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5 Retail Strategies to Gratify Customers in 2022

After such a crazy year where new challenges sprung and never spared a single industry, we are finally on the verge of 2021. With a new year comes new challenges, and businesses need to adapt to stay prepared already. With a unified technology like LS Central Software Solution, retailers can get a smooth pass-through challenging time. In today’s scenarios where you can expect anything uncertain happening suddenly, retailers may bump into various Obstacles in 2022, such as: Keeping up with rising customers, where customers expect smoother and customized services. Difficulty in finding the right technology for your business. Losing loyal customers to the competition. Keeping up with labor shortage and optimizing existing staff’s efficiency. Difficult internal communication among different departments for e.g., difficulty in communicating the inventory requirement to the warehouse management. Poor decision-making due to lack of demand forecasting which later leads to overstocking and understocking. There is a motto in any business “Customer is the king” while keeping them on a pedestal. The customer must be satisfied with a service, or else they may jump to the other brand in a heartbeat. With customers being so moody and becoming high maintenance, retailers need similar technology to keep up with the same. Keep Customers Satisfied in 2022 The year 2022 brings new challenges as well as new opportunities: a fresh chance to satisfy customers. We have compiled five strategies to keep your customers intact with contentment. Contactless Payment Omnichannel experience Personalized promotions, deals, and offers. Self-Checkouts Staff Efficiency Optimization Allow Contactless Payments These days, hygiene has become an even bigger requirement. Contactless payment options not only deliver more convenience but also help comply with the social distancing norms. Contactless payment includes anything other than cash, be it debit, credit, UPI, etc. Allowing mobile payments and Wireless payment options adds to customer ease. Deliver an Omnichannel Experience Customers these days have become highly unpredictable and moody, demanding smoother ordering and payment options. They incline more towards the brands that can offer enough flexibility to place orders and make payments anytime, anywhere. Let the customer connect your business through various touchpoints like apps, websites, third-party applications, and so on. This way, you can reach more customers who have limited access to either of those platforms. Additionally, unifying all channels also cuts complexities and streamlines the entire journey for the retailer as well. Offer Personalized Promotions, Deals, and Offers Different customers feel differently about a product. You have to understand this algorithm and offer personalized promotions, deals, and offers. Seek a powerful AI-based technology for this i.e., a technology that keeps tabs on every customer transaction and understands their habits, spending patterns, likes, dislikes, and other relevant data to make customized deals and offers. Everyone loves surprises: you can also offer a surprise basket consisting of your new launches or a basket full of a combination of products at an attractive price. This strategy is helpful in reaching your customer’s heart since you make them feel special and belonged, they connect emotionally to your brand, and may even refer your store to others. Bust Long Queues and Allow Self-Checkouts With technology advancing rapidly, customers’ patience is dropping at a significant rate. Making them stand in long queues can be a risky affair. Thus, retailers have no choice but to deal with it smartly. Allowing self-check-out options ensures speedy transactions and free floor space. This feature is especially important during the festive season, where retailers are packed with a massive crowd. Some customers would rather drop everything as it is at the store, and leave as soon as their patience runs out. It is a risky situation where the only person benefiting is your competitor. Optimize your Staff Efficiency Reinforcing your staff with the efficiency of optimizing equipment like a Cloud POS solution can help provide greater customer satisfaction. If a customer has a tough time finding a product, one of your staff members can quickly locate it via his mobile device. With a POS, your staff can communicate with different departments more efficiently while cutting the computing time. Inventory can be stocked at the store already before running out. Moreover, maximizing your staff efficiency can bridge the gap between labor shortage and your business. A unified software solution like LS Retail Software Solutions can work like magic. Being backed with an AI-Based technology, you can track customer behavior, create personalized deals, and offers, forecast demand, and manage inventory better. A cloud-based POS enables a 360-degree inventory view. If you are looking for LS Retail implementation, contact Trident Information Systems, we are a LS Retail Gold Partner, backed up with more than 150 technical resources.

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How to Cut Costs Using Unified Restaurant Management Software?

Retail ERP Software / Trident

In an industry that is dynamic as well as low margin, it is important to track your food costs. Various restaurants suffer food wastage because of a lack of proper technology and proper cost-cutting techniques. As the restaurants get struck by the massive competition, limited seating, and rising price of the ingredients, they need to optimize ingredient usage, buying, and cutting wastage. An ideal Restaurant Management Software helps manage raw ingredients, spillage, menu prices, and food wastage while assisting the ways to minimize wastage. LS Retail is one such software that delivers a comprehensive set of tools and functionalities to help entrepreneurs run their business optimally while minimizing waste. In the food and beverages industry, food costs are a major expense. An excellent restaurant management software like LS Retail helps you connect sales, inventory, and kitchen within the same platform while delivering everything you need in a unified manner. Such a platform delivers complete transparency over your inventory and synchronizes inventory to recipe management. You will automatically receive notifications when you need to add a new inventory while subtracting the items already exhausted. Some software offers enough flexibility to adjust inventory on phones to remove some items that fall from the jar, spoiled meat, rotten vegetables, and so on. Manage warehouse inventory like a piece of cake with automatic inventory tracking. Track where your inventory is headed. Check if the space is properly optimized so you can adjust more of it in there. Keep the environment favorable to increase the durability of your items. Apart from this, other ways help you cut food costs. Manage Your Yield An ideal yield management software enables you to know the actual yield of an ingredient; how much of the total ingredient is being used. For Instance, if you need 5 kg of meat to cook a dish, not the whole 5 kg is going to be used, the bones might get discarded in the process. Yield management computes the exact quantity of the stock that will be used and based on the same, it updates the inventory. It further eliminates the risk of over-ordering or under-ordering while reducing restaurant costs. Keep Tabs on the Variations Variance is another essential aspect that plays a massive role in cost-cutting. An ideal restaurant management system can make it easier for you. The variance is the difference between the actual ingredients consumers versus the ideal food costs. A variation of 3-5% is acceptable. However, any variation above that is a matter of concern. To cut food costs, regular variance monitoring is necessary. You can identify the source of high food costs while bringing down the overall restaurant costs. Standardize Recipe and Cut Waste Having a restaurant management system that standardizes your recipes can help you manage costs. How? The recipe management system records every ingredient and the right amount to prepare a dish. While preparing a meal, the chef already has the recipe available with the right amount of each ingredient. Hence, it reduces the chances of errors. It is one of the most key features because several times your chef might mix up a few wrong ingredients, now the dish cannot be served, resulting in discarding the whole dish and adding to the restaurant costs. Reduce Pressure While Cutting Labor Cost Labor costs are one of the major costs in a restaurant. Therefore, it is crucial to monitor them. Of Course, hiring them is a time-consuming process. However, retaining them is not something restaurants have mastered so far. Managing labor is a costly and time-consuming affair. The enormous industrial pressure drives them to switch jobs. One of the easiest methods to retain your staff is to adopt robust restaurant management software that automates manual tasks and reduces pressure while letting your staff work with greater efficiency. Hand-over Monotonous to Automation Billing has always been a labor-intensive and monotonous task. However, now the time has changed since a restaurant management system can automate the billing process. Not just this, it also integrates the back office to the front under the same platform while streamlining complex tasks. You no longer must look for someone who is trained to manage these tasks. Apart from billing, a KDS reduces your dependency on manual labor. It ensures that when a server receives an order, it is displayed on the right kitchen screen. Apart from this, when there are changes in the order, it also flashes on the screen right away. Therefore, ensuring low dependency on manual labor. LS Retail is a unified Restaurant Management Software that delivers a comprehensive set of restaurant management tools under one umbrella. Trident Information Systems is a Gold LS Retail and Microsoft Partner and has served various business ventures of distinct levels. For further information, contact us.

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5 Restaurant Technology You Need to Know.

Retail POS Solution / Trident

The time is evolving, and so are the expectations of customers with the restaurants. Times are gone when customers are liable to commute to the restaurant in order to get their favorite meals. They want to eat wherever and however they want. In addition, with technological advancements, they expect faster services and complete attention from the staff at the same time. Research has shown during the pandemic that the food home delivery ratio increased to a certain level, and this was the factor through which restaurants could manage to survive. Usage of third-party food delivery applications like Swiggy, Zomato, and so on grew significantly. Technology played a vital role in restaurant survival. Now, the customer can enjoy food wherever and however they want. They can now make changes to their order without having to ask a staff member. For instance, they can tell them to add more cheese to the pizza or ask for extra ketchup right there and then without a server. In some reports, we discovered that people would pay more to add Ons when they have a self-service facility available. As technology has evolved so much, there is still room for growth. To meet customer preferences and not to mention to evolve, restaurants need to invest more in further technological advancements. This way, they can focus more on what they love: creating delicious meals and delicacies and unforgettable experiences. We have compiled a list of restaurant technologies that restaurants must be aware of. Online POS An Online POS system or a Cloud-based POS system is more than billing software. It is more advanced and delivers more features than the traditional one. Older POS were merely used to collect bills online and offline separately. However, the scenarios have changed, and modern POS can collect bills, take orders, track inventory, and integrate the front office with the back. Everything is saved on the cloud so there is no risk of data loss. Even if there is no internet, the transactions are recorded offline and saved on the cloud as soon as they are connected to the net. Apart from this, a cloud-based POS records customer transactions from different channels which can later be utilized to create deals and plans for the customers. According to some reports, about 61% of businesses want their next POS to be cloud-based. Some of the reasons include its cost-effectiveness and scalability. Online POS can be availed of a monthly subscription. Therefore, ditching the need to invest in high upfront costs. It does not even need hardware and is quick to deploy. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human processes by machines, specifically computer systems. This technology can process even the natural language, collect data, and make sense from a vast amount of data. In the case of restaurants, there are many applications powered by AI such as: Chatbots: chatbots are designed to understand speech patterns and have relevant conversations through which customers can book a table or order food online. Platforms like- official websites and social media platforms can be used. Predictive Ordering: this feature analyses your restaurant’s previous orders and revenue and forecasts future needs while helping you avoid over-stocking or under-stocking. Staff Scheduling: scheduling and staffing solutions help you schedule staff optimally. AI is the heart of businesses which helps them grow and evolve exponentially. Therefore, allowing restaurants to elevate their service standards. Kitchen Display System (KDI) A Kitchen Display System (KDI) is designed to replace your traditional paper ticket and kitchen printers. The job is not done here, there are a lot more things it offers. As soon as a customer place an order, it flashes straight on the accurate kitchen counter. If guests want to make changes or wish to have add Ons they may address them straight away while notifying the chef. There is a function called recipe viewer, which enables chefs to follow a specific recipe and avoid wastage. A recipe viewer will also cut costs on training and call attention to nutrition and allergy information. Business Intelligence (BI) Business Intelligence optimized AI to compile, integrate and analyze business data, turning it into a single vision truth while driving more logical decisions. Business Intelligence and analytics solutions have been used to increase business efficiency, and their effectiveness is not new to restaurants. With this technology, restaurants can place suitable lunch meals in the relevant areas or provide reports on the breakfast items making the most profit each week. Restaurant owners can also identify if the crowd in a location would like to see stand-up comedy during dinner. Having these kinds of data at hand helps make more logical decisions and Contactless Payments and Self Ordering Devices Restaurants need forms of payments that require little or no contact with shared surfaces. For instance, mobile wallets, biometric authentication payments, credit cards, debit cards. Contactless payments are much safer, especially in this era where social distancing has become one of the necessities. Similarly, self-ordering devices vitally helped cope with the pandemic. They enable customers to make their orders without a server in the restaurant kitchen. Customers can either use self-serving kiosks, tablets on the table side, or even their mobile phones. Internet of Things (IoT) Internet of things refers to all the items and devices that are designed to connect to the internet and each other to transmit data. For instance, connected kitchen appliances like ovens, freezers, and deep fryers upload their status automatically to the cloud ensuring seamless operational flow and regulatory compliance. With IoT, managers do not have to go through each device and check their condition. Instead, they can simply go through the reports and see the presence of an issue and think of a resolution. As time flies, the restaurant industry is rapidly changing. It needs to adopt technological advancements to fulfill customer demands and embrace better efficiency. LS Retail provides a suite of tools that ensure customer satisfaction as well as better business efficiency. Trident Information Systems is a Gold LS Retail Partner who has served multiple business ventures. Backed with a team of 150+ experts and two decades of experience, we deliver excellent software services. Contact us for further information.

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Why Good After Sales Services Enhance your Customer Services & Sales Both

Retail POS Solution / Trident

Your job is not done as soon as you sell a product. In contrast, it starts from there! Many businesses use after-sales services as an effective promotional tool. This way, they can gain customer trust and drive the spread of word of mouth. Many organizations optimize after-sales services to build stronger bonds with their customers while encouraging them to come hopping back to you. After-sales services start right when you sell a product, it includes what you do at the Point of Sale and how you follow up with your customers afterward. Repairing products on warranty or an easy product return policy are some extended services. There are many ways you can upgrade these services: Allow Seamless Payment Mediums: Nobody likes to stand in long queues. Instead, people demand faster transactions. A cloud-based POS can help streamline the operation while ensuring customer satisfaction. They can even help themselves with payments if no store staff is available to help them out. Get in Touch with Your Customers After 1-2 Weeks: Contacting your customers after 1-2 Weeks post-sales can give you some essential feedback you can use to enhance your overall services. Ask how their experience was with these services and how they would rate it. Apart from this, it helps generate a stronger relationship between a company and its clients. They feel being recognized and build more confidence in the services. Maintain Communications: Keep in regular touch with customers through newsletters, articles, videos, webinars, and guides. Keep them updated about your new product or service launch. If you give them every information they need, they are not likely to fall for your competitions. Personalize Notifications: If you feel your customer is satisfied with your products or services and other sales are happening soon, you can send them personalized emails or messages informing them about the same. Additionally, you can personally suggest what they can get out of it. Ask for Recommendations: Ask your customers for their recommendations. Let them explain what else they expect from your business and what features are just not for them. Let them share their ideas of ideal services and, if possible, customize the same for them. This is one of the methods to make your customers feel recognized. Apart from collecting customer data like this, you can also use AI-based technology like LS Retail that extracts data from various sources and presents reports on customers’ activities and preferences. This is a much easier and more accurate method. How After-Sales Services Enhance Your Business After-sales services are one of the most important aspects of a business. They define what your business is, and how seriously you take your customers. This is what makes or breaks your business. If done right, and implemented the correct strategies, it can ensure the following benefits: Overall Product/Service Improvement Referral Promotion Sales Enhancement Loyal Customer Improves your Services/Products Getting essential feedback from customers on your product can address where you lack. Pay attention to it and enhance your overall services. You can also introduce new services complementing the old ones or custom make packages for classified customers. This way, you can keep innovating and evolving. ERP Solutions like LS Retail sets a platform where your business has comprehensively made reports driving better decisions. Apart from this, your constant improvement depicts your business receptivity. Expressing your customers how your business could improve due to their valuable feedback generates a sense of recognition while subconsciously binding them to your company. Boosts Referral Promotion A happy customer recommends a service to their family and friends. It has been observed that people tend to believe Word of Mouth more than any promotional measure. You do not even have to spend a thousand dollars on other promotional techniques when all you have to do is keep your customers happy and let them do the rest for you. This is where the power of multiplication shows up. People also tend to post about products and services on their social media for free exposing you to a greater set of audiences. Enhances Sales Improved services plus referral promotions are equal to sales boost. Marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart provide seamless after-sales services. From allowing a variety of payment methods (debit, credit, cash, GPay) to replacing or returning a product to dealing with customer grievances it supports everything. A unified solution like LS Retail handles every aspect of after-sales services, integrates multiple tasks, and saves time while enhancing sales. Builds a Stronger Bond with Customers Good after-sales services make customers feel cared for while developing good relationships. Tracking customer activities and classifying them in diverse groups for suitable deals ensures a sense of belongingness and warmth among customers. Emotions are what drive people to purchase more than their needs. Hence, maintaining an emotional touch with customers ensures their loyalty. There are various methods to collect their data. However, the easiest way is to get an AI-based technology like LS Retail to automatically extract data from various sources and turn them into actionable reports depicting customer behavior and preferences. After-sales services are an effective marketing tool. Apart from boosting sales and building customers’ confidence, it ensures a healthy bond between a business and the customer. There are certain services like the one LS Retail offers, which takes care of all the after-sales services. Trident Information Systems is a Gold LS Retail Partner who has served various businesses so far. For further information or queries, contact us.

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How do Successful Loyalty Programs Help in Increasing Sales and Drives Customer Behavior?

Retail POS Solution / Trident

Did you know if you manage to boost your customer engagement rate by as low as 5%, your profit can increase up to 60%? Loyalty programs are a great measure to increase customer engagement from both existing and new customers. Loyalty programs deliver tremendous benefits to a business, they make the customers feel being cared for, recognized, and valued. Why wouldn’t anyone want to come back to you if you make them feel special? Apart from financial, these programs proffer non-financial benefits as well. Note that not just any loyalty programs will provide the same benefits, you need to carefully hold research, track customer behavior, understand their spending pattern, and generate customer driving strategies. A unified ERP software like LS Retail can help create loyalty programs like a piece of cake. Essential data is automatically generated in the form of dashboards, providing a single vision of truth. Therefore, driving customer behavior and boosting sales. Why is Customer Loyalty so Important? Research has shown that 80% of your business comes from your loyal 20% of customers. An effective loyalty program can ensure repeat business from 47% of your customers. Amazing eye-catching deals can drive a good sum of customers back to your business. Most people believe that brands should offer loyalty programs while 60% of internet users address ‘earning rewards’ as one of the most valued aspects of a retail shopping experience. It is best to use software that helps create loyalty programs like LS Retail, where customers can earn loyalty points and redeem them in your retail store and its respective chains. You can create different schemes and set rules on how to collect and spend points. Apart from this it can help segment different customers based on their spending patterns, choices, and habits. It also keeps track of the vouchers and offers that are redeemed or on stand-by. How Effective Loyalty Programs Help Boosting Customer Sales? An effective loyalty program can do wonders for your business, boost sales and connect with the customers emotionally. Nothing is more effective than a loyalty program based on a customer’s desires, spending pattern, behavior, and similar factors. Research has shown that people’s emotions drive them to purchase more than their needs. Given below are its amazing benefits: Greater ROI It is costlier to acquire new customers than to retain the existing ones. Paying for different forms of promotions can add up to the marketing costs significantly. Additionally, 50% of your existing customers are more likely to spend more on your new product. Hence, providing a higher ROI. Stay Ahead of the Competition Shoppers tend to go through a hundred brands before buying a product in a few clicks keeping the product in mind more than the store. It might drive a few businesses like yours to the bottom, putting larger stores like Amazon at the top. Loyalty programs can change your game while not relying on the pricing alone. Since buyers tend to spend more based on their emotions than their requirements, a loyalty program understands the customer and creates perfect schemes for them. It makes them feel special and connects them on an emotional level. Understand your Customers A loyalty program helps you understand your customers better, their preferences, and predict their behavior. With a loyalty program feature, you can effortlessly identify trends, micro-segments and anticipate demands. Upgrade your marketing campaigns keeping customer habits in mind. Plan your stock, mix-match products, and boost cross-selling and upselling. All the channels a customer uses to access your business can store their data, process them, and turn them into insightful dashboards. Without proper customer insights, your business fails to create effective deals and offers. New Customer Engagement With a well-structured loyalty program, you can incentivize referrals, rewarding customers who bring new customers to your business. There is convincing evidence suggesting that referred customers are more profitable and loyal than non-referred customers ensuring more loyalty and low churn rates. 83% of customers show greater trust in personal referral than any other form of marketing. McKinsey’s study shows that referrals generate twice the sales of paid promotions. Creates Brand Advocates Loyalty programs not only encourage people to increase their engagement with your business but also promote it. According to some research, loyalty programs help boost referral promotion. People recommend a business to their friends and family members if they are happy with the loyalty schemes. Showing your customers how much you value them connects them emotionally and turns them into your brand advocates. Additionally, 86% of costumes engage with a brand by spreading the word. Final Words More customer engagement is the essence to boost sales. Ensure customer engagement with effective loyalty programs as it ensures a greater ROI, keeps you ahead in the competition, understands your customers, engages new customers, and creates brand advocates. ERP software services like LS Retail integrate all the channels and extract customer details which later help in making effective loyalty programs. Trident Information systems is a Gold Partner of LS Retail and has served various businesses so far. For further queries or a demonstration contact us.

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Retailers are Seeing Scary Supply Chain Ahead of Festive Season

Retail ERP Software / Trident

Festive season drives a boost of business and stress altogether, challenging retailers at every step. Retail ERP Software can assist through this period brilliantly. Being able to stand strong and manage everything effectively, complying with the right strategies, getting retailers maximum profit, greater customer in-flow, and goodwill as a reward. The festive season commences post-monsoon. In a span of 4 months, it mounts tremendous pressure on the retailers. Consecutive occurrences of multiple festivals drive different sets of consumers to buy assorted products or services. There is a high chance they would demand a mix-match of a few products. Additionally, the bid on a combination of regular consumption and gift factor adds to the complexity. It is always better to opt for Retail Management Software, as it ensures all the necessary tools required to get you through this frantic yet crucial period. What Causes Supply Chain Hiccups? The dazzling and cheerful festive season fetches various supply chain hiccups, turning jam-packed consumer seasons even tougher to deal with. Some major causes lead to supply chain hindrances: Running low on inventory Not having enough workforce Low storage space Last-mile fiction Effectively Manage Supply Chain During the Festive Season Working in silos can block ways to new opportunities, it delays operations and is prone to errors. Make sure you adopt Supply Chain Management Services like Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Retail Industry. You can make better replenishment strategies, plan loyalty programs, boost upsell and cross-selling, and much more. Smartly Replenish Inventory Replenishment strategies play a crucial part during the festive seasons. Poor replenishment can make this festive season a lot more stressful. Failing to find the desired product can lead your customers to approach your competition. You need technology that tracks your previous sales and patterns to help you make replenishment strategies. Working in silos will only make things worse. During high traffic, you need things to work faster and smoother, which is only possible with a Retail ERP Software such as Microsoft Dynamics 365. Forecast Demand and Plan Wisely It would be extremely helpful if you could successfully forecast customer demand during this festive season and stock just the right products. Apart from meeting daunting customer demands, it saves you from wastage and embarrassment. Analyze your previous sales, trends, and correlations to understand what people are demanding. Artificial Intelligence can provide tremendous assistance. You can easily pick an algorithm that matches your sales pattern the best and predict future sales demand on various levels. You can easily identify which product has the highest probability of being sold. Read Customers and Offer Special Deals During this heavy customer current, you are most likely to hook a good sale with smart strategies. Scan through their past purchase and spending patterns and identify which product they are most likely to purchase. Classify customers into different sets and plan offers for each set. Identify customer demands and encourage cross-selling. Offer discounts on the right products. Distribute coupons they can redeem later in the same or the other retail chains of yours. Refill Stocks as Soon as You Can All your efforts go in vain if your customers fail to find the desired products without delay. Going out-of-stock not only upsets your customers but causes a lot of embarrassment to you too. Track your inventory to stay updated as soon as you run out of stock. Inventory management tools such as the one Microsoft or LS retail offers can help you keep track of inventory and ensure prompt refilling. It is better to have your inventory data at hand, if you can get it on your mobile, even better. This way the updates reach faster to you. Avoid Multiple Integrations Having your data stored within different platforms can add to the complexities. Having to draw data from different software is more time-consuming and prone to errors. Similarly working in silos can do more harm than good during this opt for a unified solution like Microsoft Supply Chain Management. It is one of the Best ERP for Retail delivering a comprehensive supply chain suite – from Inventory Management to back office, everything packed within the same technological environment. Ensure free flow of communication throughout all the departments and deliver inventory requirements fast. Final Words Get ready for a business boom in this festive season. Ensure better Inventory Management and Replenishment with Retail ERP Software like Microsoft. Smartly replenish inventory, forecast demand and plan wisely, offer exclusive deals to your customers, and so on. Trident Information Systems is a Microsoft Gold Partner who has been serving various businesses for over two decades. For further information contact us.

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Bust Queues and Boost Sales during the Festive Season with M-POS

Retail POS Solution / Trident

Haven’t you prepared for the festive season yet? Don’t take too long. Grab a POS Software Solution and bust those long queues annoying your customers! Mobile POS is a boon, especially during these overwhelming periods. Be it a restaurant or a retail business, a POS supporting mobile devices can change the game. Research has shown that restaurants and retail stores using M-POS could make more sales than those sticking to old traditional mediums. Working in silos can actually make you lose track of your sales, or even worse, you may lose customers to your competition. Managing an overwhelming flow of customers is not easy, especially with old methods and limited staff. People these days are becoming even more impatient. Hence, they demand immediate attention. Failing to do so can deprive you of new sales. Nobody likes long queues. Customers won’t hesitate to leave your store/ restaurant/ food chain without making any purchases. Why M-POS Over Traditional POS? While a traditional POS system works well with accepting all sorts of cards, it does have a fair share of its disadvantages. From being bulky to being fixed at a corner, it does consist of unnecessary complications. Mobile POS Software Solution. However, on the other hand, it is a cleverer alternative. Mobile POS: You can accept payments on the go with M-POS It doesn’t need high-end technological knowledge You can carry it anywhere with you. Can be connected via Bluetooth to make faster and more secure transactions It is easy to maintain and has automatic settlements and integration capabilities. Traditional POS: Traditional POS can have greater installation costs. Being bulky, it is fixed at a place. Delivers less flexibility than a Mobile POS. How does M-POS Help to Boost Sales? Mobile POS for Restaurants or retail is a smarter alternative for the traditional POS system. It is simple to get it running. All you must do is select a POS Service Provider, download the application, connect your card reader to your mobile device, and you are good to go. Mobile POS systems generally work on Wi-Fi. However, LS Retail ensures continuity of transactions even with no internet access. Encourages Self-Ordering and Self-Checkouts During the festive season, where each member of staff is overloaded, customers demand faster and secure checkout mediums. Self-ordering and self-checkout can get it right. Allow customers to place orders and make customization independently, followed by check-out at the end. This allows your staff to be more efficient in their current tasks and empower customers simultaneously. Customers won’t skip a beat before leaving your store without snapping up a product. Hence a Mobile POS for Retail ensures flexible sales and seamless transactions. Ensures Vibrant Customer Services One of the greatest benefits of M-POS is its flexibility and this is where it outshines traditional POS systems. During festive seasons, customers expect cheerful and vibrant service even if the staff is busy. With M-POS you can reduce waiting times and even cut lines. This way your customers are bound to stick to your business. Whether you run a restaurant or a retail shop, you still have enough potential to treat customers vibrantly. Moreover, you have a personalized report on each customer, through which you can suggest products that might draw them. Offer Special Deals and Discounts Offering exceptional deals and discounts is one of the most common methods to boost sales during the festive season. However, if not done properly, you might end up losing potential sales otherwise. A suitable M-POS reads each customer’s preferences, purchasing patterns and customizes deals for classified groups or individual customers. It gets even easier to categorize products to be out on the sale. Considering current market demands, you can impose different discounts on various products. Offer gift cards, buy-one-get-one-free Continuity of Transactions Even with No Internet Not all POS Software Solution providers offer this feature. Some of them, like LS Retail, ensure continuity of transactions even with no internet access. Considering how overwhelming festive seasons can get and don’t spare enough time to breathe, let alone rest, internet connection loss can jeopardize prospect sales. Hence, it is recommended to have a backup that ensures continuity of sales. Resolves Customer Queries Instantly With a massive in-flow of customers, each with different demands and needs, they have different service requirements. Since humans are not designed to retain everything all the time, they need technological assistance too. A Mobile POS for Retail consists of the product details stored in. So, when a customer asks about a product’s price or other information, they can easily look it up on their assigned device and help them accordingly. This ensures faster transactions and minimizes customer traffic congestion. With increased efficiency, your staff can welcome and greet customers better, followed by more expeditious assistance. Identifies Valuable Customers Every business has a set of customers providing them with more business than the rest. A Mobile POS scans through each customer and their purchasing history. It also identifies customers making more sales than the rest. During the festive season, such customers deserve special treatment. Lavish them with offers they deserve. It not only makes such shoppers feel valued but encourages other consumers to make more purchases. M-POS can have a massive impact on your sales during this festive season. With faster transactions and more efficient customer services, expect tremendous referral promotion. Some M-POS Software Solution Providers even assure transactional continuity even with no internet access like LS Retail. Create loyalty programs based on precise, actionable reports and ensure vibrant customer services. Trident Information Systems is a Gold Partner of LS Retail and Microsoft. For further queries contact us.

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Why it makes sense to move your retail management software to the cloud

Uncategorized / Trident Information Systems

As a successful retailer, chances are you are already running some of your IT functions in the cloud. That’s smart. The next logical step is to move your entire retail management system to the cloud, and go from the on-premises version to its software as a service (SaaS) one. But even if you know that the cloud is experiencing exponential growth, and that you will, one day, take the leap, you may be hesitant to do it now. Perhaps you are afraid you’re not ready for the change. Perhaps you have security concerns. Maybe you can’t clearly identify which practical, day-to-day benefits you’d get from moving to the cloud. Whichever your reasons, you want the best for your business, and you care about staying competitive. You want to make the right decision, and employ technology that will propel you forward today and tomorrow. While you are debating whether the cloud is for you, here are 8 good reasons why you should consider migrating your system. 1. Stay up to date, automatically With traditional on-premises software, businesses are responsible of keeping their hardware and software up to date. In order to stay current (and safe), they’d need to purchase new hardware every few years, and to update their software every few months. But in reality, retailers usually have more pressing concerns than keeping track of the latest software patch or upgrade. And if the company is using multiple software solutions and there are integrations in place, a system upgrade can become a costly and lengthy project. As a result, many companies end up with outdated IT environments that work, but don’t really support the business, and may even hinder it. In the worst cases, this old tech might reduce the company’s ability to grow and take on new projects, or stay on top of consumer demands. When you are using SaaS in the cloud, all these concerns belong to the past. You don’t need to worry about periodic maintenance, or to budget for expensive and complicated software upgrades. Instead, your supplier takes care of updating your software regularly. And if you have configured your add-ons correctly, you can maintain all your extensions, and even your configurations. SaaS software guarantees that you are always, automatically, on the latest version, and can use all the new functionality that comes with it. 2. Enhance productivity with intelligence One of the biggest advantages of the cloud is the advanced computational power it offers. Tasks that until yesterday were too complex for even the most powerful computer, for example predicting future sales patterns, are now within reach of any retailer. Businesses can run their data into Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) powered tools available in the cloud, and without having to pay for extra servers or data scientists, they can get the answers they need, with minimal effort, very rapidly, and at a fraction of the cost than comparable on-prem technology. There is a wide variety of AI tools available in the cloud, giving businesses infinite possibilities to improve their effectiveness and productivity. AI can also help make smarter decisions, and deliver more personalized, to the point customer service. Would you like to send personalized promotions and special deals to your customers based on their shopping history and specific tastes? Are you thinking about adding a chatbot or virtual agent as a first-line customer support? Or perhaps you’d like to offer intelligent search on your e-commerce site? When you run your software in the cloud, all these initiatives are accessible to you, and can be started within a very short timeframe. But AI can do much more than help deliver bespoke customer experiences. You can use optimize your inventory with advanced forecasting that can factor seasonality, promotions, trends, and product substitutes and complements into your forecasts. You can refine your hiring practices with intelligent talent acquisition solutions. You can simplify searches across your catalog for both staff and customers using AI-powered accurate product tagging applied to images. When you infuse your business with intelligence, you also make it more proactive, agile, and profitable. 3. Guarantee business continuity with a reliable infrastructure With traditional in-house IT setups, businesses are at constant risk of downtimes and failures. On-site servers can’t usually guarantee a consistent performance, and if a key piece of your hardware breaks down, you may be left unable to serve customers or close sales – and could even risk losing your business data. As regards reliability, a traditional infrastructure usually necessitates a disaster recovery plan, requiring you to build redundancy, carefully monitor conditions, having dual firewalls and more – in short, you need to budget for time-consuming, expensive, complex monitoring. Switch to SaaS software, and you can step away from all of these problems. Even if you experience a hardware failure – say your computers or servers break down – you won’t lose your data, as it is safely stored in the cloud and can be accessed when and as you need to. The cloud also guarantees higher reliability. Large cloud services like Microsoft Azure, with expansive resources and entire dedicated teams, have already built in redundancy, from failover hardware to datacenters located across the world. As a result, Azure, the service where the cloud-based version of LS Central resides, can guarantee 99,995% uptime, and top security features. 4. Respond quickly to changing market conditions You know how important speed of action is in the retail industry. Yet, traditional IT environments are all but agile: even a project as simple as adding new servers or applications can be very time consuming. First, your IT staff needs time to procure the hardware or software that will fit within the current infrastructure. Then they have to set it up and test it, and finally, they’ll have to go through implementing it. In the past, this process was the only way to implement change. Today, this is an outdated and ineffective way of operating – especially when the businesses you are competing against are agile and unburdened by traditional infrastructure, such as e-commerce players. To stay

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Why your restaurant needs intelligent analytics according to a CIO

Restaurant Management ERP, Retail ERP Software, Uncategorized / Trident Information Systems

What opportunities is your restaurant missing out on just because you are afraid of change? The past few months have shown us that businesses cannot continue operating with their old models. During times of disruption and uncertainty, speed and agility become necessary for survival. Restaurants have discovered that they need to be able to adopt new models of food delivery, quickly. They must be able to make staffing changes at the last minute. To substitute ingredients and dishes depending on what’s available. To calculate costs and optimize purchasing, factoring in limited seating, reduced opening hours, and shifting consumer habits. Traditional technology can’t support these levels of agility. Restaurants need to start their digital transformation, quickly, and they need to focus on building intelligence into the business. According to a study by IDC, companies that center their digital transformation on intelligent technology improve their productivity, drive cost efficiencies, and have 8 times the revenue and twice the profitability as non-digitally transformed enterprises. 6 practical benefits of analytics in your restaurant business With the new generation of intelligent analytics, businesses don’t need a team of data scientists to gain insights and wade through data. Cloud-based intelligence-powered analytics is accessible to most restaurant businesses, and can provide tangible benefits. An Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered analytics and reporting software can enable businesses to: – Find meaningful patterns across vast amounts of data. Perhaps you’ll see that your mall location gets more customers when it rains, or that your downtown location sells more wine glasses, but fewer beers, when the main of the day is steak. – Optimize ingredient ordering. Historical consumption patterns can help you predict how much you’ll sell next week. The system can also help you calculate what you need to order. – Decrease waste. Once you figure out that your portions of sauce are too big and mostly end up in the can, or that selling wines by the glass on weeknights ends up in a lot of waste, you can take steps to cut your losses. – Optimize stock usage and distribution. At some point, it might make business sense to move the content of your freezers from a location in a mall that is seeing low foot traffic to one that is still doing good business. – Engineer the right menu. Are there any unpopular dishes on your menu that are costly, or complex to produce? Are your most popular dishes providing you with healthy margins? Could you do more to sell your highest-revenue dishes? An analytics software can help you make design a menu that is better aligned to your guests’ tastes while also giving you more in return. – Simplify staffing. An analytics software can help you see whether you have too many or too few staff members working in a location at a specific time, making better use of their time and of your resources. “There’s a value in being prepared for the future. Even if a technology may not drive clear returns today, if it puts you in a position to be able to respond to changes, then it’s worth it.” Leon DeWet Former restaurant CIO 4 tips from a restaurant CIO Leon DeWet is a former restaurant CIO, and a strong believer in the power of analytics. DeWet was a CIO in restaurant chains the likes of Cracker Barrel and O’Charley’s for 28 years. During his time in the industry, he saw technology transform both the restaurant business and consumer behavior. He saw trends, short-lived fads, and at times, truly revolutionary technology. Analytics, in his opinion, belongs to the last category. DeWet shared with us four tips for restaurant executives who want to make the most out of intelligent analytics and reporting. 1. Find the small drivers of benefits “Analytics can be a powerful tool to find the small changes in behavior, or in processes, that can drive huge benefits. While you still need to keep your eye on traditional big drivers, like the number of labor hours you’re spending or the number of guests, if you can, dig deeper to find out what is driving those numbers. Why those small changes can you see taking place? How do you influence them? How do you shift them? Looking at these details can have a big impact on the bottom line.” 2. Adjust your metrics to a changed reality “Don’t be blinded by what have historically been deemed ‘key metrics’ within the organization. Take, for ex, table turns. How fast you can turn a table only matters if you have guests to fill that table. Perhaps, if there are few customers you should rather focus on selling more to who’s already at the table. Look at what’s happening in your business before you decide which metrics to focus on, keeping in mind some metrics might make sense in some parts of the day, but not at other times.” 3. Use analytics to predict, not just describe “Too many restaurants are still too focused on using analytics in a reactive way. They look at the historical data to try and understand what has happened. Instead, I think that the true value of analytics lies in their ability to help prepare for the future. Where is the business going to go? How do I intersect it ahead of time? It’s important to also include external data, to intercept external behaviors that may have an impact on your business down the line. For example, if you see that the average miles driven by guests is going down, you need to stop, and understand what that is going to do to your customer base, what may have caused it, and how you can mitigate against it. Or if you are heading into hot and muggy weather, you should look how your sales and presences were affected in the past, and prepare. The AI can help you notice these kinds of trends and link them to other factors, so you can plan ahead.” 4. Think of technology as an investment in core infrastructure “I think we need to change our mindsets. An investment in technology is no different than investing in the latest

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Why physical stores are still vital for retail

Retail ERP Software / Trident Information Systems

During the Covid-19 pandemic, online became a fundamental channel for retailers. Even as overall retail spend decreased, eCommerce sales grew over the previous year. The impressive results may overshadow that eCommerce still represents just a small percentage of total retail sales: in the U.S., the number is as low as 14.5%, according to eMarketer data. This means that over 85% of retail still happens in physical stores, which makes a synergy between online and offline key to retail success in the near future. Here are eight reasons why you should still invest in your brick-and-mortar store locations. 1. People are more likely to buy a product when they’ve seen it in person. According to KPMG research, the top reason why consumers prefer to shop in physical stores is to see, experience and test products in person before buying them. Having a physical location where people can go and make sure that, yes, this paint is exactly the color I want, can dispel consumer doubts and help close a sale. Seeing things in person can, also, reduce the risk that a product will be returned because it’s not the right size/color/material. 2. Customers who pick up items in store buy extra stuff. Click and collect (also known as BOPIS, buying online and picking up in store) and curbside pickup are extremely popular both with customers and retailers. Compared to home delivery, pickup can be more convenient for customers, as it enables them to get their purchases when they want, without having to wait for a courier at home. For retailers, in-store pickup offers plenty of benefits: it’s cheaper than delivery, it brings shoppers through the doors, and it can lead to bigger baskets. According to Forrester research, 30% to 40% of consumers using click and collect buy additional items when they get into the store. 3. Physical stores can reduce the cost of returns. Items bought in physical stores are less likely to be returned than products bought online. According to David Sobie, co-founder and CEO of Happy Returns, “shoppers return 5-10% of what they purchase in store but 15-40% of what they buy online.” Letting shoppers exchange or return in-store the items the bought online can also help reduce the cost of returns by removing shipping and transportation fees for the retailers. Consumers like it, too: according to NRF data, 80% of shoppers say they prefer to return products to a store than send it back. 4. High-quality, one-on-one customer service increases sales. Despite the popularity of online shopping, the human touch is still an important part of the retail experience. According to research for RetailEXPO, almost two out of three (64%) of shoppers say that knowledgeable sales associates make them more likely to visit a physical store, and three out of four (75%) of shoppers are likely to spend more after receiving high quality service from staff in-store. 5. The brand experience is still inherently physical. Retail is a highly competitive industry. While it can be hard to stand out online, a physical store gives you the chance to create an engaging brand experience. Showrooms and concept stores, for example, can enable retailers to immerse customers in their brand culture, creating lasting impressions. Designing an experience that has the right balance of safety, excitement and convenience is key – and can help differentiate your brand from the competition. 6. You can use stores as part of your supply chain. In omni-channel retail, logistic costs can spiral out of control, and erode margins significantly. Some retailers are realizing savings by using some or all of their physical stores as warehouses and fulfillment centers, to support and strengthen their supply chain. Transforming a store location in a so-called “dark store” can help reduce costs of inventory management and expand the reach across larger geographies by enabling faster, more effective distribution. 7. You get free market research on your customers’ preferences and habits. Fashion retailer ModCloth opened its first brick-and-mortar store after 13 years of selling online only. “We discovered small things, the details our customers love,” Matt Kaness, president and CEO at ModCloth, told USA Today. “They loved linings in dresses and skirts, and they loved pockets.” Although data collected from the online store can helps see trends, retailers can learn much about their customers just by watching them shop, interacting with the space and products. “From a market research standpoint, [a store] pays for itself. The amount of market research you gain just by observing people, it’s the equivalent of 100 focus groups,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, senior analyst with Forrester Research. 8. Physical stores bring greater traffic to your online store. Research from the International Council of Shopping Centers shows that when a retailer opens a new physical store location, traffic to their website increases by 37% the following quarter. According to L2’s report “Death of Pureplay Retail,” when retailers open new brick-and-mortar locations, the number of online mentions of the brand and online searches increase dramatically. This online buzz is accompanied by increased financial returns, L2 adds, making physical stores a good investment both in terms of popularity and profitability. According to a survey from Harvard Business Review, shoppers who buy both online and in physical stores tend to spend more on average compared to those who interact with a business on only one channel. For retailers, this means that physical retail still has a central role to play in their business strategy. If you need help figuring out what tools you need to deliver fantastic omni-channel customer experiences, contact us. Our unified commerce solutions are world-renowned for connecting online with offline, and retailers with consumers. Note: Blog reference : LS Retail Official Website

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