5 Ways POS Systems are Transforming Inventory Management for Brick-and-Mortar Businesses

Managing your inventory can be extremely difficult with limited visibility, and manual processes can lead to overstocking or understocking and weaker cash flows. Thanks to advances in point-of-sale technology, brick-and-mortar businesses are accessing powerful insights to ensure that their stocks are constantly at optimal levels. 

Small businesses can be particularly vulnerable to inefficiencies in inventory management. With between 25% and 35% of budgets generally allocated to inventory costs, inaccuracies can run up significant bills due to ineffective estimates of how much stock to buy. 

Point-of-sale (POS) systems have evolved in recent years far beyond their flexible payment capabilities and are now capable of driving invaluable insights for small businesses in terms of customer trends, stock purchases, and multi-channel selling. 

How can your POS transform inventory management for your brick-and-mortar business? Let’s explore five ways point-of-sale technology can make a big difference for retailers and hospitality firms alike: 

Optimizing Inventory

In utilizing a POS system for inventory management, you can actively automate and streamline your control over stock. 

Your POS systems has the ability to monitor inventory levels in real-time, update them once a sale has taken place, and send an alert should levels fall to similar volumes to when restocking typically takes place. 

Through point-of-sale insights, inventory analysis can also offer actionable data surrounding best-selling and slower-moving products. This can not only help to manage supply and demand can can also help optimize inventory levels through specialist promotions, cross-selling initiatives, and the shaping of customer loyalty programs to sell underappreciated stock. 

Centralized Data

The best inventory management software will be capable of keeping valuable data centralized in one single location, meaning that there’s no need for ledger books, holding multiple spreadsheets, or the consolidation of data. 

With the ability to seamlessly integrate with other management systems like Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce, interconnected POS systems can help to share stock between both online and offline stores, ensuring a more consistent level of inventory management while limiting instances of stock outages in the process. 

The ability to store this valuable data in centralized locations means that your business can undergo digital transformation in a more frictionless manner, helping to secure efficient eCommerce selling alongside your brick-and-mortar location. 

Incorporating Autonomy

POS inventory insights aren’t just about creating a more holistic overview of stock levels for businesses. They can also introduce autonomous reordering and inventory forecasting to improve inventory efficiency. 

Utilizing automated reordering processes helps to reduce instances of human error when buying stock and removes the need for any guesswork entirely. Integrated POS systems can automatically trigger reorders when purchase flows mean that inventory falls below a designated threshold. 

This process doesn’t just improve accuracy; it also helps to eliminate the necessity of manual processes, leading to more time saved for staff that can be allocated to other essential tasks and workloads. 

Autonomous ordering can be backed up by predictive analytics based on historical data to accurately forecast future demand and map out future inventory needs. 

Reporting Efficiency

Advanced POS systems can work alongside existing stock management platforms to facilitate intelligent dashboards populated with informative reporting. 

This helps to deliver insights on metrics like profit margins, inventory turnover, and reordering frequency for stock that can provide a more accurate overview of business performance. 

In helping to offer reporting regarding inventory levels, POS technology can offer a more comprehensive overview of stock, sales trends, and insights regarding how to optimize business performance and sales more effectively. 

Again, in utilizing reporting tools, POS automation helps in-store staff to free up time to tend to matters like improving the customer experience and growing operational efficiency elsewhere. 

Identifying Discrepancies

Whether you’re a retail store seeking to manage your inventory more effectively or are a hospitality firm intent on managing essential supplies to locations, the digital records of stock generated by POS systems can provide an unprecedented level of control to manage goods and protect against theft across multiple locations. 

This can be particularly advantageous for hotels with different locations in a region or nationally. If your inventory data suggests a gap between stock levels from one hotel location to the next, it could be the case that your inventory is being stolen. You could then use the available insights to alert relevant personnel and place extra controls over stock levels. 

Streamlining Inventory

Utilizing a POS system to manage inventory can help you streamline operations and make sure that you’ll always have the necessary stock available to fulfill your business needs, whether they may be customer-facing or supply-based. 

By deploying the system in the right way, every purchase made in-store or online can come with real-time inventory updates, automated reordering processes, around-the-clock reporting capabilities, and prospective discrepancy insights that could require immediate attention. 

In adopting POS technology for inventory management needs, your business has the potential to gain a more holistic view of your stock. This can pave the way for a competitive advantage over rivals and the potential to embrace digital transformation in a more frictionless manner.

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