Tri-City Retail Systems Celebrates 25 Years in Business
25 years ago, we started Tri-City Retail Systems by selling and installing cash register systems in our own local area.
After two and a half decades, we’ve deployed Point of Sale system solutions for over 1,000 retail companies across North America.
So we’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you! Thank you, to our amazing team of POS technology experts who have relentlessly worked to help our customers succeed. Thank you, to our suppliers and our many technology partners who have enabled us to continually evolve in an ever-evolving industry. But most of all, we’d like to say thank you to our loyal customers, both large and small, without whom we would not exist. You have pushed us to be better.
Your suggestions and feedback over the years have helped us to develop what the retail industry views as one of the best retail point of sale product and service offerings available. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts; and here’s to another 25 years of success for us all!
MyPOS Connect Once Again Listed in Retail POS Front Runners Report
Tri-City Retail Systems is proud to announce that we have been named in the FrontRunners 2021 edition of the Software Advice Buyers Guide.
Industry-leading business software advocate and research platform, Software Advice, has just named MyPOS Connect as a leading Retail POS System in their 2021 buyer’s guide report following up from its top position in 2020. MyPOS Connect showed up in the #1 position for Customer Satisfaction and we are especially proud of that designation.
In the chart below, the ideal positions are toward the upper right quadrant, which highlights the industry leaders in Customer Satisfaction and Software Usability. This year we have created space between us and the next software. There was quite a shake-up this year.
In order to be included for consideration in the above chart, there are a series of requirements that each software product must meet. Each axis is based on a cumulative score, as outlined below:
- Customer Satisfaction is based on end-user ratings and feedback provided to Software Advice
- 25% – Value for Money
- 25% – Likelihood to Recommend
- 50% – Customer Support
- Usability is based on user feedback from a 24-month analysis period.
- 50% – Functionality
- 50% – Ease-of-Use
Software Advice is the leading online service for businesses navigating the software selection process. Advisors provide free, personalized software recommendations, helping companies of all sizes find products that meet their business needs. Software Advice also features objective research by industry experts and reviews from validated users, saving buyers time and resources.
Software Advice is a division of the Gartner Group, a giant in the enterprise customer experience management software research market. Gartner also provides software selection and consulting advice for all types of business systems.
Read the complete report here: https://www.softwareadvice.com/retail/#buyers-guide
Learn more about Software Advice here: https://www.softwareadvice.com/
FrontRunners constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of nor constitute an endorsement by, Software Advice or its affiliates.
Tri-City Retail Listed in Retail POS Front Runners Report
Tri-City Retail Systems is proud to announce that we have been named in the FrontRunners 2020 edition of the Software Advice Buyers Guide.
Industry-leading business software advocate and research platform, Software Advice, has just named MyPOS Connect as a leading Retail POS System in their 2020 buyer’s guide report. MyPOS Connect showed up in the #1 position for Customer Satisfaction and we are especially proud of that designation.
In the chart below, the ideal positions are toward the upper right quadrant, which highlights the industry leaders in Customer Satisfaction and Software Usability.
In order to be included for consideration in the above chart, there are a series of requirements that each software product must meet. Each axis is based on a cumulative score, as outlined below:
- Customer Satisfaction is based on end-user ratings and feedback provided to Software Advice
- 25% – Value for Money
- 25% – Likelihood to Recommend
- 50% – Customer Support
- Usability is based on user feedback from a 24-month analysis period.
- 50% – Functionality
- 50% – Ease-of-Use
Software Advice is the leading online service for businesses navigating the software selection process. Advisors provide free, personalized software recommendations, helping companies of all sizes find products that meet their business needs. Software Advice also features objective research by industry experts and reviews from validated users, saving buyers time and resources.
Software Advice is a division of the Gartner Group, a giant in the enterprise customer experience management software research market. Gartner also provides software selection and consulting advice for all types of business systems.
Read the complete report here: https://www.softwareadvice.com/retail/#buyers-guide
Learn more about Software Advice here: https://www.softwareadvice.com/
FrontRunners constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Software Advice or its affiliates.
7 Things to Consider Before Buying a POS System. Don’t Make These Mistakes
If you’re thinking of purchasing a new POS solution, take note of these seven things to consider when buying a Retail POS System
Waiting too long to buy a POS system
The number one mistake made by a lot of first-time retailers is buying a POS system just a week or two before opening their store. They spend all of their time buying merchandise, managing tradespeople, and hiring employees. However, the important task of purchasing a retail POS system is often left until the last few weeks, or days, before opening. This is a huge mistake because the process of evaluating POS systems, choosing the right one for your business, and then deploying it can take weeks or even months. It’s not a trivial task, it’s a big job and it’s a complicated one. So, start your evaluation as soon as possible; why not right after you sign the lease agreement for your store? You can use the next few months to evaluate systems and find the one that best suits your business and budget. Oh, and make sure you learn how long it will take to order all your hardware components and perform the specific tasks necessary to deploy your system. You don’t want to go through a long evaluation process to find the right system, and then find out that you don’t have enough time to deploy it before you open your store. Your vendor should be able to provide a basic overview of the deployment process, including approximate delivery times of any hardware components, and a list of tasks you will have to complete on your own before you can start using the system. Work with your vendor to create a realistic installation and training schedule that will ensure your POS system and your employees will be ready to go when your store opening day arrives.
Buying the POS hardware before the software
Don’t buy your POS hardware before you choose your POS software. It’s like putting the cart before the horse and it’s one of the biggest mistakes that new retailers make when investing in a new POS system. It is always better to evaluate software solutions first. Choose the software that fits your business environment and budget, then choose a POS hardware vendor that works best with the software. Plus, your software vendor will be able to recommend the best hardware vendors for their software. Proving that it’s a bad idea, here are some examples of common predicaments in which retailers find themselves when buying hardware first:
Ways to torpedo your POS Software Selection
- They buy an iPad or Mac because it looks great but then they take all Windows-based apps out of their evaluation. Since the majority of business programs run on Windows software platforms, they can’t find software that is flexible enough for their needs or expandable enough for their growth plans.
- They buy a computer system with a regular monitor, and then they buy a software program that relies heavily on using a touch-screen monitor. Now they have to buy a touch-screen monitor and they have a regular monitor that collects dust and takes up space.
- They buy equipment online such as POS peripherals (receipt printers, cash drawers, barcode scanners, etc.) to find out that they don’t match the ports on their computer.
Not evaluating the POS hardware vendor
Many retailers purchase hardware on the internet with no regard for the company supplying the products. Unless you have prior experience with their products and services, evaluating the vendor is a must. What retail-specific experience do they have? What are their warranty programs and how do they handle repairs and replacements? If they are an online vendor, where is their repair depot? Who bears the cost of shipping warranty repairs to and from the repair depot? How easy is it to access support after hours and on weekends? Talk to each vendor and learn what support services they offer to complement the products they sell. It usually makes sense to pay a bit more for hardware if the vendor can provide value-added services, like Next-Business-Day swap-outs, or technical assistance with device drivers and operating system upgrades. A knowledgeable vendor will also assist you in comparing different products and ultimately choosing the specific models that will work best in your environment and with your software application.
Not evaluating the POS System vendor with enough scrutiny
The software vendor you choose is as important as the software itself. Many retailers buy their POS solutions solely based on functionality and price, without any regard for who is selling them the software. Ask yourself, does the vendor have a lot of experience selling to retailers in my market? An experienced vendor who has deployed systems for a lot of similar retailers can help you learn the software faster and provide a lot of tips and tricks that will save you time and money. In addition, most POS software vendors are familiar with their competitors’ products and can speak to key differences in their offerings. This will help you compare apples to apples more easily. What about the professional support services offered by the vendor? Can you sign up for one-on-one training programs or do you have to teach yourself how to use their software, relying on online tutorials or user manuals? These are great tools as occasional reference materials, but they don’t compare to the benefits you’ll get when you’re trained by an experienced software expert who can personalize your training program and offer guidance and knowledge throughout the deployment process. What about after your system is deployed and you are actually using the software in your business; do you have access to end-user support when you need it? Many POS solution vendors provide support during business hours, but then you can’t reach them after 5:00 PM. If you’re a retailer, make sure your software vendor can provide emergency support during retail hours.
Not evaluating enough POS software programs
Don’t just purchase the first POS software program you evaluate; or the cheapest program on the market. Not all POS software is created equal. There are many point-of-sale systems that only provide very basic features and functions; and many that have hidden costs that you won’t know about until after you fork over your credit card info. By evaluating multiple retail systems, you can compare the features and costs of each and come to a more informed decision. You don’t need to evaluate every POS software program on the market but you should see demonstrations of at least two or three before choosing one for your business.
Evaluating too many POS software programs
After Mistake # 5, it might seem counter-productive to say this but sometimes you can evaluate too many solutions. After a while, you experience “information overload’ and start mixing up which solutions provide which features. When this happens, it’s not uncommon for people to start their evaluation over from scratch – or just choose the first (or last) or cheapest solution and hope for the best. It’s okay to reach out to a lot of vendors and POS solution providers for your initial introductory calls or discussions, but distill your list down to two or three vendors that can give you detailed demonstrations of their solutions. You’ll be able to compare better and you won’t waste your time (and other people’s time) running around in circles trying to remember which products provided which features.
Choosing a Merchant Services Provider before buying your POS system
Another mistake retailers make when purchasing their first POS system is choosing the company that will process credit cards and debit cards for them before they buy their POS system. Since banks offer a wide variety of merchant services, including credit/debit card processing services, they will always try to sign you up for their merchant services offerings when you set up your bank account. But it’s premature to do it before you buy your POS system because if you want your system to integrate into your Merchant Services Provider’s host processor, you will need to choose a POS system that has already been certified by your Merchant Services Provider. Most POS systems are integrated into multiple Merchant Services Providers, but not necessarily to the one your bank promotes. So if you want the benefits of having an integrated card payment solution, make sure you choose your POS system first; then ask your POS vendor which Merchant Services providers they support; and negotiate a contract with one of them.
Maximize the Success of Your Email Campaigns Part 2
Our recent article on maximizing your email campaigns provided some tips and tricks for creating email lists. Once you’ve built a top-notch list of email addresses, you’re ready to start creating email campaigns. To help give you a few ideas, we’ve compiled a list of tips for creating successful email campaigns.
1. Use responsive design
Campaign Monitor notes that 53% of emails are opened on mobile devices. This means that if your emails don’t look good on a mobile device, you’re starting at a disadvantage. Responsive design is the best way to ensure that your emails adjust to the device’s screen size on which it is opened. If you’re looking for a simple way to create responsive campaigns, email marketing platforms like SendInBlue and Constant Contact offer this functionality right out of the box.
2. Keep your subject lines short
SendGrid’s Study analyzing the engagement rates of email subject lines revealed a definitive answer: keep your subject line short. Three-word subject lines have been shown to be ideal, increasing engagement by 25% when compared to the most common subject line length (seven words). Once you’ve hit fifteen characters, each additional character decreases your engagement rate by an average of 0.03%.
3. Keep your emails concise
Your readers are often checking their emails in the middle of a busy day. If you don’t get your point across quickly, you may lose their attention to another task. Lyfe Marketing helps businesses increase the success of their email marketing by keeping email content to a few sentences. If more information needs to be conveyed, they encourage the use of bullet points.
4. Create a clear Call-To-Action
Determine exactly what you want your customers to do after reading your email, and make it easy for customers to do it. Campaign Monitor suggests using a prominent button for the job. Increased size, a unique colour (different from the background and other text colours), and whitespace around the button all lead to increased click-through. Also consider personalizing your Call-To-Action, as it is linked with dramatically increased click-through rates. In a study of 330,000 Calls to Action, Jerry Vocell of Hubspot found that personalized Calls To Action got more than double the click-through rate of CTAs that were generalized.
5. Personalize your Emails
Remember how we talked about segmenting your email list in part 1 of this series? Now you can start to reap the benefits of that extra effort by enjoying higher read and click-through rates for your email campaigns.
Rather than sending the same email to every customer, personalize your email content by promoting information to specific categories of customers. For example, if you sell men’s and lady’s wear, you might send an email about a new dress line to your female customers; whereas an email campaign introducing a new line of men’s jeans will have more impact if they are sent only to your male customers.
In a world saturated with email marketing, personalized emails will help your business capture your reader’s attention. Experian, a global provider of consumer insights and targeting data, found that personalized promotional emails have a 29 percent higher open rate and 41 percent higher click-through rate. It may seem like more work to segment your contact list, but there’s a lot of proof that it’s worth the effort.
Another note on personalizing emails: most email marketing platforms charge based on the total number of emails sent during a period of time (usually a month). If you have a large list of email addresses, then it makes good financial sense to personalize emails. Why pay for emails being sent to people who will never read them?
6. Stay out of the spam filter
There’s nothing worse than investing your resources into building a contact list and creating stunning email campaigns only to have them sent straight to the junk folder. Ensure that you are sending emails from a recognizable email address, emailing only people who have given you their permission, and you stay away from spam trigger words. If you’re still unsure whether or not your emails seem spammy, try out an email testing tool to test campaigns for spam triggers before you hit send.
Creating impactful email campaigns is not an exact science. But if you keep working at it, after a while, you’ll get a sense of what works and what doesn’t. Hopefully, some of these tips will help you come up with powerful email campaigns, and Calls to Action, that engage your customers and keep them coming back again and again.
Maximize the Success of Your Email Campaigns
It’s the end of February and by now you’re probably feeling the impact of all those shortened days and colder temperatures. The holiday rush is behind you, your inventory is counted and replenished, but now you need to increase foot traffic to get you through the rest of Winter. It’s the perfect time to focus your efforts on marketing; and by marketing, we mean email marketing. According to the 2019 Adobe Email Usage Study, 60% of consumers prefer to receive offers through email, proving that email marketing is a great way to drive traffic into your store.
However, before you spend a lot of time creating content for your email campaigns, you need to make sure you have a good list of email addresses. When it comes to email marketing, having a good email list is Job One. In the first of this two-part series on managing email campaigns, we share some of our favourite tips to help you grow your email contact list.
1. Ask for customer information at the till:
Whenever a customer makes a purchase, take a minute to create a customer record. Ask for names, email addresses, and any other information you may want. Not only will you learn more about your customer, but you’ll also quickly rack up a hefty email list. If your POS system offers an option to create customer records, learn how to use it to add customer records quickly. If your POS systems offer the feature, set up a prompt that reminds you to link a customer to each sale.
2. Leverage your customer rewards program:
If you have a customer loyalty program in place, make sure that your customers have to provide a valid email address to join. If you don’t have a customer rewards program but are looking to start one, check out our blog post for valuable tips and tricks on setting up customer loyalty programs.
3. Use your website:
If you have a website or online store, create an online form that visitors can use to opt-in to your email campaigns. Make sure to put a link to this form in an area that your customers will easily find it – like a header, check out page, or pop-up.
4. Leverage email receipts:
ThriveHive, a marketing firm for small businesses, finds success in gathering contacts by offering email receipts. If your POS solution offers email receipts, you can ask for email addresses for this purpose first. Once customers have provided their email address for a receipt, offer to add this email to your customer database, and give them the opportunity to sign up for your email campaigns. Customers will be more likely to agree since the extra time needed to provide an email address won’t be a deterrent.
5. Offer a discount or special offer in exchange for information:
Sometimes customers need an incentive to give you their information. Think about what you can offer in exchange for their email addresses. A discount coupon, a special offer, a link to an exclusive eBook, or free shipping – all of these offers have been used with great success by many retailers.
6. Host a contest
Authority Hacker recently shared that they collected 1,626 new email subscribers with a single contest. Whether it’s a photo contest or a giveaway, have your customers enter your contest by emailing you directly or by signing up on your website with their email addresses.
7. Segment for optimal results:
Once you have a customer list – take it to the next level by segmenting it into smaller categories. You can separate customers based on home address, gender, age, purchasing history, or any other data you have access to. These smaller segments will allow you to send more personalized emails to the individuals on your list – thereby increasing their success.
Make sure that you treat your email list with the attention it deserves, by investing time in building a solid list of customers with accurate email addresses. Even email campaigns with the most attractive offers can fail if your email list is full of bad email addresses. Use services like ZeroBounce to make sure that emails are valid when you are adding them to your list. Every time a customer visits your store and purchases something, confirm that their email address is accurate while you are processing their payment and printing their receipt.
Keep this effort going all year long. According to Hubspot, the average email marketing database degrades by 22.5% every year! So it’s equally important to employ methods that generate new contacts throughout the year, or you’ll have an empty contact list before you know it.
Tips and Tricks for Performing Physical Counts: Part 3
“43% of SMBs either don’t track inventory or use a manual method.” (Source: Wasp Barcode)
Counting every item in your inventory manually can be a daunting task for many business owners. It’s labour intensive and prone to user error, but if you want to keep an accurate set of books and want to know your true Cost of Sales, it’s a job you can’t avoid. But there’s good news: portable counting devices can minimize the time and effort required to do a physical inventory count, and maximize accuracy at the same time. Many of our customers have found that the right kind of mobile counting device quickly pays for itself. Like any investment, you should take the time to carefully consider your options, but it can be difficult to know where to start. There are hundreds of portable counting devices on the market, offering a variety of features and price points. In the 3rd part of our blog series on Annual Inventory Counts, we will discuss popular types of portable counting devices we have worked with during our 23+ years of helping retailers.
These days, most of our customers use two main types of counting devices: 1) a tablet with a Bluetooth scanner and 2) a portable “Data-Collection” device with an integrated scanner. Each has pros and cons that are worth your consideration before you go out and purchase one.
A tablet is often a good solution because many people already have one. In addition, they can be used for many other purposes, such as stock replenishment, pricing, label printing, as well as helping customers on the sales floor. However, they can be a bit cumbersome when performing inventory counts because you normally need to use both hands: one for the tablet and one for the barcode scanner. That means that counting your inventory becomes a two-person job. Bluetooth scanners can also be a bit finicky, often requiring users to pair the scanner with the tablet before each counting session. Finally, unless you use an expensive, retail-hardened tablet, you risk damaging the tablet during the counting process – one good drop onto the floor is usually enough to break the average consumer-grade tablet. You can purchase ruggedized tablets, but they come with a pretty high price tag. So before you invest in a ruggedized tablet, you’ll probably want to make sure that you can use it for other purposes.
Portable Data-Collection devices are much smaller than tablets and come with integrated barcode scanners. This makes them much easier to handle and eliminates the need for two-person counting teams (although using teams is a technique we highly recommend). Every feature of these devices is designed with inventory counting in mind; from the simple user interface to the batteries that last up to 12 hours without re-charging. In addition, they tend to be built with ruggedized shells that can withstand multiple drops onto concrete.
Now that we have described the main types of counting devices, let’s talk about the different ways that these devices handle data transfer, thus making the counting process easy for you. Generally, there are two ways that mobile counting devices connect to your inventory database. Tablets typically access data using a WIFI connection, while portable data collection devices typically use a USB cable connected to one of your computer workstations. Once a connection is established to your inventory database, most mobile counting devices will upload a list of your inventory product codes and descriptions so that you can disconnect the device and perform your count without needing to stay connected to the main database. Using this scaled-down “catalogue” of products, the device will validate each barcode you scan, making sure that the product is actually in your database before you count it. Once the count is completed, the device is re-connected to the main database and the counts are transferred to your main inventory system, usually updating some kind of count “worksheet” that is used to compare your actual quantities counted with the theoretical quantities that your inventory system expects.
Some of the mobile counting devices that use a WIFI connection to access your inventory database require you to keep a connection to the product database at all times. These devices update your inventory worksheet in real-time – as product labels are being scanned. In our experience, this type of architecture, while a bit more convenient (because you don’t have to transfer files to and from the device) can be prone to data integrity issues if your WIFI connection is not reliable or you try to count products while you are outside the range of your WIFI hub or switch.
If you’re using MyPOS Connect, we offer both types of mobile counting devices. Our Inventrue software application can be installed on any tablet with a currently supported version of MS Windows, and it works with pretty much any Bluetooth scanner on the market (that has a Windows driver). Since many of our customers have tablets already, this is a popular option.
For those of you who are looking for something more compact, we would like to introduce the Opticon OPH 1005. It’s a hand-held data collection device with an integrated barcode scanner at a very reasonable price point.
The OPH 1005 relies on manual file transfers, but don’t worry, it’s very simple to use and extremely reliable. If you’re interested in the Opticon OPH 1005 for MyPOS Connect for this physical count season, you can reach out to us at 877-877-4767 or contact us today.
