Best POS Systems for Small Businesses: A Complete Guide

All retailers with physical locations need a POS system to accept payments and keep accurate sales records. However, a furniture store with 50 locations will have different needs from a small jewelry business running its first pop-up shop.

When you’re deciding on the bestPOS systemfor your small business, it’s important to think about which features match your current needs and future goals.

This post is designed to help you find out what features a small business POS system should have, and how to choose the right POS system for your business.

Why does a small business need a POS system?

Small businesses that want to accept payments in-person, track sales, and manage inventory need a point of sale (POS) system.

Although you could accept only cash payments and manually track your sales on a spreadsheet, it would be hard to satisfy customer payment preferences and challenging to accurately manage your inventory.

Accept payments

Retail POS systems let your small business accept multiplepayment methodsin-store. Depending on the POS software and hardware you choose, you may be able to take and record payment from mobile or tablet devices, as well as traditional checkout counters.

Track sales and manage inventory

The best POS systems automatically track all sales. They also store key product information like:

• Wholesale price
• Retail price
• Gross profit
• Net profit

Your POS system automatically updates inventory and sales data anytime you buy, sell, return, or exchange a product, in-store or online.

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What features should a POS system have for small businesses?

• Accept multiple types of payments
• Inventory tracking
• Customer profiles
• Sales reports
• Staff management

A solid POS system for small businesses lets you process payments securely and comes with software to help you handle administrative tasks more easily.

The kind of business you manage and the types of sales you make will help you determine which features your POS system needs to have. For example, a small business POS system that works well for a brick-and-mortar florist may not work so well for an online beauty retailer running their first physical pop-up shop.

Here are the top five POS system features you should look out for:

Accept multiple types of payments

A McKinsey study found that only28%的交易在美国使用cash in 2020. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing payment options like mobile wallets, customers want the convenience of choosing from multiple payment types.

Your POS system should make accepting in-person and online payments simple. Most modern POS systems let you accept popular payment types like:

• Contactless payments:These can includemobile walletpayments using Apple Pay or Google Pay andchip cards.
• Cash:Which you deposit into your cash register.
• Chip cards:Credit or debit cards with anear field communication (NFC)chip to allowtap to pay.
• Magstripe cards:Which let customers swipe their card in your card reader.
• Card not present transactions:When a shopper pays with their card without the card being physically present. These payments usually take place when a customer makes a purchase over the phone.
• Gift cards:Digital or physical cards that can be redeemed for online or in-person purchases.
• Amazon and Facebook pay options:This allows customers to pay using their Amazon or Facebook accounts.

Inventory tracking

Many POS systems help track and manage in-store inventory, but the majority don’t let retailers track inventory across multiple channels like their online store, physical locations, and storage units.

US retailers are sitting on an average of$1.50 in inventoryfor every dollar of sales they make. Successfully tracking and managing inventory can help lower these costs and ensure you’re not tying too much capital in inventory.

Using POS systems that track your inventory across multiple channels will help you order enough stock to meet customer demand, while preventing frustratingstockouts, expensiveoverstocks, and inventory shortages.

As Maggie Owens, a Shopify Merchant and owner of party supply and gifts shop,Presley Paigesays, using a POS system that seamlessly communicates between her online store and physical location helps her know exactly how much stock she has, so she can help customers find the product they’re looking for in-store.

"Offering store pick-up for online purchases and managing them through our POS has been extremely helpful. Being able to track inventory in-store and send saved carts to customers who call in and want to put something on hold is useful too. This allows our in-store team to send customers items they didn't purchase in-store, but mentioned wanting to purchase at a later date.

Justyna Sylwia, the owner of Isle Wilde, adds that a POS system that takes care of inventory tracking is one less thing to worry about and lets her focus on other priorities.

When selling numerous small items, it's difficult to keep track of what's available and how much of it. Having a system that does inventory for you allows you to focus on the more creative parts of running a business.

Customer profiles

According to a 2021 survey run by Twilio Segment,60% of consumerssay they will become repeat buyers after a personalized shopping experience with a retailer. By personalizing your offering to customers, you can improve brand loyalty and revenue.

A POS system that’s connected to your online store will help you gather, track, and manage customer data more easily.

For example, with Shopify POS you can create customer profiles and view their entire purchase history, including details like:

• Everything they’ve bought at your store or online
• How much they’ve spent to date
• The number of times they’ve ordered
• How long they’ve been a customer

All of thiscustomer dataupdates in real time and is in one place. This helps customers, since your staff has more context and can serve them better. You can also use data to segment customer profiles and build email lists to keep customers engaged and increase repeat purchases.

Sales reports

Look for POS systems that compile sales reports from data collected at both your physical locations and online. That way you get a complete picture of how your business is performing.

Justyna Sylwia, the owner ofIsle Wilde, says, “Having sales reports is extremely helpful and makes tax season a literal breeze. You can download reports in just a few seconds. Also, it's a great tool to understand how your business is doing and when you need to pump up the marketing.”

Staff management

Your POS system should help you manage your team members as you grow and scale your business.

Look for management features like permissions and staff roles to make it easier to manage your staff. Using these features you can set boundaries for what actions team members can do without supervisor permission, for example, refunding a customer or applying a discount to a product.

It’s also helpful to have visibility on staff’s performance like their average transaction values, median units per transaction, and daily sales.

Best POS systems for small businesses

As your small business grows, so will your need for a POS system that can handle increasingly complex retail operations and systems.

Here are three different types of POS systems for small businesses:

Retail POS system

Retail POS systems let you accept payments in-person, monitor inventory, track sales, and manage team members. They’re usually anchored to a checkout counter and are designed for merchants who sell from physical locations likepop-up shops, events, festivals, and permanent brick-and-mortar stores.

They do the hard work for you, including maintaining accurate sales and inventory data. Whenever you buy, sell, return, or exchange a product, your sales data and inventory levels are updated in real-time.

Omnichannel POS system

32% of brands we surveyedsaid they’d be establishing or expanding their use of pop-up and in-person experiences in the next year, while 31% said they planned on establishing or expanding their physical retail footprint.

Omnichannel POS systems can help unify your online and offline sales.

I prefer an omnichannel POS system because we are able to use our website to sell online, as well as drive traffic to our brick-and-mortar store. I like the various options that omnichannel POS systems provide.

Mobile POS system

Amobile POS systemis a handy hardware and software system that processes payments. It’s similar to a traditional retail POS system but it doesn’t need to be attached to one checkout counter.

Using a mobile POS system, you can downloadPOS softwareonto your mobile device and process payments wherever your customers are. That means your physical location doesn’t need to have one fixed checkout counter, which is helpful if you’re selling at festivals and events.

When there are jewelry festivals or events, it's great to be armed with a tool where I can accept where I can acceptmobile paymentsin person in person," explains Justyna.

Having a system that turns your phone into a POS register is a godsend. Shoppers feel more secure purchasing products via professional tools. They give customers more confidence in who they're buying from.

How to choose a point of sale system for your small business

1. Review cost
2. Account for inventory management
3. Consider online and in-person selling

When you’rechoosing the right POS system for your business, it’s important to consider the features you need to effectively manage your business now and in the future.

Review cost

For any business, thecost of a POS systemwill be a determining factor. The POS system you choose needs to match your budget.

When reviewing the cost of POS systems, there are three factors to consider:

1. POS software fees:通常有月度或年度费用,different plan tiers and corresponding prices. Higher-tier plans usually come with more advanced features like advanced reporting and analytics.
2. Hardware costs:These depend on the payment types you want to accept, the number of stores and staff you have, and the overall functionality you need.
3. Payment processing fees:Every time you process a sale, your payment processor charges a fee. This fee is usually charged per transaction and taken as a percentage of the overall transaction amount. Sometimes the amount you pay per transaction depends on the credit card the customer uses.

Account for inventory management

Effectiveinventory management通常开始于一个aOB欧宝娱乐APPutomaticall POS系统y updates your inventory levels as you sell, return, or exchange products in both physical and online retail settings.

When you manage inventory from one platform, you can ensure accurateinventory reportingand simplify your overall management system. That way you’ll spend less time manually counting andreconciling inventory, as well as reduce the likelihood of human error.

Consider online and in-person selling

Close to50% of brandssay that unifying online and in-store operations and data is their biggest challenge.

但最好的统一在线和in-perso POS系统n selling; they don’t just connect to your online store via an API but collaborate with it and have built-inomnichannel selling features.

Even if you sell exclusively in online or physical settings today, you may want to give customers the option of both shopping channels in the future. Ensure tyhe POS system you choose can support your business as it evolves.

Get started with a small business POS system

A small businessPOSsystem helps you accept more payment methods, accurately manage inventory, run sales reports, and more. Consider your unique needs as a growing small business. What might suit some retailers might not be right for you. So think about which POS system features are most important to have, your budget, and your future business goals.