How does a point of sale system compare with a cash register

Many different stores across the world have cash registers. If you are one of them why should you consider upgrading to a point of sale system?

Benefits of a cash register

1. Cash registers are less expensive than a point of sale system
2. Cash registers are simple to use because all you have to do is ring up the price on the price label

While to some extent the above two statements are correct there is still another side to consider.

1. While a cash register may be less expensive up front, what are the real costs versus a point of sale?

A cash register cannot track your stock levels and most important your margins. Retail store operation is all about knowing what stock is moving and maintaining your margins on this stock. It sounds simlpe that to be profitable all you need to do is sell the majority of your stock for more than you paid for it. This task however is not so easy to implement. You need access to information that tells you what stock is selling, what stock is not selling and what margin you have on this stock. 10 of the same items on the shelf could have a different cost price depending on when and from where they were purchased.

This need for information is where a cash register fails miserably. All a cash register can do is record how much you sold an item for not what it costs you. The cash register cannot tell you anything about the stock movement or the margins. This is where a point of sale system which may have cost you more money at the   start saves you thousands and thousands of dollars. What a point of sale system provides the business owner is instant access to information which they can use to make business decisions.

What about the cost of labelling products. WIth a cash register you need to label each product with the price. This means that if you want to run a special you need to go and label all the items with the changed price. Then when the sale is over you have to go and re-lable them again.

One of the key benefits used by many retails stores using a point of sale is that they now use shelf labels rather than product price labels. This means when you run a sale all you need to do is change the one shelf label and you are done. In addition the point of sale system supports barcode scanning speeds the checkout process and ensure greater control of stock.

What about simplicity of use?

It is true the process of ready a price label and entering the price is as simple as you can get, athough from the point of sale system the scanning of a barcode is just as simple an efficient. What about if you make a mistake on the cash register, the process of removing the item from the sale takes more effort than in the point of sale where you have the ability to easily edit or remove lines items for the sale.

So why should I keep my cash register?
If oyou run a very simple operation that has minimal stock to control then I agree stick with your current cash register. Although I beleive in all cases the power of the informaton the point of sale system will provide makes the real cost of the  cash register to high.

There are many other benefits of a point of sale that you should consider. I will explain these in future articles.