To call up and state that you are looking for POS software and not have a list of priorities is pointless. What then happens is you will buy a glorified cash register and not get the return on investment that should have been your number one objective. If keeping your customers informed of your sales and special events is a priority, then automated email marketing built into your point of sale system would be the number one priority to save you time and money over the year. Make you a list of must have features and what it could mean to your bottom line. A bundled solution for in-store and web store with one low monthly price might be your goal and how that will affect your end of year sales. Have a strategy and plan and do not settle for anything less.

As if retail wasn’t bad enough, credit card companies are raising interest rates on individuals and business that have in the past been good credit risks and paid their bills on time. The banks and merchant service companies need to make a little money to handle the transaction, but the credit card companies are almost a monopoly and do whatever the hell they want. Every time, you as a retailer take a credit card through your POS software, you are probably being charged a rate dictated by Visa, MC and AmX that is too high.

7-Eleven is fighting back and using its 6,300 U.S. stores to send a message to Washington and the credit card industry. Starting this week, the Dallas-based convenience store operator hopes to solicit 1 million signatures on petitions calling for Congress to change what the chain says are unfair and excessive credit card transaction fees. Credit card companies charge retailers a fee for every transaction. The size of the purchase doesn't matter. And retailers have no power to negotiate the fees, they say. Don’t blame the POS software companies that work hard to keep you PCI DSS compliant and give you good value. It’s the big boys and their lobbyists that are the problem.

Good inventory control is critical to ensure the survival of a retailer during these difficult times. Adequate levels of inventory in relationship to the anticipated sales can’t be accomplished without a plan, preferably an open to buy plan. Having too much or the wrong type of inventory during certain seasons can drastically hurt your cash flow and reduce profits which lead to markdowns and on sale items. Using your departmental comparatives, vendor comparatives and your open to buy planning will ensure you have the best mix to maximize your bottom line. Make sure your point of sale software has these features built in to simplify the inventory management.

Much is being written about internal theft in these trying times. It’s hard enough scrapping out a living without sharing with your silent partners, your employees. Exception reporting is the magic key to stopping a majority of this shrinkage. How many retailers look at an exception report daily? My guess is probably very few. You need to know everything that goes through your Point of Sale Software that is outside the normal, full priced transaction. When I look at this report, I would like to see which clerks are discounting, marking down, backing out of transactions, trying to void or anything outside of a normal full retail sale. If an employee shows up on the exception report many times, this will tell me that I ether have a poorly trained employee or they are attempting to manipulate the software. Looking at the exception report will give you the ability to isolate a problem in a day, rather than finding the problem a month down the road and thousands of lost dollars. Every day you should look at a sales summary report, an operations summary report, exception report and a stock evaluation report. If you don’t look out for your inventory and cash, your silent partner probably will.

Small retailers need to select a POS Software company that can act as their technology staff as well as furnish them software. Never let price be the first question asked, but how is your support and service followed by functionality of the product and will it fit my budget. Small retailers also want a product as good as the big box retailers use, but at a price that can fit their budget.

To try and have the new software work just exactly like the old is a recipe for disaster. This is where the term change or die comes into play. By the time you program for the old functionality, de-bug and go way over budget, the gains in productivity are mostly negated. The POS software you select to improve your business should be 95% of what you are looking for, straight out of the box and return on investment must be your top priority.

In Windows 7, Microsoft has worked out the Vista problems that kept many retail people downgrading back to Windows XP, but now Microsoft must fight the economy and the fact that many companies are cutting way back on IT spending and capital expenditures. Many consumers and businesses will upgrade to Windows 7 through new PC purchases, but they're not likely to upgrade existing systems until there is a better feel for what retail is going to be like in the near future. Windows 7 may be a tough sell for the foreseeable future, but it is a good upgrade from Vista and all its problems.