While electronic cash registers (ECRs) once sufficed as a way for retailers to process transactions, increased competition and, just as significantly, a need to conduct day-to-day operations in the most efficient way possible has turned the tides. Today’s merchants need point-of-sale systems that are not only computerized, but extremely rich in useful “extra” features.

Some of these essential features tie into basic transaction processing tasks. Take, for example, a multi-functional login screen that not only allows employees to clock in at the store for the day and securely log on to the point-of-sale system, but can also be used to access back-office functions, like reporting. This saves time and enables management to remain on the floor assisting customers, while simultaneously handling other duties. The end result: better use of managers’ time, but not at customers’ expense.

Other features are well worth having because they enhance transaction accuracy while further boosting customer throughput. With such capabilities in place, sale pricing and any applicable taxes are automatically calculated and displayed in a real-time running total.  “Hot keys” for common dollar amounts eliminate guesswork, although cash amounts can be quickly typed in.

Just as valuable—and functional—is a feature that, in addition to letting cashiers ring up customers’ purchases by simply scanning the barcode(s) on the product(s) bought, permits them to easily add any item that does not have a barcode to the transaction. Instead of proceeding through a series of complex steps that can add time to transactions, make a poor impression on customers and open the door to mistakes, employees only need to tap an icon depicting the non-barcoded merchandise on the point-of-sale system’s touch screen.

Cash Register Express™ from pcAmerica offers all of these features, and more. For more information, visit www.pcamerica.com.

Next up: More key point-of-sale solution features.

pcAmerica CEO, David Gosman, will be in air next week on his way to Costa Rica to attend this year’s RSPA INSPIRE Thought Leadership Summit. The Summit, held annually in various tropical locations, offers executive level education, first class networking events, and exciting excursion opportunities with fellow industry leaders. This year’s summit will take place from January 29th-February 1st at the Los Suenos Marriott Ocean and Golf Resort.

For those executives attending, they will have the opportunity to share ideas and expand their network. Featured speaker at the show will be Brett Harwood, a professional speaker and peak performance coach and self-published his first solo book, “The 5 Laws that Determine all of Life’s Outcomes.”

“The INSPIRE Summit has been a successful event for many years,” stated Gosman. “It’s a great opportunity for us to network with fellow executives and industry leaders.”

To learn more about pcAmerica, visit www.pcamerica.com.

pcAmerica, a leading developer of retail, restaurant, and fuel point of sale software, was recently selected as a winner of the Customer Engagement Award for Loyalty by Retail TouchPoints.

During a nomination process, winners were selected based on specific criteria including unique shopping/promotional offerings, customer engagement strategies, customer analysis and technology innovation.

The award signifies that pcAmerica, along with Tasti D-Lite, has taken the initiative to reach above the fray to being a higher level of service to their current and prospective customers.

Tasti D-Lite was originally using a manual “punch card” to acquire customer loyalty. When they decided to move to an electronic system, they chose pcAmerica’s Restaurant Pro Express software to integrate with a multi-site loyalty platform from Mercury Payment Systems. pcAmerica also aided Tasti D-Lite by creating their web portal so that customers can view their loyalty card balances online. To learn more about this award winning project, visit www.pcamerica.com/social-marketing.

Like all merchants, liquor store retailers need to have up-to-date inventory information on hand to ensure accurate stock levels and prevent merchandise shrink. Many retailers use manual methods to get the job done, perusing the shelves with pen and paper in hand, recording counts on paper, later entering them into a computerized system. These methods are not only time-consuming; they leave a wide margin for human error when information is transferred from hand-written documents to computerized records.

But that’s not all. In liquor stores, the receipt of deliveries often involves transporting merchandise from the door to the cash register for processing. This clutters up the area and makes for a disorganized appearance at the point of sale. And of course, it is rather inefficient.

Another option is to replace the manual liquor store inventory management procedures with a mobile solution to check in deliveries and tally merchandise quantities.   pcAmerica’s hand-held Pocket Inventory solution is a prime example.

Operating on Windows Mobile hand-held devices, Pocket Inventory has a “count” feature that allows staff to scan the bar code on each product and enter the quantity of that SKU in stock. Counts are automatically synchronized with pcAmerica’s Cash Register Express™ liquor store point of sale solution, and discrepancy reports can be generated to indicate where stock levels are excessive or inadequate. The procedure is fast and, just as importantly, entirely accurate; better, more informed buying decisions can be made based on real information instead of “educated guesses.”

Pocket Inventory also adds efficiency to delivery processing because purchase orders and direct store deliveries can be scanned in at the door rather than moved to the cash register area. Generating new orders from the hand-held takes just a few minutes and is mistake-free; store managers or owners simply scan the appropriate shelf labels and enter the purchase quantity.  The information “syncs” back to Cash Register Express™, making the process completely seamless. What’s more, there are no boxes and bottles to mar the appearance of the point of sale counter.

To learn more about Pocket Inventory and other features of pcAmerica’s point of sale system for liquor stores, visit www.pcamerica.com.

Liquor stores can be very profitable ventures, especially in an economic climate in which many consumers are entertaining or just relaxing at home rather than at their favorite bars and restaurants. But there’s also a potential downside to owning and operating such stores—and that is the risk of accidentally selling liquor and other age-restricted products, like tobacco, to individuals who are not old enough to purchase them.

While merchants have long relied on glancing at customers’ driver’s licenses or other identification to determine their age, this is not a wise idea—for several reasons. For one thing, false identification is not all that difficult for minors to obtain, and some “fake IDs” appear, to the naked eye, to be authentic. For another, store employees may not always remember to ask customers to show identification that bears a birth date before ringing up transactions involving age-restricted merchandise.

In recent years, software vendors such as pcAmerica have developed age verification solutions that can reduce the risks and penalties associated with the sale of liquor in liquor stores, if used properly. pcAmerica builds age verification capabilities into a liquor store’s point of sales system through the integration of a specialized bar code scanner—the Honeywell Xenon 1900 with EZDL age verification software. Bar codes can be affixed to those items that are age-restricted and require cashiers to check IDs prior to processing transactions.

As each age-restricted item is scanned, the system prompts cashiers to scan the customer’s driver’s license, and the point of sale system then determines if the customer is old enough to purchase the product.  With the age verification capability in use, “slip-ups” of all kinds can happen less frequently from the equation, providing merchants with more peace of mind.

The age verification system for liquor stores is part of pcAmerica’s feature-rich Cash Register Express™ point of sale solution. To find out more, visit www.pcamerica.com.

In today’s increasingly fast-paced and competitive environment, many liquor store owners are electing to install a pc-based POS system to help them better manage their business.

There are several airtight reasons for such a move. At the top of the list is the fact that a point of sale system addresses liquor store owners’ key concerns: rapid customer throughput, inventory control, and preventing the sale of age-sensitive products to minors. It also offers up a host of other benefits that come from achieving these goals.

Used together, pc-based POS systems, barcode scanners, and “hot keys” for commonly purchased items, allow transactions to be processed 50% faster than with conventional cash registers. This not only increases employee efficiencies in moving shoppers through the checkout line; it creates happier customers who will return to the same liquor store time and time again instead of going somewhere else for what they need.

Moreover, scanning makes checkout more accurate because employees do not have to manually enter prices into the system; the price of every item already “resides” in the point of sale system. The pole display informs customers of the amount they owe, so they are likely to have the cash out quickly, and the age verification bar code scanner reads the bar codes on the back of customers’ driver’s licenses to verify the customer’s age.

As for inventory control, with a complete point of sale system, liquor store owners can better serve their customers—and bolster their bottom line—by having the right product in place, at the right time. Replacing “paper-and-pencil” methods of recording inventory counts and processing deliveries with hand-held devices leads to accurate reporting and inventory-counting efficiencies, while computerized inventory reports facilitate the tracking of trends and seasonal sales patterns. With reports in hand, retailers can identify and order more of the liquor brands and varieties that generate the most profits, and fewer of the products that carry lower profits.

These capabilities, combined with other detailed reporting and customer tracking with loyalty plans, make pcAmerica’s Cash Register Express™ an ideal point of sale solution for liquor stores. For more information, visit www.pcAmerica.com.

Every retail business knows that in order to expand, it must run as efficiently and as smoothly as possible. In order to do that, it must start with the right point of sale software. Doc Popcorn, a  41 store gourmet popcorn chain based in Boulder, Colorado, realized that in order to expand, they had to replace their outdated electronic cash registers with a point of system that would allow ongoing flexibility, be designed to fit peripherals and easily customizable.

After researching the many potential point of sale systems, Doc Popcorn chose pcAmerica’s Restaurant Pro Express™ POS package. The solution, recommended by pcAmerica, included the Elo Touchsystems 15B1 All-in-One (AiO) Touchcomputer from TE Connectivity and Epson’s TM-T70 thermal receipt printer. Both products offer sleek, compact designs ideal for retail stores with minimal counter real estate.

Having the right point of sale software package makes all the difference when trying to grow your business. As Doc Popcorn found out, working with seasoned point of sale professionals like those at pcAmerica, can make purchasing a point of sale system that fits your business model easy. Doc Popcorn needed a solution that best fit their needs, and they got what they were looking for:  a point of sale setup that was small, but had all the functionality of a standard sized POS terminal.  The solution was perfect for their fast growing retail popcorn chain.

With the Doc Popcorn brand expanding quickly, the solutions offered by pcAmerica will standardize its technology, which in turn will enhance operations across all their franchise outlets.

To learn more about Restaurant Pro Express™ and how pcAmerica can help grow your business, visit www.pcamerica.com.

Summer passed way too quickly and the first stages of Fall are upon us, with Halloween and Thanksgiving just around the corner. After that, it’s the retail “holiday rush”—and there’s no better time than the present to start preparing for it. The following tips will help to start you off on the right track.

1.    Develop employee schedules and marshal adequate resources. Staffing shortages are bad enough during low and moderate “traffic” periods; and during the holiday rush, a lack of sufficient help can force harried, under-served customers to shop somewhere else.
2.    Check inventory levels. Re-order any impulse items and top sellers to maximize exposure. Sell gift cards? Make sure you have plenty of these, as well.
3.    Re-organize and clean the stock receiving and storage areas. Unless
staff can easily find inventory they cannot locate on the store floor, you run the risk of losing customers who have very specific ideas about what they will buy for each person on their list.
4.    Get creative. For example, devote a slow afternoon in October to developing a holiday gift guide to be posted on your store’s Web site or featured in an email campaign. This is part of a comprehensive suggested selling strategy.
5.    Ensure that your point of sale system is up to date and in working order. Don’t neglect peripherals that are connected to the unit—for example, the receipt printer and bar code scanner. Consider adding new system capabilities, such as layaway.

Installing point of sale software like Cash Register Express™ from pcAmerica–whose features facilitate employee scheduling, inventory-monitoring, and store surveillance, to name a few–is another way to survive and thrive in the holiday season. Learn more about the latest version of this software, and more, at www.pcamerica.com.

In the previous blog, we discussed the ways you can promote shopper loyalty through the digital world. While blogs are a great option, we have a few more ideas that might help.

In a slightly more sophisticated vein, consider developing such digital options as e-books, which you can make available for downloading from your Web site and/or Facebook page, and weekly or monthly e-newsletters, which can be emailed to customers who request “subscriptions” by joining your e-mail list. Like basic blogs, both involve a time investment more than a financial one. Remember that for maximum impact and so as not to appear promotional, all blog posts and e-newsletter articles should also be informative and somehow related to your business, but not entirely commercial in nature.

E-books can be compilations of blog posts and e-newsletters you’ve already produced, or completely new content. These are easily created—just convert the copy from a word processing file to a .pdf file.
And of course, there’s no sense spending time on digital content if no one knows about it. Spread the word through Facebook and Twitter, flyers distributed in-store, e-mail sign-up sheets at the counter, and employees.

Version 12.5 of pcAmerica’s Cash Register Express™ and Restaurant Pro Express™ retail and restaurant point of sale solutions feature several enhancements, including an email tool, that make it easier to decide what to focus on when developing free digital content, as well as to develop the content itself. For more information, visit www.pcamerica.com.

The old adage that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” need not—and probably shouldn’t—ring true in the retail and restaurant businesses. Why? Because customers have come to appreciate “freebies”–and are becoming far more likely than ever before to patronize establishments that offer them something for nothing than those that don’t.

Building customer strong customer relationships only starts at the point of sale. Offering digital “products” not only attract customers, but provide them with true value and, more importantly, cultivate shopper loyalty, is a great way to jump on the “free” bandwagon—at minimal cost to you for building that relationship with the customer. The simplest form of digital content is a blog, which can be set up for free using WordPress.com, Blogger.com, TypePad.com, or a similar web service. You may opt later on to use a professional design and hosting service, but even these are not unbearably expensive and are not absolutely necessary.

Once you’ve set up the blog, the investment is time to create one to three posts per week. You can include an occasional post or two about new merchandise or menu items being touted by your store or restaurant, but the bulk of the content should be more generic and helpful. For example, an apparel store owner might write a blog entry about the latest seasonal clothing trends, putting together unique outfits or even dealing with stains. A restaurant owner might share a recipe for his or her favorite homemade dish, thoughts about eating in general, healthy eating tips or the like.

If you are looking for even more ways to attract customers at little or no cost to you, we’ve got some ideas to share. Check out part two of this series to learn more.

To learn more about how to help your retail store or restaurant grow with with an point of sale software solution visit www.pcamerica.com.