Think you can’t afford furniture POS software to support your home furnishings business or it’s a waste of money? How much would it cost you to hire another employee — with insurance and benefits — to do a multitude of tasks such as tracking sales, commissions for your sales staff, and optimizing delivery routes to save gas and staff time?
Now does that software seem too expensive?
Good software can smooth procedures for businesses, saving staff time and improving operations. Custom software, developed especially for a specific business’s needs, can be very expensive, which offsets some of the savings and operational improvements of off-the-shelf software.
Plus, unlike employees, any kind of software never needs time off.
What is a POS and What Can It Do?
Having custom-made software made for your furniture business can be expensive. A retail business needs a POS system to process transactions, or “point of service.” It performs many functions besides checking out customers when they’re ready to make a purchase.
On a very basic level, it processes credit cards and checks and flags those that aren’t valid so you don’t end up losing money.
But the POS system for your furniture business can do so much more.
A contract inventory, track what items and what categories yield your top sales, and even create profiles for your customers. Have you ever seen those loyalty programs that certain shops have? You can bet that they have a custom POS system that saves that customer’s data information if they are a member of their savings club.
While that may not apply as much in a home furnishings business as opposed to clothing sales, there are other things you can add to a customized POS system that’s made for your furniture business. If you have multiple locations, it can track transfers to another store, or customer perks after a certain number of purchases are made.
Sounds great? But are you willing to shell out the money for what that will cost for a customized software program? With business costs rising — particularly shipping costs of new inventory — that can be a tough question.
Can You Afford Custom Software or Is There a Better Solution?
Let’s look at some of the most important features for most businesses, including stores that sell furniture. First and foremost, you want to get paid, and that means accepting credit cards. Very few people use checks anymore, and accepting them causes some risk. It may become more of a headache than it’s worth.
Your payments should be attached to your bookkeeping system to simplify that process. Most businesses now use some kind of bookkeeping software and connecting that to your payments is a huge help.
You want to look at what’s selling and what’s not. More importantly, you want to track what has the highest profit. For instance, do your bedroom sets or dining tables yield higher profits?
What’s selling the most and what do you need to reorder? Tracking your inventory and supplies can be a hassle unless you have a software tracking system.
You also want to keep track of your customers who have bought from you before and also the ones who express an interest in your business and your products. A business lead —when someone contacts you through a website or social media page asking questions — means they’re interested in buying from your store. You should be tracking that information.
When they do purchase, you will need to track delivery appointments. Trying to be as time and fuel-efficient as possible. You may also want to track your employees through a GPS to make sure they aren’t wasting gas by running errands for themselves while on a delivery run.
Hiring a company to develop software exclusively and specifically for your business is going to cost a lot of money when you think about how much time it will take a software programmer to develop and test things till they are sure there are no bugs in the system. That can get pretty pricey.
I Can’t Afford Custom Software, Is There an Off-the-Shelf Solution?
That’s a rhetorical question, right? Of course, there is, and we know just how and where to get it! Our ServiceWorks software is often used by the service industry, such as plumbers, electricians, and HVAC. But it’s also a great solution for a furniture business.
As a business owner, you can optimize routes for your delivery team. We know how important that is these days with the high cost of fuel. They can also save time and potentially reduce overtime costs.
Track employees in real-time so you always know where they are in their schedule and that can keep customers up to date on whether their delivery will be early or late. That can save your customers a lot of frustration.
Regarding bookkeeping, in addition to accepting credit cards, it can send sales data and track invoices for your shipments in, or if you’re offering wholesale, your shipments out.
Would you rather pay thousands of dollars to either hire another employee to handle these tasks, hire a professional company to develop custom POS software for your furniture business, or find a ready-made software solution for less than $50 a month?
This one should be a no-brainer.
ServiceWorks can get the job done for a furniture POS system at a price small businesses can afford. You can even try out ServiceWorks for a free trial, no credit card is needed!
