PCA Magazine Winter 2020

PREMIUMCIGARS.ORG WINTER 2020 | PCA The Magazine 43 loyalty programs and a rich set of reports. Product cataloging allows direct purchase from suppliers. “Lightspeed works pretty darn well for us. It has a lot of product- control strengths, and they have a great help desk. It is internet-based, though, so if your internet goes down your POS system is down.” — Amanda Nold, manager, Just For Him in Springfield, Missouri POS Nation posnation.com Windows, Mac, cloud, SaaS, web, iOS Native, Android Native mobile. Call for pricing. Serves “hundreds of tobacco stores.” Customer tracking and history, barcode printing, customizable cigar label printing (even for singles), sales and financial reporting. Supports cloud data storage. 24/7 support. “My team loves the intuitive Cash Register Express software with touch-screen capabilities. It is easy for each level of employee to quickly get up to speed on the POS process. The main challenge of the software for us is the online portal to connect our stores. As a multiple store operator, I like to see daily detail of each location but upgrades are needed to improve the portal interaction and reporting detail.” — Craig Cass, owner, Tinder Box in Charlotte, North Carolina Revel revelsystems.com iPad-based. Software starts at $99/month, billed annually with a 3-year contract required. Flat transaction processing fees are additional. Cloud-based, supports single- or multi-location businesses. Generates reports with filters, charts and graphs. Comes set up to support all commonplace charge cards, EMV and Apple Pay. Revel Systems offers a full complement of hardware items including iPad, iPad kiosk or stand, printer, barcode scanner, cash drawer/till and card-swipe payment device. System has a reputation for being intuitive and easy to use—a good entry-level POS system. Shopkeep shopkeep.com iPad-based. $49/month subscription, plus transaction processing fees. 24/7 support. Offline redundancy—keeps working if internet connection is lost. Compatible with iPad Air or Mini, running on iOS 7.0 or higher. Back office accessible from any web browser running on any OS. Automated inventory management, bookkeeping, employee time tracking and customer data management. are managed.” He points out that inventory software can allow the merchant to print a “top 100 SKUs” report on demand. However, he says, an equally critical report can be your bottom 100. “Don’t just focus on the sales; focus on your dinosaurs that are taking up space. If you do both, you may just have a little more cash to spend keeping your business on top,” says Cass. About those occasional items, however, Bart Gerber, owner of Churchill’s Fine Cigars in Phoenix, adds a cautionary note: “You may know that a particular customer only comes in once a year so you better have what he wants, whereas a POS systemmight tell you to discontinue that item because it sells so infrequently.” This means it really helps to have an intimate feel for your customers and their buying habits. Gerber adds, “Being in the specialty retail business means that, for tobacconists, inventory control is really more of an art than a science.” The Right System for Your Shop There’s no shortage of vendors standing in line to sell you an inventory control package. They range in cost upwards of a couple thousand dollars for a starter terminal/ cash drawer to somewhat more for larger installations. Some of the companies that are practiced in servicing tobacconists specifically include FasTraxPOS, Lightspeed and POS Nation—but again, this list is far from complete. Your cost to get started will depend on the size and needs of your operation (number of store locations, number of needed terminals, specific desired capabilities, etc.). You will probably want the ability to print your own barcodes for products whose manufacturers have not yet adopted single barcoding, so expect to add a few hundred dollars more for such accessories. And take into consideration any monthly subscription fees. Integrating a new inventory-control system can seem daunting, but millions have done it and never looked back. Take it slow and do your homework. You can begin by running an internet search using the search string tobacconists “inventory control” POS . Scroll through the many pages of returns. You will find a wealth of articles, reviews and comparisons of competing systems of all prices and capabilities, and links to inventory software vendors. Familiarize yourself with their claims, costs and (always important) the availability of technical support. Look for customer testimonials on vendor sites, and phone those customers up to ask if they still stand by their glowing remarks. Is a system you are looking at easily scalable to your own operation? Can it store information on the internet (“the cloud”)? Cloud-based management makes your data accessible even when you are offsite, and it is secure even if disaster strikes your neighborhood or your store computer. Finally, call up some friendly tobacconists you know who are running operations similar in size and scope to your own. Ask themwhether they have gone with inventory software and what packages they use. Ask about costs, options, pitfalls, lessons learned—and benefits. Gerber points out that making a software package work seamlessly for your operation requires that you understand the business you are trying to equip. “My recommendation,” he says, “would be for a new or smaller retailer to eschew buying a POS system either altogether, or at least until you have a feel for your customer base’s buying habits.” But if you do have that feel, or if your business is starting to grow past the limits of comfortable paper bookkeeping, or if you sense that you are poised for rapid growth in the foreseeable future, then there is no time like the present to start exploring your digital options. You are probably sitting on some golden nuggets of optimization just begging to be detected. I N V E N T O R Y C O N T R O L P A Y S