Point of Sale

A point of sale (POS) is literally the location at which a sales transaction can take place. In retail stores, it is the sales counter. At car rental agencies, it can be the parking lot. At a yardsale, it can be the cardtable with the cashbox.

The term point of sale is sometimes used to mean the point of sale software or point of sale system of a business, so now sometimes when people want to indicate the original meaning of point of sale, they might use the phrase point of purchase.

A point of sale really only needs two things, a cashbox or tender for making change, and some method of receipting. But we've gone beyond the bazaar days, and today a point of sale will have a variety of tools to help the merchant take your money.

The cash register today is a computer system with point of sale software installed on it. A good system will not only keep track of money in and out throughout the sales day, but inventory, trends and times. A barcode reader is becoming more and more necessary, as is a credit/debit card scanner, independent or incorporated into the cash register system.

A receipt printer and a bagging system complete the typical point of purchase area.

The sales clerk, or sales associate, mans the point of sale system. He or she needs to be trained on operating all the components of the sales system software, as well as good sales protocols - the MacDonald's mantra 'you want fries with that?' is an example of trying to extend the sale to include items the customer might want if it were offered to them.

Larger operations might be able to have one type of employee to make the sale on the sales floor and another to ring up the sale at the register, but in small businesses, all employees need to be well-versed in both aspects of selling.

Point of sale operations, the actual ringing up of the sale, needs to move fairly briskly if you don't want to lose sales. I have seen customers put merchandise back and walk out of a store in disgust when the line at the cash register was too long or not moving fast enough. When bottlenecks occur at the cash register, employees working the sales floor should move to the counter to assist in bagging, or in other ways unblocking the flow.

For increasing the average invoice, nothing beats the POS display. This is a rack of low-priced, usually high-margin, impulse items that customers will toss into their basket at the last minute before being rung up.

At grocery and convenience stores, the displays might be candy, gum, batteries, magazines... anything that people might buy on a whim. But impulse items can be almost anything that is small enough to fit on a sales counter rack and inexpensive enough to be easily added to a purchase without much mental debate.

Anything over five dollars is possibly not inexpensive enough, although in stores specializing in high-end goods, this figure will be higher. Press-on tattoos for kids, bookmarks, magnets, small toys for both kids and adults... the possibilities are literally endless.

Your point of purchase is a reflection of your business, and an image that your customers will take away with them. A messy, or worse, dirty counter is not going to reflect well on you. Inattentive sales clerks, equipment that malfunctions, bags that tear open - any of these calls for your immediate attention.

Your shop windows or interior displays will form your customers' first impressions of you, but your POS will form their last. Make it a good one, and they will be back.

• Demotivators In the Workplace
• Memo Layout
• 10 Best Home Based Businesses
• The Myths Of Entrepreneurship
• Unethical Business Practices

• Sample Resume Objective
• Memo Examples
• Resume Objective Examples
• Resume Objective Statements
• Sample of Letter of Request

• Franchise Business Opportunity
• Top Market Research Companies
• Tax on Sales
• Category:Business Operations
• Sales Tax