Point of Sale or POS data can help you better understand your physical store in terms of customer loyalty, spending and whether the time is right to open another store. However, to do this, you need to understand your POS data and how to use it.
What is POS data?
POS data is data collected when a sale takes place. This can then be categorised into sales, inventory, staff, product and customer data.
The collecting and analysing of data can be time-consuming, and in a smaller company without in-house data experts, it can feel overwhelming. In this case, engaging a data collection company such as https://shepper can be a useful investment.
How does POS data help?
POS data can inform a number of decisions in your business. It can identify busy times, allowing you to make sure you have extra staff on hand at that time if necessary. Knowing popular times can inform your marketing and promotional campaigns, such as introducing a new product at a time when you know there will be plenty in store to see it or holding an event to coincide with a popular time such as Christmas. See here for suggestions of promotions if Christmas is a busy time for your premises.
You can also compare your footfall data with your POS data to see how many customer visits result in sales. This will provide you with insight into how effective your retail team is or whether the store layout is conducive to sales.
POS data is also handy for managing your inventory. For an item that sells well, you will be able to see when you are running low, so as to restock before running out and missing out on sales. You will also see what is not selling and can consider a promotional campaign to shift the stock. For those items that do not sell despite your best efforts, the POS data can tell you that it would be wise to discontinue that line.
Through the insights that POS data offers, you will be able to make informed decisions on the direction your business should take.