How Will I Know Which POS System I Need?

First, you need to evaluate your business. What do you want to accomplish with this system? Most people who inquire about retail POS systems are experiencing frustration from one or more of the following areas:

  • Too much time spent on back-office activities
  • Slow growth or disappointing profit margins
  • Inaccurate sales projections
  • Costs associated with employee errors
  • Losses due to theft or damage

Any one of these reasons is sufficient to motivate a retailer to purchase a POS system. Some specific questions help to clarify what you need in a POS system:

Is it primarily for handling sales transactions, inventory, or both? How much marketing data do you want to gather and how do you plan to use it? Will you be creating marketing literature yourself, or do you have an agency do that for you?

Who will be using the system? If you and your employees have differing levels of computer expertise, you’ll need to make sure that everyone will be able to use and understand the system.

How many cashier stations do you have? How many managerial stations such as bookkeeping, purchasing, shipping, and receiving will you need? Do you need a wired or wireless network? What peripheral devices such as scanners, barcode printers, receipt printers, and office printers will you need? These are all questions that should be thought out and then discussed with the software provider.

What kind of budget do you have for such a purchase? Do you have a dedicated Information Technology (IT) department? Can you afford the services of professional business analysts? The POS systems deployed by very large retailers are very different in cost, complexity, and purpose from the ones used by small and medium-size retailers. Your answer to these questions will help determine the type of system you choose and whether it’s one you can run yourself or one that requires a roomful of computer technicians and business analysts to use effectively.

Why a Mac-based POS System?

Retailers who are planning to grow want a system that is easy to network and can easily scale with their business. Family businesses often want a computer that has all the features needed to run their business and also meet their personal computing needs. The Mac’s networking capabilities, scalable architecture, and preinstalled personal productivity tools easily handle the needs of the small business today and the changing needs of growing businesses over time.

Another important consideration is “real estate.” In a retail operation, counter space is usually at a premium. The iMac is an excellent choice for a retail facility, combining elegant styling with a very small footprint.

For all of these reasons, thousands of retailers have chosen Mac-based retail POS for their businesses. The Mac’s advanced capabilities, extreme ease of use, platform stability, and award-winning styling make a Mac-based retail POS system an excellent choice for your retail business as well.

What Will It Cost?

A single-station system consisting of a third-party POS software system, an electronically interfaced cash drawer, a barcode scanner, a barcode printer, a receipt printer, an electronically interfaced credit card reader, and a POS automation software package can cost as little as $5,000 (excluding the computer and monitor), with single-user software-only solutions starting under $1,000. The cost of the complete system will, of course, vary widely depending on the quantity and configuration of the sales floor and management workstations you need. But even the most basic version of the elegant new iMac has plenty of power and flexibility to support a small retail operation.

You’ll be surprised how affordable it can be to put a retail POS system to work improving all aspects of your business, automating inventory and bookkeeping tasks that will free you up to focus on generating sales and supporting your growth plans.

How Long Does It Take to Get Up and Running?

Most Mac-based retail POS systems can be installed and running in a day. This does not include the task of inputting your company’s existing data or vendor catalog information, so the total time from ordering the POS system to using it to run your store operations can vary greatly depending on the resources you have available to build your database. The time line has several variables:

  • Your level of expertise with computers, spreadsheets, and data entry
  • The availability of electronic catalogs from vendors (that is, whether you can get them to provide their catalog information in a format that is compatible with your POS system)
  • If this is an existing business, whether you have been using a different retail POS system before and whether the information from the existing system can be exported in a format that the new system can read

A general rule of thumb is to allow approximately one month between the day you order the system and the day the system takes over store operations.

Will I Need Training or Consulting Services?

Although it is not required by all vendors, training is highly recommended by most of them. There are several ways to set up a retail POS system. The more effectively you build your database, the more relevant the information you will get from the system’s reports; and the more relevant the information, the more benefit you will derive from your retail POS system.

Do you need consulting to use a retail POS system? Most people need at least some consulting help to customize the system to their specific way of working and derive optimum benefit from it. Retailers who already have experience working with spreadsheets and databases will obviously need less help than those who have no such experience.

Where Do I Go from Here?

The next step is to visit an Apple Retail Store near you or contact vendors of Mac-compatible, third-party retail POS systems. You can find a list of the most commonly used Mac-based retail POS solutions at the bottom of the Apple Retail Business Solutions web page.

Retail Profiles

How to Buy and Get Support

Apple offers great ways to buy and get support for businesses.