If your point of sale is not up to snuff, it could be enough to dissuade consumers from completing purchases when they visit your online or brick-and-mortar store. Updating your POS software can be all it takes to drive up sales, as shoppers who may have previously been hesitant to buy will be more likely to do so. Here are three things to keep in mind when you're choosing POS software.

1. Inventory tracking
Keeping track of which items are selling, what you still have in stock and what you may soon need to reorder can all be done with the help of the right point of sale software. Choosing a POS program with these features will make it easier to account for your merchandise and give you an idea of what items are popular, so you can better target your customer base, YFS Magazine reported.

2. Rewards program
POS software may be able to track customer data and establish a loyalty program, according to Business Bee. This allows you to establish a rewards program that gives shoppers perks in return for repeated business, which will improve loyalty and drive up sales.

3. Streamlined checkout
A smooth and efficient transaction at the point of sale can improve customer loyalty. Choose something simple with efficient features, as extra buttons and options may slow down the checkout process.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Wednesday, March 19th, 2014 at 7:21 am .

The end of 2013 might have seen a slight dip in the ecommerce market, but many retailers believe their online sales luck will change in 2014. A recent survey conducted by Create Ecommerce, an online platform provider for more than 10,000 merchants, revealed that 82 percent of surveyed sellers predicted growth in the online retail industry for 2014 in comparison to 2013. Only 3 percent felt there might be a decline in online sales this year.

Online merchants should not just sit around and wait for sales to pour in, however. Looking into retail customer trends can help retailers target their audience through email campaigns, sales, and other promotional tools. Entrepreneur.com recommended focusing your marketing strategies on the consumer rather than the business. This means blog posts, ads, newsletters and other written materials should target shoppers. Addressing them directly can help draw them in, whereas talking about the business alone might dissuade shoppers from visiting your site, let alone making a purchase.

Having a streamlined online shopping experience can go a long way toward winning over new customers. Everything from allowing shoppers to save items in their shopping carts for later to improving point of sale interactions can give shoppers confidence in their decisions to purchase goods from a particular online retailer.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Tuesday, March 18th, 2014 at 12:04 pm .

In the digital age, consumers expect more from retailers online, in-store and via mobile, making an omnichannel approach a major boon to improving services. Having a streamlined retail technology setup will attract customers, especially the younger crowd, and help bring in more sales and repeat shoppers.

Omnichannel strategies allow consumers to seamlessly take their shopping experience from one platform to the next, and 84 percent of retailers believe this is key to create a consistent experience for shoppers, according to TeleTech. Many of the consumers who fall in line with this sentiment are in their 30s and younger. A recent survey of retail customer trends conducted by Retail Pro International and Merchant Warehouse revealed that 53 percent of millennials prefer seamless shopping experiences across multiple channels.

Combining various channels  – computers, smartphones, tablets and brick-and-mortar stores – streamlines marketing and sales. This allows customers to research a product on their smartphones, see it in person at a store and then make a purchase from their computer without any gaps in service. Marketing Interactive reported that more shoppers are using brick-and-mortar locations more like showrooms so they can "try before they buy" in person before deciding to purchase it.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Tuesday, March 18th, 2014 at 7:09 am .

Knowing where to find consumers and how to give them what they want is a major aspect of marketing, and the results of a recent ShopVisible report provide valuable insight for retailers. The Influence & Impact report focused on retail customer trends concerning marketing, various shopping channels, payment methods and more, and the results showed that ecommerce traffic grew, especially when it came to mobile and tablet use.

"Our Influence and Impact report serves sellers by helping them make informed decisions about omnichannel commerce trends. Chiefly, mobile commerce is booming, so online retailers must provide an optimized experience on all devices, or potentially risk losing sales," said Sean Cook, CEO and co-founder of ShopVisible.

Mobile and tablet use drove retail traffic
The survey results showed that site traffic is increasingly coming from mobile devices and tablets, as these accounted for 20 percent of site traffic during the holiday season, and 30 percent for the entire year. Not only are handheld devices becoming more prominent among consumers, but the need to implement ecommerce software that caters to this technology will only increase. Optimizing a retail site for mobile use can help convert site visitors to paying customers.

Omnichannel strategies remain important
When it came to online sales, the survey found that only 4 percent of shoppers made purchases through their smartphones and only 11 percent used tablets to buy online. The other 85 percent made their online purchases via desktops, which had the highest conversion rate of 2.5 percent. Mobile and tablet conversion rates came in at 0.5 and 1.6 percent, respectively.

Streamlining ecommerce software to make it easier for consumers to seamlessly switch from mobile to desktop may prove beneficial, especially if retailers are willing to examine their point of sale services. More shoppers were using alternatives to credit cards to make purchases online last year, as the survey found more than 25 percent of orders were made with services like Amazon Payments, PayPal and Bill Me Later.

Optimizing online experience will prove most useful
Although 2013 saw an 8 percent increase in overall site traffic, the survey found that only 35 percent of visits to retail sites were made by returning customers. This is a clear indicator that online merchants should consider focusing on retail technology that improves the online shopping experience across every channel to reap the most reward. Having POS software that allows customers to easily transition between platforms may be a cornerstone of change that leads to more sales and repeat business.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Tuesday, March 18th, 2014 at 7:05 am .

The retail industry in Brazil has been doing well – better than expected, in fact. According to Forbes, January's sales increased 0.4 percent over December's numbers in the South American marketplace, and annual growth is even more impressive at 6.2 percent. However, experts are wary of getting too excited about this growth following a rough year for Brazilian retail.

"We remain cautious about activity in this first quarter of the year," Marcelo Salomon, Barclays' chief Brazilian economist, told Forbes.

In December, sales dropped 0.2 percent, adding to the weak economic growth of 4.3 percent for this industry. Reuters reported that this was the worst year for the retail industry since 2003, due in part to slow job growth, weakening currency and tighter lending. In January, the growth was strewn across a few different sectors – fuel, furniture, supermarket, medicine and office supplies all saw gains, and all but supermarket sales had recovered from losses in December, Forbes indicated.

Retailers in the Brazilian market may want to revisit their retail marketing strategies to take advantage of the slight growth and draw in more customers. Something as straightforward as upgrading POS software can make a merchant more appealing to consumers. 

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Tuesday, March 18th, 2014 at 6:48 am .

Things are looking up for the American retail industry, as the latest retail customer trends show gains in nearly every sector. The February U.S. Commerce Department report revealed February saw seasonally adjusted month-over-month gains of 0.3 percent from January. According to Bloomberg, this follows a three-month stretch of losses, including 0.6 percent drops in retail sales in January. Many economists believe the low sales numbers this winter were caused by harsher weather conditions.

"The economy seems to be rebounding from a winter-related slump," said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist for the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ in New York.

Retail sectors that experienced growth in February included restaurants, automotive, furniture and building materials, USA Today reported. Electronics and grocery stores, on the other hand, experienced modest declines.

If weather really was the driving factor for the drop in sales, merchants can expect to see an uptick in the amount of traffic in their online and brick-and-mortar stores as Americans get back to shopping. This could be a great opportunity for retailers to update their ecommerce software and POS retail management systems in preparation for the anticipated influx of customers.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Monday, March 17th, 2014 at 12:17 pm .

When you're just starting out in the online retail market, it is important to ensure you have an effective point of sale system in place. Choosing the right ecommerce software can be tricky, since there are so many options available. Here are a few tips to keep in mind as you work on establishing your online point of sale:

1. Security is crucial. Bank Info Security pointed out that correctly installing​ POS software or applications can reduce the threat of cybercrime to you and your customers.

2. Software should be secure. According to Practical Ecommerce, your POS software should provide authentication, authorization and SSL services that will protect sensitive information.

3. Compliance with industry standards is a must. Payment Card Industry compliance ensures your business is adhering to the latest security and safety guidelines.

4. Customer support can prevent shoppers from abandoning sales by resolving common checkout issues.

5. Offer different payment methods. Not all online shoppers will want to hand out their credit card information, so accepting payments from third-party sites like PayPal and peer-to-per digital currency like Bitcoin can increase your customer base.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Monday, March 17th, 2014 at 11:41 am .

Ecommerce is a lucrative marketplace, but it also comes with dangers and risks that retailers need to address to keep their businesses and customers safe. Data breaches of retail software are a very real threat to online companies big and small, as evidenced by Target's incident at the end of 2013.

"The fourth quarter of 2013 will be remembered as the period when cybercrime became 'real' for more people than ever before," said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president for McAfee Labs.

So just how big of an issue is cybercrime? Well, the most recent McAfee Labs report indicated that in the last quarter of 2013, the research center collected an average of 200 samples of malicious software per minute, contributing to the rising threat of malware and other online dangers. 

To prevent breaches and protect your business and customers, it is essential to consider security measures for your ecommerce software and website. Practical Ecommerce reported that cybercriminals are able to hack into merchant networks to access stored data and customers' personal devices. You can install firewalls to protect your network, and consider encryption services that will further protect your company and customer information.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Monday, March 17th, 2014 at 7:17 am .

Using online services and marketing tools can be a great way to drum up business for brick-and-mortar stores. By studying online data, retailers can determine strategies for their physical locations. For instance, if a retailer notices online shoppers leaning toward a certain fashion, their brick-and-mortar locations could hold special sales for these products.

"Today, with real-time monitoring and alerts, in-store analytics can make marketing and management aware of low traffic stores immediately," Maria Fernandez Guajardo, the vice president of RetailNext, a retail analytics firm, told Mashable. 

In turn, they can promote in-store events and sales via social media sites like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Social media can be an integral tool to bolster brick-and-mortar business, as it offers a new way to interact with customers. Merchants can offer discounts to customers who "check in" at the point of sale on sites like Yelp and FourSquare.

Regional businesses that cater mainly to local consumers can hold contests and promote sales on Twitter and other social media outlets. According to The Houston Chronicle, these tools can also be used to find new customers, as businesses will be able to search for users based on their location and interests, which opens the door for extremely targeted marketing strategies.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Monday, March 17th, 2014 at 7:03 am .

Running an e-commerce store means shipping your products is a major focus of your business strategy, so it is especially important to make smart decisions about what you offer your customers. Retail customer trends indicate that your shipping options can make or break a sale.

A Pitney Bowes consumer survey released late last year found that shipping was a major factor for 80 percent of consumers when considering whether to make a purchase, and 49 percent actually changed their minds at the point of sale due to shipping costs.

Offering affordable shipping isn't always as simple as it seems, as there may be hidden fees for merchants when working with parcel shipping services. John Haber, founder and CEO of shipping and logistics consulting firm Spend Management Experts, told Practical Ecommerce that it's important to closely examine your invoices to determine if this is the case. He explained that this could be due to improperly manifesting a package, which will result in extra fees that will inevitably be passed on to the consumer.

To avoid overcharging customers, Ecommerce Times suggested integrating real-time rates that reflect the products being shipped rather than the cost of the items. In turn, this will encourage more shoppers to make purchases, driving up sales and increasing your profits. 

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Friday, March 14th, 2014 at 8:17 am .