Equipment failure, data corruption, viruses, security threats, and even natural disasters all represent potential threats, or risks, to one of a retailers most valuable assets… their data.

One of the most important exercises any retailer, small or large, can perform is to develop and maintain a comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plan. Since it does no good to begin planning after a disaster has occurred,  it’s essential that you give this exercise a high priority, and that all of your processes and procedures are in place prior to any need for data, systems, or facilities recovery.

While a comprehensive discussion about Disaster Recovery is beyond the scope of this blog (volumes have been written on the subject), we can discuss some of the most critical elements that a small retailer, without the resources of an IT staff, can do right now to avoid data loss and disaster.

Obviously, your data is vital to your Retail business. Your Inventory, customer lists, accounting information, applications, and most everything you need to run your business is all stored as data on your server and workstation hard drives.  How important is this data to you? If you answered, “very important”, then at a minimum you should have:

• RAID configured disks
• Daily backups to tape or other media
• Offsite Storage for backups
• Recovery Testing and validation

RAID Configured Disks

RAID is a technology that involves the use of multiple hard drives configured in an array, that appear as one large single drive in order to improve disk performance, increase storage capacity, and improve fault tolerance and server availability by allowing for a single hard drive failure (sometimes more) without data loss or the need to recover data from backup. With the use of hot-standby and hot-swap technologies, many hard drive failures can be recovered from completely without any server downtime.

Various RAID technologies have been developed for performance improvements and fault tolerance, including RAID1, RAID5, RAID10, RAID50, RAID0+1, and others. RAID can provide low-to-moderate cost, real time data redundancy, and represents an essential step in providing fault tolerance for your servers and data. Two relatively low cost RAID implementations that provide a good degree of data redundancy, fault tolerance, and server availability are RAID1 and RAID5.

RAID1 (data mirroring): data is written identically to two or more disks. The array provides fault tolerance and server availability as long as any one of the disks in the array remains operational.

RAID5 (data striping with parity): data is divided up into blocks and the blocks are written across all drives simultaneously (striped) for faster performance. A parity stripe is calculated and written to the disks allowing for the recovery of data should any one disk in the array fail.

There are many other RAID solutions available that provide additional benefits at increased cost, but if your business’s critical data is not currently residing on a minimum of a RAID1 or RAID5 storage subsystem, you need to take immediate action to ensure that it does.

Daily Backups to Tape or Other Media

Even though your data may be sitting on a RAID storage subsystem, you need to take data protection and disaster/recovery planning to the next level by ensuring that your data is backed up to tape, another disk, optical media (CD, DVD, Blu-ray), copied to the cloud, etc. Although RAID provides fault tolerance against hard drive failure it cannot protect against deleted files, a corrupt database, a computer virus, or a natural disaster that destroys hardware and the data that resides on it.

A tape backup strategy that backups the entire disk contents, including the operating system, applications, and application data is critical to the recoverability of any business’s operations in the event of disaster.  This should allow for the recovery of the entire server(s).

Another approach to recovering an entire server is to ensure you retain your operating system installation disks, retain access to all your application installation files, retain all installation key codes, and perform regular, scheduled backups of your application data. In the event a server needs to be rebuilt, you can install the operating system, applications, and restore the data. However, this approach requires longer recovery time and significantly more work.

Yet another approach to backing up a server is to periodically create images of your servers using one of the many different ‘disk imaging’ software solutions on the market, and conducting regularly scheduled backups of your application data.

If your application has a built-in backup utility, use it for backing up the application data. Not all data is recoverable simply because you’ve backed up data files. Database applications utilizing relational databases store their information in a series of data files and transaction logs. The application’s backup utility will commit transaction log files to the database prior to creating the backup, ensuring the integrity of the backup. You will need to utilize a backup utility that came with the application, or a backup utility provided by a 3^rd party provider, to properly backup and restore relational database application data.

Offsite Storage for Backups

To effectively guard against any disaster, you should not store your backup tapes in the same facility where your computer systems reside. Loss of the facility, or loss of access to the facility, may result in 100% data loss. There are many commercial solutions available for storing your backup media. Things to consider are:

Proximity to Business Location: keep the data close to allow for quick delivery, but not so close that the storage facility can be part of the same natural disaster.

Physical Security:  any 3^rd party data storage provider should have a high degree of control over who enters and has access to their facilities.

Security during Transit: any 3^rd party provider should have measures for ensuring the security of the data while in transit.

Password protection and encryption technologies can also be implemented to ensure data integrity while the backup media is offsite.

Recovery Testing and Validation

Testing backup recovery is the only way to ensure that backups are working and will be available to you should you need them. Procedures for recovery of systems and application data need to be tested and documented to ensure they work properly and to provide the training necessary to perform recovery when needed.

Regular review and validation that backups are successful also needs to occur. It’s not sufficient to assign the task of swapping tapes to an employee. The Backup utility should be reviewed regularly to ensure that backup jobs are being completed and that the data actually resides on the backup media. More than once, I have witnessed businesses that have assigned the duty of swapping tapes to an employee without regular, scheduled reviews that the backup jobs were actually running properly, only to find out that there was no data available for recovery when it was needed.

Summary

Every business, large or small, is dependent upon their servers and application data for continued operations. Large companies have IT staffing to ensure the integrity and availability of their data. Small business owners must take on this added responsibility themselves or through the use of outside vendors. Either way, it is essential that the disaster recovery plan provides for fault tolerance, data redundancy, and has a solid backup strategy with proven recoverability and secure off-site storage of critical data.

In future blog posts, I will dig deeper into various Disaster Recovery concepts.

Share:

Retail Pro’s flagship retail management software product, Version 9.2, extends its global leadership as both a store management and point of sale solution, combined with multi-national headquarters management, merchandising, inventory management, customer relationship and consolidation capabilities.  While the robust feature set in Retail Pro is well established, Retail Pro International, LLC. continues to invest heavily in R&D as evidenced in their latest release: R3.

Retail Pro Version 9.2 R3 enhances a wide range of areas within the product, including overall performance and ease-of-use improvements. However, this is not just a maintenance release – it includes a host of features the diverse Retail Pro customer base can readily exploit.

The features begin with enhancements to customer management, including faster customer lookups and results sorting, along with better allocation, assignment and communication capabilities between regions and districts. Users are also now able to selectively define which fields are required vs. optional. The inventory management area has also been enhanced with additional security features and an improved physical inventory counting process.

In support of Retail Pro’s advanced capabilities for managing complex corporate structures and organizational hierarchies (including franchises), the intercompany transfer area has been enhanced. Retail Pro is also well known for its ability to accommodate a wide variety of external system integrations and advanced reporting and analytics. The new DataStor product allows these extensions to operate at maximum efficiency through affordable and seamless integration with a standalone instance of the Retail Pro database.

Retail Pro’s extensive fraud control and overall operational visibility have also been enhanced with advanced database auditing and added security for certain transactions and operations (adjustment memo reasons, UPC creation, serial type assignment and others).

Retail Pro version 9.2 R3 also adds three new links to popular accounting systems, along with a next generation integrated high-performance payment processing engine, and support for a variety of additional peripheral devices. In addition, an improved licensing capability enables specific features to be licensed so that alliance partners can more readily extend the Retail Pro suite to address industry specific vertical markets.

Finally, the already extensive reporting suite included with Retail Pro has been extended and enhanced.

Individually, these enhancements are all exciting; together, they’re a testimony to Retail Pro’s forward thinking leadership and commitment to ongoing product R&D investment.

For more information, please see: http://www.retailpro.com/RequestMoreInformation.php

Share:

Retail Pro International, LLC (RPI) is committed to providing the highest quality products and support for our Retail Pro resellers and customers. This includes support for the latest editions of Microsoft’s Windows operating systems, including Windows 7™. As new Retail Pro products are released, RPI will continue to make appropriate announcements and publish updates to ensure compatibility with the latest generations of the Windows operating systems.

What does Windows 7 compatibility mean for Retail Pro?
Windows 7 compatibility is defined as the ability to install/load and operate the Retail Pro core product (Small Business, Merchant, Global, Global Enterprise, and DataStor) on a computer running the Windows 7 operating system.

Which Retail Pro solutions are Windows 7 compatible?
The Retail Pro 9 suite of products (version 9.2 R2 and later), including Small Business, Global, Global Enterprise, and DataStor editions are compatible with Windows 7 Professional, both 32 bit and 64 bit editions.

The Retail Pro 8 suite of products (version 8.6 and later), including Shop, Small Business, and Merchant editions are compatible with Windows 7 Professional 32 bit Edition. Windows 7 Professional 64 bit Edition is not supported for use with the Retail Pro 8 products. Compatibility issues which are concretely found to be caused through the use of RP8 and Windows 7 Professional 32 bit Edition (as validated by RPI) will be considered for remedy by RPI. In some cases a fix may not be possible within Retail Pro 8 platform, in which case Retail Pro 9 should be considered for use as an alternative.

It is important to note that some ancillary tools based on legacy development platforms may not have been tested for compatibility with Windows 7. In these cases the ancillary tools are provided on an as-is basis.

RPI does not recommend the use of, nor support the use of Microsoft’s Windows Home Premium or Home Basic editions with either Retail Pro 9 or 8.

Important Note: Not all hardware drivers are Windows 7 compatible, and in some cases drivers which are Windows 7 compatible are not 64 bit compatible. It is the customer’s responsibility to verify that all software and hardware devices being used with their Retail Pro products are Windows 7 compatible or 64 bit compatible when a 64 bit operating system is being utilized. Under no circumstance will Retail Pro International, LLC be responsible for 3rd party software applications and/or hardware components that are not Windows 7 and/or 64 bit compliant.

Do I need to upgrade my Retail Pro software to be compatible with Windows 7?
Only Retail Pro 9.2 R2 and Retail Pro 8.6 or later releases are considered Windows 7 compatible. A Retail Pro release prior to these versions will need to be updated to support the Windows 7 operating system.

How do I upgrade my Retail Pro software to be compatible with Windows 7?
Upgrading your Retail Pro software is a simple process, but it does require active software assurance. We highly recommend you consult your authorized Retail Pro Reseller to determine the best migration path to make your Retail Pro software Windows 7 compatible.

###

Share:

In our previous segments, we discussed the payment processing business as a whole, as well as some of the details of how a retailer is able to accept various card types for payment. This included — using their retail management software — how they get paid for the transactions, and then how the customer is ultimately billed on their monthly statement and the card issuer gets their payment. We also discussed the fact that while it’s reasonable for all the players in this industry to be paid for their investments and for the risks they take, it’s smart for the retail merchant to make sure they’re getting a fair deal and that they’re not paying too much for these services.

Just like the consumer needs to be concerned about any annual fees and interest they pay for their cards, the retailer needs to be concerned about the fees they’re charged for the payment processing process.

In this segment, we’ll discuss practical strategies for you to accomplish three key objectives:

1. How you can know how much your payment processing is really going to cost you.
2. What you can do to control your payment processing costs.
3. What else you need to be aware of beyond the “raw costs” (i.e., the fees assessed against your transactions, when will you get paid, etc.)

What is your payment processing really going to cost you?

There are two obvious ways to approach answering this question:

1. Try to figure out the fine print. You can attempt to “model” or predict what your costs would be based upon an analysis of your transactions and how you think they would be classified. This is a very challenging approach and fraught with peril as you may not be able to properly interpret the complex payment processing rules. While we recommend that you carefully read all of the information provided by the payment processor, and do your best to understand what their rules are, we suspect that you won’t be satisfied with the results of your “modeling exercise”.
2. Look at the bottom-line. Request that the payment processor provide you with some statements for several other merchants that are similar to you. They may balk at this due to privacy concerns, but they can easily redact the confidential information so the identity of the other merchants is removed. In the worst case, they should be able to provide you with aggregate information (i.e., total number of transactions, total value of the transactions, and the total fees paid). From this information you can get a good feel for how much the effective fees will be. When you request this information, you may get the argument that the fees vary widely from merchant to merchant, but if you do, then ask for even more examples so you can get a feel for the range of costs. If in fact the fees vary wildly, then you can safely draw the conclusion that you could possibly see fees on the high end of the spectrum! We also recommend that you ask for several references that you can check. Most of your fellow merchants will be more than happy to share how their costs add up for their payment processing fees, and what their experiences have been while working with the payment processor.

When evaluating proposals from the payment processors, at the simplest level, you will likely see the fees quoted as some combination of:

1. Discount rate. This will be a number like 1.4% (for pure, in person, retail sales), up to 2.3% (for Internet or “card not present” sales). This fee is just like what it seems, in that if you make a sale for $100.00 with a 2% discount rate, you will have to pay $2.00 to the processor. Please note that these are minimum rates, and certain circumstances can cause your transactions to be charged at a higher rate. We’ll discuss this further below.
2. Transaction fee. This will be a number in the range of $0.20 – $0.30 per transaction, again with the rate being lower for pure, in person, retail sales and higher for Internet or “card not present” sales.
3. Other fees. Application processing, address verification, gateway, statement, and monthly minimums – for example.

Note that these fees can vary between card types: credit, debit, PIN debit, gift, EBT, procurement, etc., and also between card brands: Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Discover, American Express, Diners Club, etc.

What can you do to control and minimize your payment processing costs?

While you certainly want to get the best deal you can on the directly comparable fees noted above, in addition you need to be very careful about doing anything that “downgrades” a transaction (i.e., causing the transaction to be charged at a higher rate than the lowest rate – as quoted above).  For example, not submitting consistent or complete transaction information to the processor; having incorrect address information, expiration date, or an Issuer Identification Number (IIN) or Bank Identification Number (BIN) that is mismatched with the customer’s billing address. You can also have a transaction downgraded if you have to type in the card number instead of transmitting the full card swipe information through your retail management software (or, POS). There are many other ways downgrades can occur, and the ways vary by processor. Interpreting these rules can be very complicated, and disputing the fees can wind up being a fool’s errand – in that you’ll spend more time arguing with the payment processor than the cost of the individual fee is worth.

Another way your effective rates can increase is due to “chargebacks”. Chargebacks occur when your customer disputes a charge that they made at your store, and the card issuer has to refund the money to your customer. When this occurs, you will pay a penalty and may be subject to having your overall merchant account downgraded (i.e., higher overall fees for your transactions) or even having your merchant account closed. The way to avoid chargebacks is to ensure that you have an ironclad relationship with your customer and that they completely understand and agree with what they’re buying. Further, make sure the invoice/receipt very clearly indicates the product or service they purchased, so the consumer isn’t confused when they see their statement. This is an area where tight integration with your retail management software can ensure that you have the right information printed on your receipts and submitted to the payment processor.

Finally, since the fees vary between card types and issuers, you need to be cognizant of these differences. An example is that debit cards are usually less costly to process than credit cards, and if a PIN number is entered by the consumer the fee may even be lower.

What else should you be aware of when choosing a payment processing provider?

Given all of this complexity and how much room there is for interpretation and potential dispute, it’s very important that you choose a payment processor that’s reasonable and convenient to work with. Further, you need to thoroughly understand the way your processor does business – what their customer service policies and escalation paths are. Ask them tough questions about how they deal (specifically) with the following:

1. Explanation of the merchant statement — does your sales person really understand their own statements? Have they provided you with examples and can they explain them to you? If not, who does understand the statements?
2. Disputes about the fees – who do you go to make a dispute? How are they (specifically) handled? Who makes decisions on waiving or refunding the fees?
3. Chargebacks – what are the rules and who can you ask if you have questions about their interpretation?
4. Bank Deposits – are there any circumstances where the processor will withhold or delay your payment? What is the typical time for a deposit to be made after your batch is settled?
5. Contact information – your sales contact and their supervisor. Also, the contact(s) for batch processing and settlement issues, and who has the authority to block or delay deposits to your account. Finally, who can make a decision to release the funds to your account if they’re blocked or delayed?

Finally, make sure you thoroughly understand the conditions and terms surrounding terminating your agreement. What is the agreement term/length? Is there an early termination fee? Can you buy your way out of the agreement early?

Summary

Card processing fees are complex and difficult to understand, and if you object to the fees, they can be difficult to dispute. The “base rates” quoted by the payment processors are often not what you will really be charged and in fact your effective rates can be quite a bit higher. As a result, your best chance to understand what you will really pay and how you can control your costs lies in carefully examining examples from companies similar to yours, and by contacting references and finding out what their experiences have been.

For more information, please see: http://www.retailpro.com/RequestMoreInformation.php

Share:

Some of the most recognized luxury, fashion-apparel and specialty brands in the world use Retail Pro for their company-owned, franchised, and licensed stores. Why should you?

Retail Pro helps the Franchisees run their retail businesses better while equipping Franchisors with clear and accurate information across a network of independently-owned stores. The benefits are many and help both the independent store owners and also the corporate brand owners (franchisors or licensors). Benefits are derived from some of these Retail Pro capabilities:

1. Full in-store, back-office and HQ retail functionality in a single system for store chains of any size
2. Retail operations and POS software supported in 18 languages in over 60 countries
3. Securely exchange approved data between franchisors and franchisees
4. Automate mundane tasks of replenishment and sales reporting with outside vendors
5. Safely and effectively isolate franchisee retail data from each other
6. Enable consolidated reporting at the corporate level that includes all stores and store types
7. Group processes and reporting by store type – franchise, company-owned, outlet, etc.

Franchisee/Licensee: Retail Pro is famously easy-to-use and extremely flexible so it can look like it was custom-made for almost any business. Independent store owners require security and privacy of their data while at the same time they want to be electronically linked where needed to their franchisor. Of course it is common for store owners to work with auxiliary vendors and those can be handled with ease. Beyond just Point-of-Sale, Retail Pro handles virtually all aspects of retail operations and is delivered by a global network of experts with deep retail industry expertise.

Franchisor/Licensor: Daily decisions require accurate data on a timely basis from all store types.  Retail Pro enables electronic information flow from the network of independently-owned stores to produce consolidated sales views across geographies. And like the franchisees, company-owned stores and outlet stores need a powerful yet easy-to-use retail management system. Using the same retail software across the various store types reduces cost of support and training plus enables consistency in business processes. Retail Pro handles multiple languages and multiple currencies with ease so a brand manager at a franchisor can take his or her products to almost any part of the world without being constrained by their retail technology vendor.

Share:

The days of our customers carrying cash around to purchase goods is quickly going the way of the dinosaurs. Today a patron takes for granted his ability to use any of the many forms of electronic funds transfer (EFT) payment methods. The last thing we want to do is turn a customer away by muttering the words, “I am sorry we don’t accept credit cards.” For this reason alone it is important as a retailer to understand, even at a high level, what it means to accept electronic payments within your stores and what options are available to you.

In general, it is human nature to search out the options which will cause the least amount of headache, and more importantly have the minimal impact on our pocketbooks and bank accounts. The decision on what EFT system to pair with your retail point of sale software should be held to this same scrutiny. Whether integrated to your retail management system or connected as a stand-alone EFT system, the impact on your store operations should be kept to minimum. It should just work.

In our previous two postings, “Payment Processing – Getting Your Money’s Worth (Part 1)” and “Payment Processing – Getting Your Money’s Worth (Part 2)”, we set out to provide some insight into the challenging world of payment processing  and how the many pieces allow you to accept the common forms of electronic payment. Choosing a payment processing provider blindly could leave you feeling the pain every time you complete an EFT transaction. An educated and well-informed selection ensures the choice you do make is one that will support your business now and well into the future.

Retail Pro International embodies this philosophy in its choices for EFT providers. The providers we select provide meaningful features and services to our customers at a reasonable price, while providing the highest level of PCI compliant security for your sensitive data.

Our latest integration, the Retail Pro EFT Link, continues this methodology, providing retailers an EFT integration with a selection of industry leading processors and the features they need for fast, secure payment processing with the lowest transaction costs. Adding this integration to Retail Pro International’s robust payment processing choices provides Retail Pro users the best of breed solutions, and more importantly options to suit their selection process.

Retail Pro’s EFT Link and our supported payment processing providers are not just partners for Retail Pro International, they are your partners that will be around to support you with your payment processing needs.

To find out more information about Retail Pro and the options available for your payment processing needs, please see: http://www.retailpro.com/RequestMoreInformation.php

###

Share:

The payment processing industry is incredibly simple on the surface, yet when you dig deeper it quickly becomes pretty complex. In this segment we’ll try to summarize the key elements that you’ll need to know so you can make sure you’re getting a fair deal with your payment processing program. If you’d like to become an expert on this topic, however, we recommend that you consider one of the more academic resources available on the Web – mostly written by payment industry insiders and/or the processors themselves.

Basically, the payment processing system consists of:

1. The consumers who make purchases
2. The cards* they use to make the purchases
3. The retailer (you)
4. The banks that loan the consumers the money and pay you when the sale is processed
5. The owners of the brand names and organizations for the cards (i.e., Visa, Mastercard, American Express, JCB, Discover, etc., these are known as the “card associations”)

(* Please note that there are differences between how each card specifically works and we’re generalizing the process for this article.)

In reality, there are two kinds of banks involved:  the “issuing bank” (they issue the cards and interact with the consumer), and your bank (known as the “merchant bank” or the “acquiring bank”).

Further, the merchant bank almost always has some “middle men” to help them with managing the merchants and with the process of selling the merchant on their value proposition. These agents are variously known as:

1. Independent Sales Organization (ISOs)
2. Merchant Serves Organizations (MSOs)
3. Merchant Services Providers (MSPs)
4. Member Service Providers (MSPs)

However, to you they are probably just known as the sales people who “signed you up”. They provided you with your payment terminal and the other things you needed to take credit cards, and they service your account (answer questions, resolve disputes, etc.)

Finally, if you have an integrated payment solution (in other words, your POS terminals and software “automatically” accept credit cards and handle all of the processing), then you will most likely have a component in the process called a “payment gateway”. The payment gateway allows your POS system (like Retail Pro®) to communicate seamlessly with the merchant bank (or to their processing agent, the “processor”).

The reason it’s important to be aware of all of these links in the payment processing chain is that each link has some work to do, some risk to absorb, and some costs for the services it provides. And, as we discussed last time, it’s reasonable for you to pay for the value each of these links provide. However, we also believe that you should be paying a fair amount that is consistent with the value you’re being provided.

In the simplest terms, the sources for your costs for payment processing can be categorized into:

1. Interchange. This represents what the issuing banks charge (as determined by the card associations) for all that they provide (i.e., dealing with the consumer:  taking on the credit risk, managing their payments, providing customer service, etc.; dealing with the merchant banks; dealing with the regulatory organizations; marketing/branding; and any other services they provide). Clearly, this is the lion’s share of the process and ought to represent the bulk of the cost.
2. Communication and processing. This is the cost associated with maintaining the networks and processing infrastructure necessary to ensure that all the transactions are reliable, timely and accurate.
3. Merchant management. This is the cost of maintaining a relationship with you, the retailer, and servicing your account as well as taking on the risk of you staying in business and meeting your obligations.

In the next segment, we’ll discuss in more practical terms exactly what you get charged for on your monthly statement and why.

For more information, please see: http://www.retailpro.com/RequestMoreInformation.php

Share:

Next to the joy that comes from seeing your customers enriching their lives using the products you’ve sold them, seeing their cash in your bank account comes in a close second place! Everybody loves cold hard cash, but clearly other forms of payment have become increasingly popular for your customers. In fact, for many retailers physical currency is becoming an artifact.

Being able to accept non-cash payments seems great, until you see how much the credit card companies are taking from you before they actually make the deposit in your bank account.  And, while they get to keep your money, they don’t seem to do a thing to earn the customer’s business. You do all the hard work and they sit back and rake in the bucks – what a deal for them! In this series, we’ll delve into the reasons why the credit card processors charge what they charge, and how you can make sure you’re paying a fair amount for the services they provide you.

At first glance, it appears that taking cash really doesn’t cost you anything – right? Your customer hands you the cash and you put it in the bank, without anybody else getting their stingy mitts on it. In reality, it does cost you to take cash. You have to maintain your tills, keep your change stocked, and travel to the bank (or hire an armored transport service) to make deposits and withdrawals to manage all of that cash. Further, you take on a number of risks when dealing with cash: robbery, employee theft, mistakes making change, and counterfeits to name a few. Finally, if you were to insist upon only taking cash in your business you would actually make your customers wait longer in check-out lines and subject them to the risks mentioned above – because then they’d  have to deal with all of that cash themselves!

When you work with a payment processor to handle your non-cash payments (including credit and debit cards, gift cards, checks, EBT, and others), they provide a service that saves you money, reduces your risk, and increases customer demand and sales. Another service they provide that might not be obvious at first glance is that they are taking on the risk of establishing and maintaining a credit relationship with the customer (kind of like you granting “store credit” to your customers to help stimulate sales, but you don’t have to determine the customer’s credit worthiness, keep track of charges and payments, and decide how much credit to grant them – or decide when to cut them off!) We all agree that they deserve to be paid something for those things.  The key, however, is making sure that you don’t pay them too much for their contribution to your business and that you keep as much of your cash as possible.

In the next segment, we’ll discuss the components of the payment processing system and how each of those translates into the charges you see on your monthly statement.

For more information, please see: http://www.retailpro.com/RequestMoreInformation.php

Share:

Our last article “Retail Business Intelligence” detailed the importance of retailers having an analytic system in place to make the most of the data their point of sale and retail systems capture. A key business area where a retailer can put this data to good use is within a loyalty program.

A loyalty program at its basic purpose is built to provide the retailer a competitive advantage over other retailers. The next question you ask…How do we get that advantage when nearly everyone focuses on price? The big-box retailers like Wal-Mart can leverage their highly efficient supply chain and enormous buying power to drive prices lower and lower with intention of beating their competition. Though, a loyalty program when targeted appropriately can leverage benefits that extend beyond just price. Customer retention, brand recognition, and exclusivity to a program are but a few examples where a retailer can focus with their loyalty programs. How a retailer adjusts their loyalty programs over time to adapt as customers’ needs, business focus, and competitors’ offerings change will dictate how successful their loyalty programs will be.

When choosing a point of sale system it is important to consider how these loyalty program needs will be met. Retail Pro has leveraged decades of retail experience within its POS and back-office system to create a simple and flexible loyalty application which can be married with the other analysis functionality, like Retail Analytics, Business Intelligence, and Customer Binning and Segmenting. The synergy of these powerful tools provides the perfect mix for a retailer to keep their customers returning tomorrow, next week, next year, and on.

Retail Pro International understands a successful business depends on strong, loyal relationships. Fostering these relationships, and more importantly, maintaining these relationships are key to continuing success as the economy regains its momentum.

This summer Retail Pro International will launch its new loyalty program functionality arming you with the powerful features necessary to build and maintain loyalty with your customers. We encourage you to request more information on how Retail Pro can help you with your retail management system and loyalty program needs. Please visit us at http://www.retailpro.com/RequestMoreInformation.php

###

Share:

As the global economy struggles to regain its strength, retailers are forced to make difficult choices about where they invest their scarce resources and what to expect in return. Should they buy or lease new store locations now that real estate prices have fallen? Or should they invest in technology? How about operational improvements? Employee productivity? Without adequate tools for decision making, picking the path with the best Return on Investment would require major guesswork and more than a little luck. Fortunately that is where Business Intelligence (BI) or Retail Analytics (RA) can make a difference.

BI or Retail Analytics tools ideally address several critical factors – first, they help businesses extract more value from  IT investments they have previously  made. Next, they empower managers with insightful information about their business that is not available through traditional daily or weekly flash reports. Also, a good analytics tool brings together valuable comparative data in an easy-to-use and understand dashboard-style graphical format. The simple graphical view can then be clicked upon for successive “drill-down” levels that expose the detailed data behind the dashboards. For example, Retail Pro dashboards can be personalized to each employee’s liking: sales by store, sales by hour, sales by zip code, margins, average receipt size, sales by department or style, total markdowns, vendors comparisons, stock on hand, etc. In summary, decisions no longer need to depend on guesswork, hope and luck. Managers now have daily access to valuable facts and trends from various parts of their business that can enrich their quest for continual business improvement. 

How to get started with BI? Existing Retail Pro customers have an easy path. Your Retail Pro POS and back-office system already has a wealth of data within it, ready to be transformed through BI into a dashboard format and delivered to your web browser wherever you are. For more information about our Retail Pro Business Intelligence module visit http://www.retailpro.com/solutions/BusinessIntelligence.php and then contact your authorized Retail Pro Business Partner for details.

For those retailers who are not a Retail Pro customer, we encourage you to take a closer look at our very popular retail management software to unlock the full potential of your business. To request more information and let us know if you want us to have an authorized Retail Pro Business Partner contact you right away, please visit us at http://www.retailpro.com/RequestMoreInformation.php

Share: