Old Cash Registers Fail Retail Businesses

Cash registers have served retail well but their time is past. The needs of a retail business today are quite different today to the needs of even a few years ago. 

A business wanting to be competitive will need to be thinking of life after the cash register. 

Competition is tough, meaning that access to quality business data is essential. 
Business transacts at a faster pace, reinforcing the need for access to business data. 
Plenty of business is transacted electronically, making using a cash register a barrier to some business. 

Good Point of Sale software backed by professional support services, will provide just about any retail business with a better and more useful solution than could be achieved through an old cash register. 

But what is wrong with the old cash register What are the weaknesses which make it no longer the right tool for a retail business? Here is a starting point list of where I see old registers failing retail businesses. 

They generally do not track sales by employees, they also tend to not track every single item sold by barcode. These two failings open cash registers to easy abuse and the retail business can suffer as a result. One could say that cash registers made fraud easier. 

They do not gather business data. While they run a tape recording sales, they do not track sales by stock item, supplier, customer. Good business data feeds good business decisions. It is vital for a retail business to scan every sale, track sale price and manage stock on hand. Doing this feed to more accurate ordering. It also facilitates a reduction on theft by customers. 

They do not recognise customers. Customers are important to a retail business. By recognizing them you can track sales, reward increased business and provide extra services of considerable value. A register does none of this, it stops the retail business from providing the best customer service experience possible. 

They are not flexible. Consider for example how you would handle a special offer of a 10% discount off a department or two in your retail store for a week. Using a register you rely on manual operation to achieve this. Using a Point of sale system you are able to have the process managed and tracked for you. 

They cannot write a report. Business decisions feed off good data. Good data is best represented in a report on business performance. An old register is not going to be able to produce a report for you whereas a Point of sale system will enable you to produce a report over a variable period of time and representing the data you need. 

The difference between cash registers and Point of Sale systems is considerable. If you want better control over your retail business, reduced theft and the ability to drive better quality business decisions, you will find that a cash register is not appropriate to your needs.