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LS Central Partner in india

Why Do You Need a Unified Commerce Solution to Boost Sales and Customer Services?

Boost sales and customer services with the help of Unified Retail Management Software. With LS retail you can understand your customer psychology and make sales strategies accordingly. Get greater visibility and make more effective marketing campaigns to attract more customers.  A modern Retail ERP Software is a unified software solution, that helps avoiding  patchwork hardships. This solution integrate multiple departments within the same environment and help businesses build on solid foundations.  Optimizing multiple software solutions can be a pain, while building IT complexities. It can hamper your management and drain resources. Therefore, your finances are engaged in doing the technical patchwork and keeping your staff tied up.   As for data management, it gets quite hard to take care of data across multiple storage systems. It is pretty complicated to manage your data as the system allows it, different software follows different patterns. Hence, you are all entangled with multiple software management formats.  While using multiple software systems, financial reporting becomes a real pain. Data extraction followed by data standardization of calculation and formulae into a single accounting template from different applications, sub-ledgers, and transactions is not ideally recommended.   It is complicated to extract data from a soiled database and when these databases do not coordinate, it hampers your efficiency to improve and enhance. Failing to share the required document throughout the departments can become a potential threat to the overall productivity of your organization.   Boost Sales and Customer Services with a Unified Commerce Solution: LS Central.   You need the right Retail ERP Software, effective customer service, and excellent quality products. LS Central being a unified commerce solution built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP. It is easier for the retailers to meet exceeding customer demands for exceptional services.  This is how LS Central helps to boost profit and customer services:   Centralized Control   As a Unified Software, LS Central incorporates your overall business from back to front, POS, ERP, inventory, sales, promotions, and offers. The data drawn from the key areas are combined on the same platform while ensuring centralized control of the retailer. You no longer have to move your data from ERP to eCommerce/ in-store or you need to import files: the system automatically takes care of it.   Effective Customer Service   With LS central, draw customers back and get repeated business, allowing secure and contrasting payments. Compare replenishments with the real market demands, allowing customers to check real-time stock availability. Integrate customer shopping data and use their preferences to personalize interactions. Allows self-service shopping and checkouts. Give the first hand to customers to return your products online or in-store as per their preferences. Allowing one on one appointments, consultations, and personalized services.   Loyalty Programs   Loyalty programs can boost your sales like magic. Having an insight into your customer preferences and their spending pattern, you can utilize that data to generate exclusive offers, discounts, and other schemes to lure customers in. As the name suggests, these programs ensure customer loyalty and contentment with your services.   Omni-Channel   Deliver an out-of-the-world shopping experience, also encourage your customers to invest their loyalty and engagement both in-store and online. Allow them to create and maintain shopping lists, address personalized offers straight on their phones. Boost brand awareness and customer retention hand in hand via the omnichannel. Compute customer data, profiles, and spending patterns to create business strategies.  M-POS  With M-POS, retailers and merchants can accept various payment methods on their phones. Additionally, you get value-added services that help with your business productivity. You can make card payments, online payments, and cash withdrawals and wallets, etc. It is another method to track customer data and use it for your benefit. Only a few companies offer a comprehensive solution to accept payment with the M-POS.   Unified Data   To get a holistic view of the customer experience, you need to adopt a centralized data platform in Retail CRM Software, containing everything from the contact center, website data, sales information, and marketing information and analysis on everything touched by your customers. With LS Central get an overview of your business via a centralized platform bringing all the necessary data within the same environment. Make better decisions with the bigger picture now available.   Final Words   A unified software solution like LS Retail can help you boost sales and get delighted customers. We recommend researching through retail ERP Companies and finding a suitable LS Retail Implementation Partner. Trident Information Systems is a Gold LS Retail partner and earned experience of over 22+ years. Armed with 150+ technical resources, we have successfully served multiple businesses. 

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7 Mistakes Retailers Make While Choosing Retail Management Software

One of the most unmined tasks in the retail industry is picking a suitable retail management software for the business. An organization has various financial and non-financial aspects and needs. Therefore, it becomes even more essential to carefully pull the right ERP Software for Retail Industry. It is shocking how retailers do not realize how badly this one poor decision will impact their business for the next five to six years.     Carelessness, in the beginning of a project, can lead to some unwanted results. Therefore, they are suggested to adopt the latest retail management to evolve their business operations. This blog will elaborate on the top 7 mistakes retailers make while choosing a retail management solution followed by the appropriate solutions.  Top 7 Mistakes Retailers Make While Choosing a Retail Management Software   #1 Considering All the Retail Management Software Same   This is the most common mistake that retailers make while purchasing a retail management software, they make a preconception that just because the product is developed by one of the leading brands, it is bound to have all the needed features inbuilt. It is a must to carry out thorough research to pick the most suitable ERP Software for Retail Industry.    #2 Controlling Vendors Tightly to Get Solutions for Cheap   While choosing an Retail management ERP, might put vendors against one another, and also, vendors against the buyers. There is an orthodox belief that hiding the treasured business information will help the decision-maker reduce costs and minimize project risks. However, the reality is entirely different as it can lead to unwanted outcomes and financial losses.   #3 Not Having Enough Time to Participate in the Selection Process   An experienced retail management service provider would be your operational and strategic member for their time to gather information on your business requirements to customize the appropriate solution and pricing. However, not cooperating enough can seriously impact your overall business outcome.   #4 Falling into the Demo Trap   Over the past two decades, the organizations have developed the idea of choosing a software solution like Best retail management software based on the demo that has been presented to them. However, completely relying on the self-serving and orchestrated demonstrations traps them into the demo scam and becomes a heavily expensive mistake.    #5 Relying on Insufficient References   Once the decision-makers are satisfied with the solution, they must get in touch with at least three industry references and ask for their experience with the same. Failing to do so can impact your business outcome for the next five to six years.   #6 Considering the cheapest option as the Best One   Whether it is an ERP System for Online Retailer or an offline one, you still need to pick the most suitable option based on process automation, capacity, critical organizational productivity, effectiveness, and success. It is important to calculate prices in terms of received value followed by the solution provider’s experience, knowledge, resources, and professionalism. Cheaper options sure look appealing however, they can cost you a fortune in the longer run.   #7 Relying on Your IT Department to Execute the Selection Process    This is one of the most common mistakes while picking an ERP Software for Retail Industry i.e., relying entirely on your IT sector to execute the selection process alone. Though this business solution processes on computers, you should not leave everything up to the IT sector alone as it is not just about technology. IT can only identify your business requirements according to their limited knowledge about the organizational business operations.    How To Avoid Mistakes and Pick the Appropriate Solution Effectively?  Identify Your Business Needs  Start from within the organization, identify your goals, strategies, requirements, imperatives, and so on. List down the challenges that are being a hurdle between you and your objectives. You need to have your business insights or else it can become a very expensive mistake.   Provide Your Vendor with All the Requirements   It is important to stay open and share necessary information with your vendor to avoid unnecessary risks. The ERP Software for Retail Industry solution providers customize solutions as per your business requirements therefore, hiding essential information to cut costs can become malware in the long run.   Avoid Unnecessary Project Risks and Be Clear   Notice your buying process to exhibit availability and transparency. Do not adopt a dynamic that would rather cause confusion than collaboration. Be clear while defining the organizational benefits you are looking for from the project with the service provider.  Also ask your service provider about the business benefit, project upgrades, and cost deductions methods that your business might have missed.   Take Enough Industrial References   It is a great measure to identify if the project is worth paying or not. Take at least three industrial references. Identify what issues they had to face with the vendor, their reasons and how that is relevant to you. Compare your needs with them and identify the risk of joining with the project.   Choosing a Unified Software Solution   It is advisable to pick a retail management service that offers a unified commerce solution.  One such provider is Trident Information System, a Microsoft Dynamics premium partner, which offers a unified software solution within the same platform. Therefore, you can bid farewell to multiple software integration complications and embrace store operations, Point of Sale (POS), inventory, supply chain management, eCommerce, and customer loyalty programs under the same platform. And the best part is, you do not need an upgrade ever again! LS Retail is automatically on its latest version.   LS Retail is the leading ERP Software for retail industry covering business needs all across the globe. If you are looking for the best retail management software India, you can contact trident.  We offer a unified commerce solution to cover all your business needs within the same platform and power thousands of stores throughout the world.  

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6 Ways to Revolutionize the Restaurant Experience with LS Central

 If you are thinking of switching to LS Central, we will mention how it can revolutionize the restaurant experience. LS Central as Best Restaurant Management Software is a unified software solution for cafes, restaurants, and other food service businesses with a bigger perspective in real-time. LS Central is an extension to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, letting you process POS, financials, supply chain management, operations, online channels, inventory, and customer loyalty within the same platform. However, many businesses tend to rely on using multiple software but they can end up causing complexities instead, such as:   Issues with integration and implementation.   Large restaurants have many vendors making management tough.   Establishing coordination with the software service providers.   Getting support and services of the software.   As the restaurant business expands or acquires new buildings the service provider might not upgrade its services for scaling.   Difficulty with providing on-premise and cloud solutions together.     You can replace all the multiple software solutions you are using now with one software. Get ready for more effective business operations and minimum waste. Get a spot-on view of your business and make sensible decisions with LS Central.   LS Central as a Revolutionary Measure   LS Central can-do tremendous benefits to your business, with a centralized solution like this one, you can manage the kitchen centrally, handle tables and optimize mobile POS. LS Central integrates your headquarters and restaurant operations with ERP.   Better Table Management   Use LS Central’s intuitive visuals and graphics display on every dining table depicted with different colors table availability, making guest management and tables a straightforward and error-free process. It can depict the number of guests registered for each table and the staff they are currently serving. It ends up saving time and enhances the overall dining experience.  Transfer orders or parts of orders throughout different tables or different sections of the restaurant quickly and easily. For instance, you can easily allow the dining table to be ordered from both dining sections or bars, easily with no risk of errors. The orders can easily be transferred between multiple restaurants.   Loyalty Programs   You can uniquely connect with your customers, identify them and understand their likings and preferences. This way it will be easier for you to create personalized services and products based on their earlier preferences. Your business sales swear by it. Additionally, the product’s upselling and cross-selling. Let your customers earn points on purchases throughout your channels. This will allow them to use these points as a part of their transactions or access special deals designed for them. You can launch special meal deals or hold happy hours accordingly.   Data Visibility   With LS Central you can manage prices, ingredients, menus, the campaign offers, and manage all the data up-to-date on touch points such as websites and apps. Get real-time data on your operations, stock, guests at hand and optimize it on your analytics and insight. Create data-driven strategies to minimize waste and cut costs wherever possible, increase profit as well as customer loyalty.   Centralized Control   You can oversee and manage your locations from the headquarters, control prices, recipes, menus, and campaigns. also, trace staff performance and communicate with your employees. Analyze current costs and revenues and identify trends and potent opportunities. Access detailed reports and data in real-time and make more logical decisions. Configure your system to each region’s fiscal and region requirements.   Minimum Waste   Use real-time data to minimize waste and inefficiencies, with LS Central you can price your dishes accurately and extract maximum profit. Smartly order the accurate quantities and distribute them. You can ensure your customers received exactly what they ordered. Speedup table turns and upsells growth. Optimize floor space with table bookings. You can also plan your meals and rationalize your ingredient ordering. Minimize manual work and scope of errors with automation. One of the best benefits of LS Central is using single software throughout the business.   Repeated Business   LS Central allows exceptional customer service and repeated business. You can make contactless payments and orders with a mobile POS or self-ordering device on the table. Your guest can customize their orders like adding or removing something according to their preferences. There will be an accurate display of allergens and ingredient data at the POS and self-ordering devices. Also, you can align menus and pricing to real demand. Your customers can order food either online or on their preferred services. Lastly, you can generate loyalty programs for you and your customers.   Conclusion   LS Central is being used as a revolutionary measure for a business. Trident Information Systems, Gold partners of LS Retail have been serving many successful businesses so far. Being armed with 150+ technical resources, they have won multiple awards. For further queries or a demo contact us.  

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Why Retail CEOs Need A Unified Commerce Solution To Beef Up Their Business Sales?

In the era of  globalization, consumer demands change rapidly. Therefore, the retail industry needs a modern Retail Software Solution to cope with the dynamic consumer desires. Flexibility, clairvoyance and quick decision-making is a must-have requirement for future CEOs. They have to work hand in hand with the latest technology available in the market, such as LS Central for Retail. It is a unified commerce solution that can help your business upgrade significantly. Why Does Your Business Need A Unified Commerce Solution? Under the influence of utter consumer demand change, the retail industry is facing a rapid shift. Retailers need to adopt a Retail Software Solution, as consumers these days are getting impatient with an acceleration: More than 85%, buyers tend to leave the store if the item is absent, or they are not assisted by anyone. 30% of consumers can specify within 2 minutes if the item they are looking for is in stock or not. 79% of shoppers would discard a retailer after three unaccomplished or late deliveries. Therefore, be it a brick-and-mortar store or an online one, it needs to undergo the latest technological shift and adopt a Retail software solution such as LS Retail Software Solution to keep up with your competitors. Biggest Challenges Faced By Most Of The Retail Software Solution? Due to the sudden need for change in customer demand, the retail industry is in constant evolution. However, a regular Retail Software Solution is unable to provide all the suitable solutions within the same environment. The retailers have to use multiple options. Nevertheless, there some common challenges faced by the retail software as followed: Customization Customers these days demand customization as an outcome of their desire to experience something unique. The buyers look for interaction, great experiences, prompt and excellent quality services The CEOs need to adopt the most advanced Retail Software Solution to cope with the market demand changes such as LS Central. You may also need its Retail ERP Software for best outcomes. Retail Price Inflation When the buys have to pay more for their needs, they do not have enough disposable income. Therefore, they tend to cut down the budget on their luxury such as clothes, makeup, and so on. Now the CEOs have to strategize new ideas to convey how their product is an excellent value for their money. Similarly, they are also struggling to deal with the inflated rates. Not all retail solutions can provide the feature to deal with the same. Communication Managing a store can be pretty hard, and comprising on communication is no exception. The level of complexity depends on the business’s size, size of the chain, and employee count. This can collectively impact the scalability, tracking, automation, and reporting Digital Disharmony The scope of technology and its uses are exceptionally growing, which fuels the need of merging online and offline businesses from back-office tasks to the final delivery. Unfortunately, most Retail Software Solution cannot provide all the essentials within the same environment. How Can A Unified Commerce Solution Change The Game? A Unified commerce solution, can be an ultimate game-changer due to the following reasons: No More Upgrades: a unified commerce solution doesn’t need frequent upgrades, as it is automatically on the latest version. Therefore, the latest technology is on your desk with 0 additional effort. Coping With The Customer Demands: a unified solution scrutinizes customer shopping behaviors and computes data relevant for future decisions. This is the best way to keep up with the dynamic market environment. Not only this, but it also makes it simpler for customers to check the current stock availability. Ultimate Integration: it integrates your business operations across channels, regions, and industries and eliminates issues occurring due to miscommunications. All of your business activities are integrated from the back office to final delivery. Boosts Sales Brilliantly: a unified solution helps scrutinize your final execution, run multiple scenarios and modify your strategies. Better strategies are equal to a boost in sales. It is highly effective during retail price inflation. We Are Not Done Yet A majority of Software Solutions follow the same pattern; they offer a small ratio of your needed features. However, a unified commerce solution such as LS Central is way ahead of them that offers the world’s most renowned ERP For Retail Industry, you get all the necessary retail-oriented functionalities essential for your business. It collects and examines your customer It makes everything simpler for your customers, boosts sales, shuns unnecessary costs, and ultimately boosts your profit rate.

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Build Loyalty and a Seamless Customer Engagement Through Mobility for Retail

With mobility redefining the way retail industry is currently operating, there is no exaggeration that smart phones have brought a new lease of life into an already complex web of multichannel retailing. Needless to say, enterprise mobility has become the new enterprise experience – a unique way of transacting business and improving how people work in every area – either desk or in the store. In this perspective, many retailers are concentrating on investing exclusively on consumer mobile apps. This is a new beginning that is gaining rapid momentum – empowering stakeholders like store associates, managers, partners and consumers with mobile solutions to fully transform the customer experience. Unique Challenges for the Retail Industry Promotion of new brands, based on whether they are in the store, on the road, or at home Consumer access to myriad choice of products, models and styles Rising consumer demands to provide excellent customer service Enormous and disparate amounts of consumer and business data to collect and analyze No proper analytics to model and forecast different scenarios. Harness the power of mobile solutions to transform your business! Gone are the days when store was just a retail floor; it's now a virtual shop operating 24/7 connecting your employees, partners and customers. This means all these stakeholders require mobile solutions to transform and define the way they learn team work and shop to build loyalty, augment sales and improve their overall RoI. Some of the typical areas of retail where mobile can have significant impact are: Store Operations Through centralized POS management and back of store transformation, retailers can remotely manage both fixed and mobile POS systems from a single location. Access real-time data anytime, anywhere, and meet seasonal demand by instantly provisioning workspaces as needed. Resourceful shelf-space utilization by field associates through apt mobile planogram. Loss Prevention Audit Analytics Supply Chain Enhance decision making and fulfilment with real-time visibility and collaboration. Enable faster time-to-market with new products. Minimize wastage, shrinkage, obsolescence and expenditure. Streamline stock fulfilment. Marketing & Logistics Offer personalized promotions, resulting in enhanced customer loyalty. Augment store visits by leveraging location-based features. Offer location based services such as loyalty rewards and status media preferences. Leverage mobile commerce to offer superior shopping experience. Customer Service Offer more reach to your customers via mobile catalogue browsing, ordering and store pickup. Enhance customer in-store experience with mobile checkout. Let your customers have instant access to store price and products availability, enhancing their customer satisfaction. Minimize margin shrinkage and lost sales by providing a seamless multi-channel store experience to your customers. Mobilizing Retail Analytics A real-time reporting tool for retail businesses Monitor traffic patterns and transactions Customize graphs and tables to highlight certain metrics Measure all aspects of the business that matter Understand shopper behaviors and discover opportunities Contextual Retail IOT Platform Beacon based proximity marketing solution Deliver highly relevant message to shoppers Setup campaigns to target individual shoppers Analyze each campaign with detailed insights CMS to build micro locations and create personalized messages Extend your brand’s reach on consumers’ devices

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LS Retail is now LS Central & Trident is LS Central Gold Implementation Partner

LS Central is Centralized Software solution for Restaurants and food services industry, this is all in one complete suit to manage front office to back office operations, inventory, customer service, online food ordering, Trident as LS Central Implementation Partner offering Retail ERP implementation, Support & training

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Streamline ordering and communication with a connected Kitchen Display System (KDS)

Since LS One 2020 was released in July, the LS One team has been developing extra functionality to enhance the system. They have put special focus on extending the capabilities for restaurants and food service businesses. Trident is LS Retail Central Platinum Partner, offering ERP for Retail & Hospitality. The Kitchen Display System (KDS) is a digital order viewer that replaces paper tickets and printers in a restaurant kitchen. A KDS has become an essential component in a modern kitchen, as it helps organize and streamline work: No more stained, hard-to-read paper tickets: all orders are displayed on screens, clear and tidy. No need for servers to waste time running from the front to the kitchen and back: all communication between kitchen and front (orders, items, their preparation status) goes through your POS system. Items and orders are automatically routed and displayed at the proper food preparation stations. Items are shown on the screens by production order, so kitchen staff can start and complete preparation timely. Kitchen staff can bump dishes to different stations, or mark orders and items as ready. The Kitchen Display System and the POS are connected via a two-way communication system. Front-of-house staff can see the status of orders at the POS, and make sure all dishes are delivered to the guests at the right time. You can add screens and set up specific automations to follow your kitchen’s flow. In the past, to connect a KDS to LS One you needed to do your own integration. From this version of LS One onwards, you can use your LS One POS system with the LS Retail Kitchen Display System. The systems are connected out of the box, no extra work needed. Picture this: Your server takes the order at the POS. When they send the order to the kitchen, the items are automatically routed to the KDS in the correct kitchen station (for example, the grill station versus the sauté or dessert station), and displayed in the right order of production. When a guest asks “When is my dish coming?” front-of-house staff can check at the POS the status of the order, and update the table. Easy, quick, and professional. Sell groups of items easily with assembly items It’s now easier than ever before to sell multiple items at once – for example, as a gift basket. In LS One you can now create “assembly items” by combining different items into one. The options are endless: Set up deals (or meal deals, if you run a restaurant or café) Create hampers and gift baskets Make bills of materials Set up recipes, managing the ingredients as separate items Assemble supply kits Do you run a chain, and want to differentiate your offering across locations? You can vary the list of component items between locations, and easily substitute products or ingredients as needed. For example, your holiday hamper can include Gouda cheese, instead of brie, in some of your store locations. You can set a special price for the final item, or add up the prices of the items that compose it – your choice. If you want, you can also display the list of components on the POS receipt, on the printed receipt, and on kitchen orders – or you can hide it. The integration to SAP Business One ERP just keeps on getting better Since we introduced the out-of-the-box integration between LS One and ERP SAP Business One, more and more businesses have moved from other POS solutions to LS One. Using their valuable feedback, we have been working on the integration to make it even more immediate and seamless. You can now add a U.S. tax setup when you create a customer on the POS The login service layer is more intuitive and quicker We have added tax synchronization for specific localizations You can now easily connect to different versions of SAP Business One HANA More enhancements to come as the LS One team keeps on ironing out the wrinkles. Endlessly enhancing LS One We are continuously working on improving LS One in terms of functionality, speed and simplicity. Some highlights from this release: You can now add the company’s country information Discount calculations are way faster than before We have redesigned the “send to station” and “menu type selection” dialogs (restaurant-specific functionality) The kitchen printing/send to station functionality is now fast and seamless (restaurant-specific). You can find more enhancements and fixes in the release notes. And as usual, more improvements are ahead as the team keeps on working to make LS One the best POS in the industry. If you have any comments, suggestions, or any query for us, get in touch! or write at info@tridentinfo.com

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How to reduce queues in your retail store and keep customers safe

Consumers hate standing in line at the store. This is nothing new. Nine out of ten UK shoppers interviewed by Box Technologies and Intel revealed they avoided stores with long queues. When Amazon opened its cashier-less, checkout-less store Amazon Go, many hailed it as a much-needed revolution exactly because it eliminated the need to queue to check out. Since Covid-19 hit, long lines have gone from being simply a nuisance and a waste of time to a potential hazard. As a retailer, how can you reduce the risk of lines forming without going the Amazon Go route? Here are six ideas. 1. Bring the register to the customer with mobile POS Today, the most advanced retail software solutions enable you to run the Point of Sale (POS) on mobile devices like tablet computers or smartphones. Your staff can look up information, scan items, close transactions, accept payments and print receipts anywhere the customers are, both inside and outside the store premises. No need for customers to line up at the register and wait for their turn. Another advantage of mobile POS is that you can easily add more devices when needed, without having to devote space to extra registers. [Download our whitepaper “No more strings” to find out more benefits of adding mobile Point of Sale to your in-store experience] 2. Add special stations for complex processes Simple sales are usually fast to handle, so a line of customers simply buying items usually flows rapidly. On the other hand, more complex processes like returns, custom orders or loyalty program signups can take longer, and slow down the line significantly. Since simple sales usually outnumber complex ones, you can reduce the average waiting time having a special service station for shoppers who need extra help, for example those needing refunds, exchanges, special orders and more. 3. Experiment with virtual queues With a virtual queue machine, customers can take a number and secure a place in a queue without actually having to stand in line, close to each other. Although these kind of machines are common in service centers like post offices and banks, they are not as widespread in retail stores, especially at the register. My local electronics store, for example, uses virtual queuing for customers looking for assistance, but relies on traditional lines at the register. Are they missing an opportunity? An added reason to try out virtual queues is that they give customers the time to wander around the store while waiting – a great opportunity for them to see   extra items they might want to add to their cart. 4. Set up one-to-one appointments Not all retail store visits need to be unplanned walk-ins. If a consultation or special attention is required, more retailers are encouraging people to book a time beforehand, so they can be given the time and attention they need. Jewelry chains Watches of Switzerland and Goldsmiths, Mappin & Webb started booking one-to-one appointments with customers as soon as they reopened their stores after the temporary pandemic closures. Craig Bolton, executive director of The Watches of Switzerland Group, says that his company set up 13,000 one-to-one virtual and in-store appointments in the last two weeks of July alone. Although this format may not fit retailers in all industries, reservations can help organize the flux of incoming visitors and ensure that you have the time and space you need for your customers. 5. Add “scan and go” tech The latest revolution in Point of Sale technology sees the POS move into the consumer’s hands. Scan and go mobile apps allow consumers to self-serve in the shop, using either their personal mobile device or a provided handset to scan items and pay. The process is different from traditional mobile POS, not just because customers take care of the scanning themselves but also because items are scanned as they are added to the cart. Although for now Scan and Go technology is most common in grocery stores, there is no reason why retailers in other sectors shouldn’t take advantage of it. In a fashion, health, electronics or DIY store, customers would benefit from the ability to add items to the basket at their convenience while limiting human-to-human contact. Scan and go apps have other benefits, too. When they scan aa barcode , customers can see all the product details, including information like nutrition, components or ingredients and care instructions– a great way for shoppers to get all the extra information they need to make a buying decision without having to touch the product. 6. Empower your staff with intuitive, reliable tech Is outdated, slow technology one of the causes of long lines in your store? One of our customers told us a horror story of their old POS breaking down during the Christmas Eve rush. “It was a nightmare: one of our cash registers locked up, causing all of the systems in our main store to go down. Lines wrapped around the store because we had to process all transactions manually by writing everything down. We easily lost $20,000 that day, and who knows the long term effects it had on repeat business.” His conclusion? “The most important criterion when choosing a system is reliability.” Take a hard look at your technology: is it still serving your customers adequately? When selecting new software, look for systems that ensure short transaction times. Long queues used to be a luxury problem for a retailer; not anymore. Do you need help finding the right technology to give customers a safe, pleasant experience in your stores? Do not hesitate to contact us.

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

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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