly popular, but thermal printers are faster, quieter and reasonably priced.

Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS’s), or battery back-ups, are affordably priced and can keep your business up and running during short outages and power glitches. Remember, you will be depending a lot on this equipment. If you’re going to be using it a lot, do not hesitate to use the extra money and get the heavy duty models and UPS units.

A retail POS system does not only give you control over your transactions, but it also puts a wealth of info at the palm of your hands.

Imagine being able to compare year to date and month to date sales transactions with just a few keys. A database of your customers can be a powerful marketing tool.

Easily track inventory list, automatic creation of order lists and being able to adjust quantities based on customer demands are just a few of what POS systems can do for you.

In short, POS systems can keep you on the race and not get left behind.

For more information to help you choose the right retail point of sale system provider visit Retail-POS-Solutions and you will receive information on a system designed for your specific business and retail business needs.

The author of this article is a retail POS sytem professional who has been counseling businesses of all sizes from single locations to national chains for over 20 years.