Retail software is an important purchase for any small business running a retail store. Selecting the right retail software can make your business more efficient, increase sales, and improve customer satisfaction. Whilst picking the wrong بهترین نرم افزار اتوماسیون اداری can have just the opposite effect. Slowing processes down, limiting the number of sales you can make and causing your customers (and your staff) to become frustrated. So what factors are important to consider when selecting your retail software?
You can choose to either host the software yourself on your premises or access your software via an Internet browser (in the cloud). The advantage of having it on site is that if something goes wrong with the software then you can have immediate access to it in order to fix it yourself. This however requires that you have a certain amount of technological know-how as you will need to be able to perform any repairs yourself, or hire someone to do it for you. When you buy software that is on premise you normally pay an upfront fee with the option to pay for ongoing support if you so choose. Additionally, you will have to buy hardware, such as a server, for the software to run on, and a system for backing up your data in case of hardware failure. The onus will be on you to both secure and maintain your entire system, as well as to pay for and perform any upgrades of the software that are required.
Choosing web-based software means signing up to a SaaS (software as a service) model. This requires you to pay on a monthly basis rather than the large upfront costs associated with on premise software. Cloud software eliminates the need for you to purchase hardware, secure your systems, run backups or perform upgrades. The software company will do this for you. You are however reliant on a good Internet connection to be able to access your systems so if you opt for this solution you must budget for a high quality Internet package.
When selecting your retail software is essential that you work out how the different areas of your business will share data. The key systems you will need to receive data about the products you are selling are your inventory (what products have been sold, and how many you have left to sell), your accounts (how much did you sell your products for, and how much profit have you made) and your CRM (who did you sell the products too, and can you encourage them to buy from you again). If all these systems are working in harmony then your business will be much more efficient and you will start making more sales.
Ideally you want these three systems working together, integrating separate packages can be costly and so buying a pre integrated or all in one solution makes sense. Integrated retail software removes the need for you to transfer data between multiple software systems that may not necessarily be programmed in the same format. This will save you a lot of time and will also mean that all you systems are updated in real-time rather than waiting for you to do a data synchronisation for them to be able to update. So you, or your staff, won’t have to stay late anymore doing stock takes or updating accounts. It’s all done for you as it happens.
