A Guide to POS Terminals for Your San Diego Small Business

A Guide to POS Terminals for Your San Diego Small Business

Not sure if you should add a San Diego POS system for your small business? Rigel Payments covers the many benefits a POS terminal can provide in addition to processing your business’ credit card payments.

You may have only accepted checks or cash when you first started your San Diego County small business. If you don’t have a POS system in place, you could be leaving untapped revenue on the table.

Point of sale terminals offers many capabilities that go beyond accepting credit card payments.

Our team at Rigel Payments will go over key features, benefits, and how POS systems work. This way, you can understand how using one can help improve your bottom line.

Overview: What is a San Diego POS System?

POS terminals are digital systems with the point of sale software installed on them. Examples of these include computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets.

Virtual systems allow you to take payments on your phone or in other circumstances when a customer doesn’t have their credit card on them.

Other point of sale hardware includes:

  • Barcode scanner
  • Credit card terminal
  • Cash drawer
  • Receipt printer

Some San Diego POS systems allow you to use your equipment while others require you to buy their hardware.

Using a POS System And Its Benefits

The cash register is a classic example of an isolated system. It allows you to ring up purchases, accept check or check payments, but that’s it. A point of sale device also does this, and much more.

Your San Diego POS system accepts credit card payments while you enjoy countless other benefits.

1. Increases in revenue

You can expect a POS system to prove its worth where it matters most – your bottom line – thanks to the following factors:

  • Convenience: Your customers want to use the payment method of their choice. By accepting debit and credit cards, it helps increase on-the-spot purchases because consumers won’t have to find a nearby ATM.
  • Flexibility: Accepting payments anywhere offers your customers convenience and your business adaptability.
  • Security: Having less cash on hand helps reduce losses. Our San Diego POS vendors at Rigel Payments are always working to improve the security of your customer information.

Aside from their many benefits, a point of sale system is worth adding for the revenue increases they produce directly.

2. Sales metrics improvements

Counting a pile of checks and cash at the end of the business day won’t tell you how you made that revenue. A good point of sale system provides performance analytics about your sales, allowing you to improve:

  • Overall sales: Tracking the total amount of purchases, returns, refunds, average revenue per transaction, and customer payment methods.
  • Product performance: Discovering what products are and aren’t selling, the times and days they sell best, and how they perform at different prices.
  • Employee performance: Identifying top-performing employees to generate schedules, set sales goals, and come up with incentives.

Having accurate information about these areas allows you to evaluate your sales and identify what works best for your San Diego small business.

3. Inventory management

The san Diego POS system powering your sales should offer vital data about our inventory at one or several locations.

As such, your San Diego point of sale system can help you with:

  • Restocking: Some POS systems can automatically order more inventory when you’re running low. With the right terminal, you can set up alerts to ensure you’re always stocked up in supplies.
  • Returns: Update the inventory automatically when items are returned.
  • Shrinkage and slippage: Keep an eye on inventory shrinkage due to factors like slippage and items sold at lower costs than set by management.

However, you’ve been tracking inventory, a good POS device can track all of this and more in one, unified system.

4. Customer management

Every point of sale transaction captures information to customize the customer experience:

  • Basic customer information: Use the customer contact information to send order updates to them, make deliveries, and discover customer products and service preferences.
  • Marketing: Create targeted email campaigns based on your customers’ past purchases, demographics, and other behaviors when you get their agreement.
  • Rewards programs: Loyalty programs provide an effective way to increase business by promoting repeat purchases when your rewards fit their interests.

The traditional cash register views each purchase as a standalone transaction. A modern point of sale terminal and its software allows you to maximize the customer lifetime value (CLV). This is the total estimated revenue earned from every customer account.

How POS Terminals Work

You have two choices for your San Diego POS system depending on whether the software is stalled on-site or web-based.

While these systems tend to be more costly than web-based ones, on-site software doesn’t require you to have an internet connection to process payments. Your data is also stored locally.

Web-based point of sale terminals are more common because of their easy setup, which only requires you to log into its online interface. These systems also require you to have an internet connection, and all data is stored online in the cloud.

1. Software setup

Before using your San Diego POS system, you can set up the software by:

  • Logging into the online interface, or creating your account locally.
  • Adding the services, products, and goods your customers will purchase.
  • Adding a merchant account and payment gateway information for credit and debit card sales.
  • Customizing receipts to display your return policy and other business information.
  • Creating employee logins and managing permissions.
  • Connecting to third-party software.

After the initial software setup, your POS interface is designed for easy use and requires minimal training.

2. Hardware setup

Log into your web-based or local account, and connect all items you’re using to your San Diego POS system, including the:

  • Credit card terminal
  • Barcode scanner
  • Receipt printer
  • Cash drawer

3. Process transactions

Once you’ve set up your software and hardware, you can start processing transactions by:

  • Scanning product barcodes, or selecting them from your terminal interface.
  • Using the card reader to launch payments.
  • Having customers approve their purchases.
  • Printing or emailing receipts.

You’ll gather all the information needed to capitalize on other POS benefits, including inventory, sales metrics, and customer management.

The Best POS Terminals for San Diego Small Businesses

Choosing the right point of sale system for your small business in San Diego depends on various factors. These can include everything from your industry and sales volume to the number of company locations.

At Rigel Payments, we offer the following POS systems to small business owners throughout San Diego County:

Vend

Vend is a cloud-based, or web-based, POS system designed for small businesses in all different industries. Vend provides tools to help you manage your sales, inventory, customer data, and overall customer experience.

The system is compatible with many devices, including PCs, iPads, Macs, and is even available as an iPad app. The system can also work well with in-store hardware such as barcode scanners, receipt printers, and cash drawers.

Vend’s benefits include an offline mode, allowing you to sell even if your internet is down. The mode can also re-sync automatically when the system is back on. Your customers can check into your store with their smartphone and pay with their PayPal account.

Revel Systems ®

Revel is a business platform based in the cloud. It integrates operations and customer passageways with POS functions in one, easy-to-use dashboard. This program can provide you with a point of sale system that unifies customer management, inventory management, and social media management.

Revel allows you to track order history, hourly sales, payment summaries, sales summaries, and more through a data analytics app. The applications combine all this data into graphs and reports. Other features including managing mobile orders, loyalty programs, gift cards, and more.

Clover

Clover is an integrated POS system that comes with custom hardware designed for several types of small businesses, typically restaurants. This point of sale system comes in both server-based or web-based versions.

Available options include countertop hardware, contactless payments, mobile POS options, and much more. With Clover, your small businesses in San Diego can simplify sales, processing payments, inventory management, and more.

Increase your cash flow now

The right San Diego POS system will do more for you than broaden your payment methods. Your San Diego small business can take advantage of all the benefits, including improved customer management, sales, and inventory metrics, and more!