The Ultimate Guide to Choosing the Right POS System

If you work in fashion retail, you’ll know how useful it is to have customer data at your fingertips so you can analyse past purchase patterns and make key decisions for marketing campaigns and loyalty programs.

The right apparel POS can help you streamline your operations and improve the customer experience, but with the wealth of options available, choosing the right one isn’t easy.

This guide will help you make an informed decision for your apparel business.

Smart Inventory Management

Working in the fashion industry, you’re likely all too familiar with inventory and stock issues. It could be that you struggle to keep up with demand and deal with low stock on a regular basis, or maybe you overestimate demand and have a situation where you’re sitting on an excess of inventory.

The right POS system will all but eliminate inventory management issues. With a host of advanced stock features, you can use POS to provide automated alerts when you’re at risk of overstocking or understocking.

By improving your inventory accuracy reconciliation, you can expect a sales increase of up to 8% on average.

Plus, you can have your POS track every variation you offer, from the colours of each product to sizes and patterns. This, combined with accurate sales reports, allows you to top up the specific apparel that’s most in demand so you can always meet consumer demand and stay in step with the latest trends.

Customer Data Insights

As well as insights into what’s selling, you can get advanced data insights on consumer purchase patterns. Around 37% of consumers say that they find directed ads focused on their interests most influential in their purchase decisions.

(Source: PwC)

Maybe you find, to your surprise, that swimwear sells best at the tail end of Summer or jumpers fly off the shelves in the first few weeks of Spring. Rather than guessing, a POS system allows you to be proactive and make data-backed decisions surrounding stock and what your customers are actively looking for and buying day-to-day and season-to-season.

With cloud computing, some POS systems can help you manage this customer data in one place, allowing you to consolidate in-store purchase information with eCommerce store purchases.

Flexible Payment Options

Imagine you have a group of friends walking around town on a shopping trip. For these groups of customers, you want to remove friction as much as possible so they can make whimsical purchases and impulse buys.

If you don’t offer flexible payment options, you could be losing out on dozens of sales. Some consumers might pay for everything with their smartphone, for example, so if you don’t support this payment method, you’re unlikely to make that sale.

(Source: Statista)

It’s best to offer a full range of payment options rather than simply adding one or two, as each method, from mobile payment platforms to digital wallets, brings with it a number of potential extra sales as you’re giving customers what they most want these days: convenience and freedom of choice.

The mobile POS market is set to grow to $83.48 bn by 2028, so it’s an important technology to adopt in your business now.

Omnichannel Sales and Marketing

Since more apparel businesses are moving into the online space by the day, you need an easy way to bridge the gap between your eCommerce store and brick-and-mortar store.

With the right POS system, you can do just that.

A POS system lets you sync your inventory across online and offline stores so every transaction is accounted for wherever it’s made. You can also set up click-and-collect so that customers can start a purchase online and pick it up in-store at their convenience.

Even returns and exchanges become easier with a POS system – whether the customer paid for the item online or in-store, your POS system can handle the transaction.

Outside of the benefits for your internal operations, a POS system equips you to send out powerful omnichannel marketing campaigns to your customers.

What Could This Look Like?

One example would be setting up and implementing integrated loyalty programs for your customers. Unlike traditional loyalty programs, the omnichannel option rewards customers by letting them earn points for purchases made both in-store and online.

Combine this with clever personalization and segmentation, and you can create powerful incentives for repeat business.

Around 50% of consumers say that personalization, which is grounded in their interests and previous purchases, influences a future purchase decision.

Alternatively, if you have an active presence on social media, you can broadcast upcoming promotions with a post and allow users to shop directly through this post. With the right POS, you can simplify the customer journey and allow them to go from seeing the product to buying it, regardless of how they engage with your business.

Choosing the Right POS System For You

Choosing the right POS system for your apparel store is crucial if you’re looking to streamline the checkout experience.

When making all the important decisions, remember to look for a POS solution with flexible payment options, powerful security features, and scalable storage capacity.

The key here is to purchase a POS system that grows with your business rather than one your business grows out of.