The Simply Sophisticated Blog

Today’s technology offers a number of opportunities for an ICB owner to market and manage their business in an effective and profitable way. For that matter, all ICB owners need to carefully review their current business strategy and make sure that, as part of their long-term planning, they have a big portion of it devoted to technology. In the coming years, not only will technology enhance the growth of your business, it is going to become a necessary component of the day to day operation and without it, your business survival could be in question.

A plan can be detailed and sophisticated or it can be an overview of the general areas which need review. While it will be difficult for the average ICB to create a very detailed plan by themselves, most owners can at least create a general overview with just a little bit of their time, some research and basic learning which should develop enough skill to give you the needed tools to get started.

Most of the research will be on the Internet. You can go to the sites like Google, Bing, Yahoo or many others and ask questions and find answers. By asking basic questions about the different aspects of your company you will get back a lot of answers that will give you the ability to ask more detailed questions on specific areas of the business.

Once you have developed the group of more detailed questions you will then be able to start to ask the experts questions which will give you answers that you will allow you to start developing your general technology implementation plan.

To get the more detailed answers you will need to go back on the Internet and start to search out the experts. You will find that you will be able to go to websites like ours, www.trgowthsolutions.com  where you will find a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page to get some of your answers. More importantly, you will be able to ask additional questions. This is common on many of the technology websites on the Internet and with the proper amount of time and effort, you will have developed a better understanding of what is happening in the tech world and what are some of the many opportunities that you can and should take advantage of.

While we realize this whole process can be time consuming and a somewhat difficult task, the end results will be worth it. You will also have learned a tremendous amount of technology information which is going to help you make the proper decisions as you move forward with this process.

Generally, when done properly, the cost of technology will be paid back from the cost savings from reduced operating expenses as well as from additional sales profits you achieve when you have completed the technology implementation plan. So any knowledge that you can gain during this planning process is worth while and is important to the successful completion of the final technology program.

This exercise is important even if at some point you bring in a technology consultant. Obviously, the more you have learned the more help you will be able to provide in getting the maximum results and all the benefits that come from the plan.

Retailers have a lot on their plate, including customer service, inventory and cash management, new product searches, staffing, bills, and much more. Trying to manage all of these things while operating a store is a handful at a minimum and a nightmare at the worst.

Traditionally, retailers have managed sales and cash on hand with an electronic cash register, and they’ve used spreadsheets or accounting packages to try to track inventory, taxes, payroll, and other items.  These methods work, but are labor intensive and do not give retailers much insight into important items like sales trends, customer behavior, shrinkage or staffing needs.

Point of sale systems are designed to help retailers manage all of these things inside one system, saving time, money, and effort, and reducing errors.  A good point of sale system allows a retailer to reduce transaction times at the counter and also capture customer information so that you can track an individual’s purchases and provide targeted offers, coupons, and other marketing activities.  It will also manage sales and inventory quantities in real time, so you know exactly what you have in stock at all times, and when you need to re-order certain items.

A good point of sale system will also track employees’ behavior and hours worked so you can make staffing decisions and reduce your overhead while providing better customer service. Then, at the end of the day, automated reporting allows you to get a quick, accurate snapshot of your sales and profits so you know how the business is doing.

In summary, a point of sale system should provide these benefits:

-Easy inventory management

-Automated reporting

-Reduced overhead and increased profits

-Improved customer service and loyalty

-Better employee management

If you and your business could benefit from any of the above, then a retail point of sale system is worth a look.

The term “Hyperlocal” has been around for at least two decades and like most of us, it is not a word we generally heard many folks using until just recently. If you are a news reporter, real estate agent or someone involved in local community activities the word has been heard often. However, if you are involved in technology or specifically, technology marketing, the word hyperlocal has just recently started to be used and is becoming a frequently heard term in development within the Mobile Platform industry as it continues to expand.

So what is it and why should the ICB community be very much aware of this new trend? The older working definition of hyperlocal is “online news or content services pertaining to a town, village, a zip code, or other small geographically defined community.” Inside the technology marketing community, it is defined as “a group of potential mobile customers in a city or town, a neighborhood, a zip code or some other small physically defined area that merchants have an interest in developing sales opportunities.

The ICB community, by its very nature and without the knowledge of the word “Hyperlocal,” over its history, has always tried to develop its customer base, which is, for the most part, the definition of what the technology marketing folks now refer to be as hyperlocal. There are a number of recent articles that have been written explaining how difficult it has been to identify these markets in the past but today, because the major merchants have realized its value and the buying consumers have embraced the use of a mobile platform this problem is going away.  And that is a great benefit for the ICB market.

You ask why? Well, because of advances in mobile technology it is now possible for consumers, on the go, using a smartphone, tablet or even a small laptop with Wi-Fi can actually find local merchants for items they wish to purchase by searching the Internet and then using available GPS to show them how to find the location and just how close it actually is. How great is that?

Now for the ICB community, if they take the time to become fully embraced in the Internet, using properly designed websites, social media, Internet business directories along with some of the other tools that are quickly being developed within the marketing industry they will be on the same level as the major merchants. When a consumer does the hyperlocal search, their businesses will come up in the results just as easily as anyone else. When that happens, the ICB has an equal, if not a better, chance of the local consumer visiting them. That’s how great it is.

For years, those ICB members who needed a POS system because of the size and nature of their business had limited choices with large price tags. The smaller ICB who did not have an absolute need of a POS system but could have benefited from one had to stick with a simple cash register system because they could not justify the complex nature or the cost of the systems. Today, because of Cloud Computing and Mobile POS, a POS system is now available to all ICB owners.

The great benefit of today’s Mobile POS is they are no longer a closed system that is hard to install, difficult to operate or tough to get data out of them. Instead, the mobile systems are easy to install, and you can get them up and running within minutes. The systems are simple to use and provide smarter operating procedures as well as better availability to current information and stored data. Best of all they are now at a cost that any ICB that wishes to use a POS system can do so.

However, that’s not all, there are many other key benefits all ICB accounts can profit from in using the new Mobile POS. They have become a considerably more useful business tool than traditional POS systems. For that matter, don’t be surprised when the industry starts to call them something other than Point of Sale (POS) systems because in actual practice, they are providing much more services and opportunities than just ringing up a sales transaction and that is why it is time for all ICB operations to have a Mobile POS. So for now we will continue to call them POS systems, but it is important to realize it is now only a name for a total business-operating tool and not a system that just rings up sales.

One of the best changes is that the Mobile POS system can handle any type of transaction using a combination of a traditional front-end cash register, telephone orders, fax and mail orders, orders placed on a mobile device as well as e-commerce orders, and this can all be handled with a tablet. In fact, using your tablet you could place an order on your Mobile POS from any place that you happen to be, your home office, out at a customer’s home, at a flea market even without a live Internet connection.

The system gives you the ability to maintain a full customer database with all pertinent information such as address, telephone number, email address and just about any other information you think has value for your business. You now have a complete history of all the purchases made by your customers, and you can have an active file of all pending orders to ensure nothing gets missed. You can add a loyalty program, special coupons or pricing for your most active customers. On the business side, the system can actually place orders to your vendors to ensure that you inventory is always at the level you want to keep them at.

You can use the system with the available information to do all your Internet marketing and handle all the email campaigns you wish to do. It will even allow for social media marketing.

The Mobile POS can keep track of your employee scheduling, do the related payroll, prepare your quarterly payroll reports and then tie everything to your bookkeeping system or just sent it along to your accountant if you prefer.

The bottom line is a new Mobile POS tool can handle most of the business side of your business and giving you needed time to get back to the selling side of your business.

Now is the time you really need to determine just how much you want to keep doing your back office functions yourself or to let technology help. The systems are available to do these tasks at a very reasonable price. Take a look, the investments in time as well as in new technology well give you a great return for that effort. Technology can truly be made simply sophisticated.