Archive for July, 2011

Cover All Your Retail Bases

Despite the current economic slump, these are great times for retail businesses. The reason behind that sunny statement is that today’s retailers have more sales options than ever. They can sell from a storefront, through traditional mail order, or on the World Wide Web.

But with this many points of sale (POS), most businesses will require some sort of retail pos system that can integrate the logistics of brick and mortar, mail, and Internet operations. Fortunately, there are a number of applications designed specifically to serve this ever growing group of multifaceted retail operations.

But how does an integrated system differ from a traditional mail order manager or inventory management system?

For starters, an integrated system does everything from one point. That means every part of the system is on the same upgrade schedule. This puts an end to patchwork fixes and data migration challenges.

Also, any system that handles online transactions requires its own pos online software that allows credit card processing. Too many small businesses have relied on multiple processing systems when using just one is substantially more efficient.

Branching out a retail enterprise to new business models can be very challenging. But today’s integrated logistics software systems make taking the leap a lot easier.