POS System for Gift Shop

What Gift Shop Owners need

Customers are always spoilt for choice when visiting such gift stores. By their nature, gift shops and novelty stores are pretty similar – they both tend to offer a wide range of different types of items. These businesses can vary greatly in their product category: ranging from boutiques, to departmental stores, to jewellery stores, to memorabilia merch from amusement parks or museums. With the large amount of merchandise that such stores have to offer, having a good cloud-based POS for gift shops can revolutionize the way businesses do stocktaking. 

Variety of products sold at a Gift Shop, photo by Mick Haupt on Upsplash

It can also provide a lot of benefits to your business and it is paramount to integrate this technology into business processes, as it can really bring the efficiency and effectiveness of various processes to a whole new level. As the saying goes, “time is money”, and entrepreneurs know this better than anyone else in the world. 

The importance of POS Systems in Gift Shops

It is vital to integrate a POS system into your inventory management system to effectively order, track and manage the sale of your physical assets – the bread and butter of any merchandising business. (Nicasio, 2021)

By using a good management system, you will also be able to accurately deduce the popularity of your products and observe trends to figure out what exactly your customers love, and fine tune the next purchase order to procure these popular items. It may also help you to facilitate better planning for inventory levels and prevent stock outs so that your customers will never have to face the disappointment of being unable to buy what they came for! I’m sure you are curious what POS systems retailers use, so without further ado, here are some POS solutions that will benefit your business! 

KORONA POS

KORONA POS is a widely known software provider based in the USA that caters solutions for businesses of all kinds and all sizes, big or small. With over 9919 businesses and nearly 2 million transactions, KORONA POS is easily one of the better POS solutions that businesses can hope to get. 

Getting started with KORONA POS

Getting started with KORONA POS is as easy as 1,2,3,4,5! There are 5 simple steps to integrating the system into your business, and it begins with talking to experts from their team. You can easily drop them an inquiry email just like that, and begin the process of attaining your new POS solution! They offer 4 different types of plans and 1 free month off your bill if you decide to pay an annual sum. 

Why KORONA POS?

First of all, KORONA POS’s software systems enables it to be compatible with a wide variety of businesses across multiple industries. Its cloud-based system allows information to be updated in real time, giving business owners an ease of mind as at a moment’s glance, they can obtain information in real time.

Secondly, KORONA POS also allows for business owners to calculate commissions and royalties. This is especially useful for enterprises that operate with sales commissions or franchise owners that collect royalties from their franchisees. 

Lastly, KORONA POS is extremely apt in inventory management and inventory tracking. They provide advanced product analysis features such as ABC Inventory Grading, providing sales reports and metrics and even features such as automatic ordering and low stock notifications. This gives you valuable insight on your retail business success. Combining this software with a good mobile POS system will allow businesses to conduct inventory management activities with ease, making it extremely suitable for a gift shop since you can manage your entire inventory on a tight leash. To add icing on the cake, having a good hand-held POS device may also generate even greater efficiency in your work. 

Lightspeed Commerce

Founded in 2005 by Dax da Silva, Lightspeed Commerce is based in Canada and is a major player in the POS software space. They serve retail businesses across various industries – ranging from apparel, to home decor, to outdoor lifestyle products. 

Getting started with Lightspeed Commerce

There are four plans that you can choose from with Lightspeed, ranging from $69/month to $199/month. For the enterprise plan, you would have to hop in a call with them for a quotation.

Why Lightspeed Commerce?

Lightspeed is a popular choice that allows businesses to integrate POS into their ecommerce operations seamlessly. They offer personalized customer onboarding services and year-round technical support as and when you require. 

They allow retailers to gain access to detailed sales reports and sales figures in mere minutes and can help business owners make informed decisions about their products instantaneously. They are also able to retain customer information, allowing a business’s customer loyalty team to work on and provide personalized services to help retain existing patrons. 

Lightspeed simplifies tasks that are seemingly tedious and time consuming such as inventory and employee management, freeing up time for employees to focus on value adding activities and looking after customer needs. 

Qashier

Qashier is a POS solution start-up that was founded in 2019 and is currently based in Singapore. They focus on providing POS solutions that aid SMEs to digitize their businesses by putting together elements required to run an organization into one POS system. 

Getting started with Qashier

Qashier offers extremely competitive packages, with the cheapest one starting from just $28. Furthermore, for local Singaporean small businesses that generate less than $100m in revenue, you can be eligible for 80% off their starter kits. 

Why Qashier?

For starters, Qashier is engineered to be fast, simple and intuitive. This enables business owners to get familiar with the hardware and software as quickly as possible to shorten the gaps of the learning process. This helps business owners to focus on their business, rather than spend more time learning about how to manage their POS system. 

Furthermore, Qashier is specifically manufactured to suit the digital economy’s requirements of today. It is compatible and supports various types of payments such as PayWave, QR code payment methods and is able to manage orders from food delivery services alike. As the global trend is leaning towards having contactless payment options, it is no surprise that Qashier is also growing in popularity. 

They also allow customizable loyalty programmes for your business and enroll new customers into your system at checkout. Customer tracking is important as it allows you to retain valuable information regarding your customer history in order to continuously optimize and personalize loyalty programs or gift cards to retain them. Obtaining information about them such as their sales history, numbers or email address will allow your sales team to send emails about hot items or for your customer care team to perform customer relation management.

Kim Choo Kueh Chang

A well-known user of Qashier would be Kim Choo Kueh Chang. With a history of over 70 years, they have been selling traditional Nyonya snacks, crockery and costumes. Apart from all these products, you can also visit the establishment with a tour group and take a look at traditional dining rooms, pottery and bedrooms. There are also many depictions and sharings of Nyonya history for your reading pleasure. It’s a perfect experience to have with your family members. Quite a perfect and apt gift to give and share with your loved ones, don’t you think? 

Photo of Kim Choo Kueh Chang, by Rumah Kim Choo on Timeout

How can I get a POS machine for my business? 

First and foremost, POS machines are no longer seen as an item that is merely a “good to have”, but have been recognized for the vital role that they are able to play and contribute to a business. The POS terminal market rose to $75 billion in 2020, and the industry is only showing an upward trend in terms of growth – which isn’t shocking considering the many benefits of having such a tool. (Matthews, 2021)

Previously, small business owners might have been hesitant to commit to owning a unit of their own due to the costs of purchasing, implementing and maintaining such a system. However, with the advancement of technology and the introduction of android-based POS systems, the costs to purchase a unit has significantly decreased and became much more affordable for many. Start your decision-making process by identifying your business needs and requirements in order to determine the POS solution suitable for you. 

Taking Kim Choo Kueh Chang as an example, the sheer variety of products is jaw-dropping. When you enter the storefront, your eyes will immediately be overwhelmed with the massive selection of traditional snacks that they have to offer you. Not to mention the other types of souvenirs that you can get there, such as traditional hand-crafted crockery and costumes. This highlights the importance for a good POS system to help you manage your inventory levels and your business. 

What are you waiting for? Get yours today.

*All information about Kim Choo Kueh Chang, KORONA POS, Lightspeed and Qashier were obtained from their respective websites, accurate as of January 2022. 

References

[1] Matthews-El, T. (2021, November 30). 10 benefits a point-of-sale (POS) system will bring your business. Forbes. Retrieved January 13, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/pos-system-benefits/

[2] Nicasio, F. (2021, August 12). How a POS system with inventory management can help your business. TechRadar. https://www.techradar.com/sg/news/how-a-pos-system-can-help-you-manage-your-inventory