Maybe you’re opening your first store, or your second store, or your 22nd store. No matter where you are in your retail journey, a multi-store POS is a huge asset. That’s true even if you haven’t set up shop or if your retail empire already stretches far and wide.
A QuickBooks POS Multi Store is exactly what it sounds like – a point of sale solution built for multiple locations. Lots of systems will claim to have this functionality. But when you actually try to use it across locations it proves to be a lot less capable than advertised. A POS solution specifically designed to handle multiple locations is the only option that gives you seamless operations and scalable capabilities.
The benefits of QuickBooks POS Multi Store are vast and varied. Plus, they support your long-term goals in ways you may not realize. Before you choose a POS for the first time or the next time, discover the advantages of a multi-store solution:
Track Your Performance Across Locations
The performance of your stores matters individually and collectively. It’s relatively easy to gauge how you are doing at one store, even with a basic POS. But when you try to calculate sales across locations you have to manually organize data, run calculations, and waste a lot of time shuffling numbers around. It’s a distraction and it invites errors and omissions onto your bottom line. Something that starts out annoying eventually becomes unsustainable.
Multi-store POS is engineered to integrate data from across all your stores into one location. The integration is seamless, and it makes tracking enterprise-wide performance incredibly easy. After you have visibility into all your operations you’re able to make better decisions in less time. In other words, a multi-store POS gives you the means to effortlessly track store performance individual and collectively.
Scale to Accommodate Future Stores
Growth can be a double-edged sword. Opening a new store proves there is a real demand for your wares. It also creates hurdles that can anger customers, hurt revenue, and put all your stores at risk. Operating without a multi-store POS is a great example. Setting up a new POS system takes time, especially if you’re trying to integrate multiple systems manually. You have to contend with a huge technical obstacle at the same time you’re trying to get products on the shelves and staff trained, which only causes the new store to suffer.
QuickBooks POS Multi Store is the solution because it’s explicitly designed to scale and expand. When you open a new store it takes under an hour, often just minutes to get your new (but entirely familiar) POS system up and running – just Add A Store. Since it’s designed to integrate with your existing stores you know it will function perfectly starting on day one. You also know that if you want to open another store (or 10 more!) that putting a POS in place will be a painless process.
Handle Updates Automatically
Retail is a tech-driven industry, but that doesn’t mean people who are great at sales are also great at IT. Stores often have to bring in outside IT assistance to help them keep things like their POS system up-to-date and running smoothly. The more stores there are the more updates that need to be applied and the more IT help you have to pay for just to provide supplemental support. It’s a necessary cost, but one that retailers are understandably eager to avoid.
Offer a Consistent Experience
When consumers go to different locations of the same retailer they expect a consistent experience. They want to see the same products, pay the same prices, and experience the same aesthetic. They also want a consistent payment experience. It should always be convenient, of course. But it should also make it easy to participate in loyalty programs, redeem gift cards, schedule home shipping, and access a customized experience overall.
Multi-store POS makes that possible. The interface your staff and guests use is literally identical across locations (unless you elect to make changes). And since the system shares data, actions a consumer takes at one location are visible at another. Stores are able to treat people as individuals instead of random consumers, which is exactly the kind of experience today’s shoppers are looking for, especially in brick and mortar outlets. Over time, a multi-store POS becomes a powerful tool for cultivating repeat business and building customer loyalty.
Avoid Inventory Issues
Inventory tracking is one of the most important features in any POS system. Most will record when items are added or subtracted from the inventory in one store, but not necessarily all your stores. When those stores begin sharing, trading, or otherwise exchanging inventory you have to manually record those changes in your system. Otherwise, inventory goes completely off track and sales start to suffer as a result.
Multi-Store POS eliminates these issues while making large-scale inventory tracking incredibly easy. Updates are automatically recorded at the store-level and company-level and visible on one shared platform. That way, the issues and opportunities you need to be aware of are immediately apparent. Your inventory quickly becomes an asset you manage efficiently and leverage strategically.
If you already operate multiple stores a more flexible POS is already overdue. But if you have just one store and have no plans to grow, it is still smart to use multi-store POS. The cost is competitive with single-store POS options, yet it gives you the means to grow if and when the opportunity arises. Even if more stores are not currently in the cards, why not keep the option open?
