News Archives - Page 3 of 5

Tips and Tricks for Performing Physical Counts: Part 2

January 23, 2020

In the second installment of our Blog series on Tips and Tricks for Performing Physical Counts, we offer some advice that you can use while performing your counts to ensure accuracy and minimize effort.

Divide and conquer

My wife and I typically like to perform household chores together. Although, sometimes, the list of tasks is so long that it doesn’t make sense to do them together. That’s when we like to “divide and conquer”, by splitting up and each of us tackling half the jobs. This approach works equally as well when performing physical inventory counts. If you have enough employees to make two or more teams, split them into pairs and give each team a different group of products to count (see last week’s blog post for ideas on how to group products for easier counting.)

Many of our clients perform their physical counts by using small teams of two or three people. This is especially useful if you don’t have portable inventory scanning devices. One person can be in charge of the count sheets and one person can do the actual counting. By specializing, each person becomes more efficient at their assigned task, resulting in faster counts with fewer mistakes.

Don’t forget to record accurate count times

This is important if you decide to perform your annual physical count during normal hours of operation, rather than closing your store for the entire count. It is likely that you will sell products after you’ve counted them. If you post your counts after a sale is made, the on-hand quantities in your system will be out – which defeats the purpose of doing a physical count. So make sure your POS system can time-stamp your count import files and worksheets. If you’re recording count times manually and your inventory system lets you assign a count time when recording the quantity of each product, make sure to impart the importance of accurate count times to your entire team. If you’re using a barcode scanning device, ensure that the time is set correctly on the device. It’s easy for the device clock to stop if it’s been left uncharged since the last time you used it.

Create a Stock Count worksheet in your POS system before you start counting

If you’re using a portable counting device that tracks count times and your POS system provides the ability to create count “worksheets” to import counts from your device, it’s important that you open a new count worksheet before you start counting anything. This will prevent you from erroneously importing counts with times earlier than the time that the Count Worksheet is opened. Failure to import counts in the correct chronological sequence can cause your count worksheet to be riddled with errors. With some inventory systems, you might even have to perform a complete re-count!

Don’t count the same items multiple times

This might sound ridiculously obvious, but you’d be shocked to find out how often it happens. When the person performing the count is forced to stop mid-count; they can easily forget which product was counted last. When they resume counting, they can easily recount items that have already been counted. Avoid this waste of and money by having your team members carry markers or placeholders of some sort so that they can easily find the last product they counted and then continue their count as though they were never interrupted.

Don’t forget the displays

It’s easy to focus on counting merchandise on shelves and hangers and then forget all about the manikins and front window displays, or any merchandise out on loan with customers or outbound sales reps. Also, check the back room for layaways or special-order items that haven’t been picked up by the customer yet. Technically, all these items are part of your inventory and should be counted – regardless of whether they’ve been paid for or not.

In our next installment, we’ll talk about portable counting devices and explain how they work. We’ll also introduce a new counting device that we’ve integrated to MyPOS Connect, as well as a new feature that you’ll want to have before your next physical count.

Tips and Tricks for Performing Physical Counts: Part 1

January 15, 2020

So the holiday selling season is finally over and now your thoughts turn to a relaxing vacation somewhere warm and sunny, where you can recuperate from weeks of long, frantic, stress-filled work days. After all, you’ve earned it; and you deserve it…. Not so fast, my friend! There’s one more tiny little task you have to accomplish before you leave for your vacation: it’s the dreaded annual physical inventory count!

Fear not. Done correctly, you can perform a complete physical count of your store’s inventory in less time than you think; and without any swearing or hair loss!

Over the next three Blog articles, we’ll share some of the tips and tricks that many of our customers use to overcome the challenges they face when performing annual physical counts. We’ll discuss how you can stack the deck in your favor by setting yourself up for success before you even start counting; and we’ll share some best practices for ensuring that you don’t miss counting any products – or count them more than one time. Finally, we’ll talk about some of the different portable counting devices that are available in the market and make some recommendations, based on what works best for our customers.

In this first article of the series, we’ll share some ideas about what you can do, before you even start, to ensure that you conduct your next physical count more effectively.

These days most retailers use portable counting devices capable of scanning barcodes and recording the quantities of each product (more about this in the third article to come). Since many people do physical counts just once a year, their portable counting devices lie dormant for 51 weeks; which means the batteries need to be recharged. There’s nothing worse than making a plan, having your staff come in early (or stay late), and closing your store – only to discover that your barcode scanning devices weren’t charged up and the whole operation will be delayed.

There are a number of different types of rechargeable batteries used in portable counting devices. Many of them need to be used and recharged regularly to ensure that they will retain a full charge. So it’s possible that the capability of the batteries in your portable devices could be significantly depleted after sitting around dormant for almost a year. Be proactive. A few days prior to your physical count, pull all your portable counting devices out of hibernation. Plug them in and fully charge the batteries, then test them through the course of the next two or three days. If they seem like they are retaining their charge after leaving them on overnight, then you will probably be fine; if they seem like they are losing their charge faster than expected, you should consider contacting your vendor and purchasing replacement batteries. You should be able to get 8 hours of constant scanning from a single charge – anything less than that and you’ll want to buy replacement batteries that can be switched out and charged independently of the counting device.

Another way to eliminate headaches before you get started is to divide your inventory up into manageable groups that can be easily counted within a given time period (hour, day, etc.); then assign one person (or team) to count each group of items. There are many ways to divide your inventory. Some retailers divide and count their inventory by category or department, because that’s commonly how they analyze sales reports; so it’s more familiar to them. Others segment their stock by supplier or manufacturer (or designer) when performing counts, because that’s how they generate supplier orders. Some retailers count their inventory based on the location in the store (aisle, shelf, fixture, etc.); counting all the products in one location before moving on to the next location.

Whatever method you use, you’ll want to perform the count with as little repetitive walking as possible. So it’s helpful if your POS system can generate lists (or count files) by location. If your POS system doesn’t have that capability, then just focus on creating count sheets (or files) with the products grouped by category or supplier, rather than just starting with one huge list (or file) that will force you to walk around the store hundreds of times before you count every product. For those of us who like to just dive in and “get the job started”, this type of pre-planning can be difficult indeed, but it will save you a lot of headaches; and at the very least, it will ensure that your count is complete and that you won’t miss counting any products.

A word about inventory counting services. If you want to get your inventory counted with little or no effort from you or any of your employees, you might consider using a third-party inventory counting service. There are a few companies that specialize in counting inventory for retailers. However, they can be quite expensive; and the accuracy of their counts may not be to your standards. Their employees may be very experienced counters but they may not be familiar with your merchandise; or they may not be as invested in performing an accurate count – like you or your employees would. In addition, many inventory counting services don’t actually provide you with on-hand quantities. Instead, they calculate inventory value based on the retail price of each product they count. The result is an inventory valuation, but no actual on-hand quantities. Using inventory counting services is a common practice in the grocery industry, where quantity on-hand data is rarely tracked; so counting services that work mainly for grocery stores may not even have the ability to report on-hand quantities. If you’re thinking of hiring a company to perform your physical counts, make sure they are able to provide a file or report with the quantities counted for each product. Then check their work immediately following their counting sessions by confirming on-hand quantities for a dozen or so random products.

In the next Blog post, we’ll discuss some tips on how to avoid major mistakes when actually performing your annual physical count.

Happy New Year from Tri-City Retail Systems

December 30, 2019

As the year winds down and we approach the start of a new decade, it’s a good time to reflect on our accomplishments over the last 10 years.

We started the decade with a bang, gaining tremendous success with the Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System (RMS). Then, in a surprise move, Microsoft announced the End-Of-Life for RMS – but offered no replacement product, other than an enterprise system aimed at the very largest retail companies. Considering that RMS was designed for independent retailers and small retail chains (<200 stores), we were worried that our existing customers would be left without a replacement solution. So we spent the next two years evaluating and testing POS systems that would not only replace the Microsoft product, but also enable us to deploy solutions for larger retail companies as well.

Finally, in 2015, we signed an agreement to distribute a POS system from the UK, called MyPOS Connect, and customize it for North American retailers. The rest, as they say, is history! Since 2015, MyPOS Connect has evolved to become a truly powerful Retail Management System that works beautifully for smaller retailers and also scales to address the needs of growing retail chains.

2019 has been MyPOS Connect’s most exciting year to-date. We rebuilt and launched our new website and began posting Blog articles that are now read by hundreds of our customers. We rolled out our first retail chain with more than 100 stores; and we created a number of significant product enhancements for MyPOS Connect, including the following:

Created customer types to allow MyPOS Connect users to “group” Customers for reporting purposes and to apply group discounts.
Redesigned how MyPOS Connect handles fashion merchandise and created the Style Builder that creates individual product codes for all color and size iterations of any given style.
Built a Sale Price Wizard that allows you to set-up back-to-back sales prices for any group of products.
Built off-the-shelf integrations to Constant Contact and SendInBlue email marketing apps that enable our customers to easily manage their email campaigns using customer data from MyPOS Connect.
Built integrations to Gather-Up, Givex, Google Address Lookup and Canada Post Address Lookups
Built an integration to GMDH Streamline, a predictive analytics program that helps predict inventory requirements and automatically create purchase orders using proven mathematical algorithms.
Added an accounting export for HQ, support for Avery Labels for price tag printing, plugin management from the till and other features important to us and important to you.
We improved our themes, stock counts, landed costs, receipts, imports, security and so much more!

MyPOS Connect has come so far over these past years; and we’re proud of our team here at Tri-City Retail Systems for all their hard work and effort. We’d also like to thank you, our valued customer, for sharing our vision and for providing all your valuable feedback. Your input has helped us further improve MyPOS Connect; and we want you to know that we care and we’re listening.

In conclusion, we would like to wish all our customers and technology partners a very Happy New Year. We hope that 2020 brings you all great success and happiness!

Reports Our Customers Love

November 13, 2019

In this article, we present a few reports that have been voted the “most loved” by our customers. These reports are so popular because they provide the kind of information that helps manage and control your business more effectively. They save time, help solve problems and support decision-making that impacts bottom-line profitability.

The reports we’re highlighting are just four of the 200+ reports that come standard with every MyPOS Connect system, and they can be accessed in the Back Office Manager module or from the Reports Portal, or right from the POS screen (based on user security settings).

Now, without further ado, here are four reports that our customers tell us they love the most.

Dashboard Report

This is a high-level, visual overview of your sales on a chosen date, as compared to recent previous sales. It shows a pie graph that presents your sales by primary classification; a bar graph indicating how your sales on the selected date compare to sales on the same day of the week for previous weeks; it highlights your top sellers for the chosen date; and it displays a trending analysis for sales, COGS, Margin, and average sale and item amount. This report enables you to compare current sales performance to previous periods so that you can spot trends immediately and make proactive decisions.

Product Trend by Week

This is an overview of how each of your products are performing, from week to week, over a given date range. The report highlights each Product’s best weeks with a green marker, the worst weeks with a red marker, and the weeks with intermediate sales performance using a yellow marker. It’s a quick and easy way to help you decide what Products might need replenishing sooner. Many of our customers use this trending information to modify re-stocking information (min/max levels), which enables MyPOS Connect to generate more accurate suggested purchase orders.

Financial Detail

This report provides a picture of the financial performance of your store over a given date range. It provides generally the same information as the Z-Report that is printed at the till, but in a consolidated format that includes data from all POS stations. Customers use this report to post their accounting system and as an exception report to hone in on dishonest employees.

Product Movement

The Product Movement Report allows you to quickly determine everything that happens to your inventory. From initial order to final sale, all of the information is available in a single, easy to generate report. It’s especially helpful as a forensic tool for correcting Quantity On Hand errors in your system. Use this along with the Product Stock On Hand report to backtrack and narrow in on the exact quantity and value of your inventory for today and for any previous date.

With all of the information that MyPOS Connect Reports make available in seconds, you can be confident you have the best tools for the job. If you would like more information about these reports; or if you have an idea for a custom report you would like us to write for you, contact our Support Team at support@tricityretail.com or call us toll-free at (877) 877-4767.

Tips for Opening a Temporary Pop-Up Shop this Holiday Season

October 9, 2019

As we move into the last quarter of the calendar year, it’s time to start focusing our attention on taking advantage of the coming holiday selling season. For many retailers, that means getting ready to open temporary pop-up shops and kiosks. Good news! With MyPOS Connect you can rent temporary point of sale system licenses on a month-to-month basis, to get you through the holiday season, and then deactivate them in January when you shut down your pop-up shop. This is a sure-fire way to boost sales with minimal up-front investment and no ongoing costs after the season is over.

If you’re undecided about whether a temporary pop-up shop might be beneficial to you, consider that pop-up shops and seasonal markets open your operation up to new customers that may not know you exist. They allow you to focus your attention on your most profitable products, and they’re a fantastic test ground for new products and strategies. Most importantly, temporary pop-ups can be hugely profitable. A 2014 industry report by the PopUp Republic, a Chicago-based marketing firm, confirmed that the pop-up industry in the United States is responsible for roughly $50 billion in annual sales, which peak around major holidays. According to multiple sources, such as Forbes Magazine, CBC and Entrepreneur, the market for pop-ups has continued to see growth.

If you’ve already started working on finding temporary locations to supplement your holiday sales campaign, here are a few quick tips for maximizing the success of your pop-up store.

Make it exclusive

PopUp Republic followed up their initial report by surveying more than 1,200 American Consumers, asking them to disclose their top reasons for visiting pop-up shops. This second study showed that 61 percent of pop-up shop patrons are looking to find seasonal products, and 39 percent of patrons visit to find new and unique products. Can you offer a new product or put a seasonal twist on an old favourite? If so, you’re much more likely to excite your customers.

Make it an experience

Find a way to make your temporary shop or kiosk an interactive experience for your customers. Another result of PopUp Republic’s study: 30 percent of pop-up customers are looking for an experience, not just a product. Something as simple as an Instagram-worthy backdrop, or a quick demonstration that gets the customer involved, goes a long way.

Scope out your location

Set some time aside to find your potential location (or locations). Look for the time of day that foot traffic is the highest. Make sure that the placement of your pop-up will make it convenient for people to stop by and have a look at your offerings. Look at the crowd’s demographic so that you can determine if your products are a good fit; tailor your marketing to that demographic. If you’re setting up shop at a market that is hosted on a regular basis, try visiting a few times before your opening day.

Process transactions quickly

The last thing you want to do is slow down your operation and increase wait times by inefficiently processing transactions. As we mentioned in this blog post’s intro, MyPOS Connect allows you to operate temporary licenses, so you can add a POS system without dramatically increasing your ongoing costs. The software can run on any Windows tablet – which you won’t have to lug around a giant piece of tech.

Stay on top of your sales and inventory

Don’t lose track of inventory and sales numbers. This is crucial if you’re testing out a new product or hoping to open a more permanent selling location. If you’re using MyPOS Connect, you’ll have access to all of your reports, in real-time, so you can replenish stock and track costs accurately and you can analyze just how successful your pop-up is.

Keeping these tips and tricks in mind will help you optimize your pop-up shop success, not only during the holiday season but, all year round.

Launching New Customer Resource Page

September 17, 2019

This week we’re excited to launch a new resource page on our website for all of our customers using MyPOS Connect. This new page allows you to access instructional documents and videos about MyPOS Connect at any time of day or night. It’s a resource you can use to supplement your training on MyPOS Connect, and it will help you and your team master every feature in the system.

On the Customer Resource page, the first thing you’ll find is a current version of the MyPOS Connect User Manual, available for download in PDF format. It covers everything from processing simple sales transactions and creating customers at the POS, to more complex manager tasks such as designing custom menu keyboards in the Back Office module. If you’re a MyPOS Connect user, this manual is an indispensable tool and is available for you to download and print at your leisure.

Scroll down the page a bit and you’ll also find a variety of MyPOS Connect video tutorials, as well as their associated transcripts; with more being added on a regular basis.

To get to the Customer Resource page just go to the ‘Resources’ page of our website and click on ‘Customer Resources’.

When you click this link you’ll be asked to log in with your login credentials. To obtain login credentials, click “Join Us”.

Next, fill out and submit the form on the subsequent page. One of our team members will get in touch as soon as possible with your new login credentials.

Use Your POS For Donations – New Feature

September 5, 2019

The Tri-City Retail Systems team always welcomes suggestions from customers when it comes to new improvements to MyPOS Connect. If a suggestion has the potential to be useful to many of our customers, we happily add it to our development roadmap (check out our Recent POS Software Updates for lots of examples). A favourite feature suggestion came to us from one of our kind-hearted customers, who wanted MyPOS Connect to help them collect donations for a local charities. Our team thought it was an awesome idea, and we now proudly include donation functionality as a standard feature for all of our customers to leverage.

How does our POS Donation System work?

When the donation feature is active, it will trigger an automatic pop-up at the end of a transaction. Not only is this pop-up a convenient way to add donations to the transactions, it also ensures that no cashier ever forgets to ask a customer for a donation.

The transaction pop-up will auto-populate with the standard donation amount, rounding the transaction total up to the next dollar, and give the cashier the option to accept or decline the donation. If a customer is feeling particularly generous and would like to make a larger donation, and settings allow, the donation amount can be changed from this pop-up as well. From this point, the transaction can be tendered as usual. It’s that easy!

To set up the donation feature in the POS system follow these next steps in the MyPOS Connect Back Office:

Navigate to Data Setup, then Products, and create a new product for the donations, with Product Type set as “Standard Item”. Setup the product with, a Product Code, Description, Short Description, and Full Description of your choice. Setting a Primary Classification (i.e. Donations) will help with future reporting, but it is not necessary for donation functionality. Make a note of the Product Code you enter, as you will need this later. If your donations are non-taxable, make sure you select non-taxable from the Tax Code drop-down menu. Save the product.

Next, navigate to System Settings, then Device Options. On the left-hand side of the screen, click “Donations” to view the three associated settings.

To turn a setting on, check the ‘set value’ box for the desired setting and save. Note that settings can be configured based on the device. This means that each till lane and store can have its own unique settings.

Allow Donation Amount Override:

The standard donation amount will round the transaction up to the next dollar. For example, if a transaction total without donation is $1.45, then the standard donation amount is $0.55. If you would like to allow cashiers to override this amount and enter a custom amount at the till, turn this setting on.

Donations Enabled:

This setting controls whether the donation feature is on or off. To use the donation setting, turn this setting on.

Donations Product Code:

This will link the donation feature with the product you created earlier. Enter your product code from the first step into the set value box and save.

Finally, restart MyPOS Connect to allow the new settings to take effect. The feature is now set up and ready to use.

Do you have any ideas for additions to MyPOS Connect? Email your suggestions to wishlist@tricityretail.com.

Is Your Point of Sale System Data Protected Against Disaster?

August 27, 2019

In this article, we are highlighting another customer of ours, Bread and Bretzel Basket, a family-owned bakery and café in Waterloo, Ontario that makes a wide variety of quality baked goods, including bread, buns, cakes, pastries, donuts, cookies, chocolate and more – all from scratch. Translation: a whole load of yummy!

Early one morning in the summer of 2018, Roland Daldrup, the owner of Bread and Bretzel Basket, came to work to find that the front door of his store was smashed and his entire Point of Sale system was gone, the cash drawer and all! While most people would be forced to close their store for at least a few days, Roland was able to keep his store open. Here’s how he did it.

A business owner’s nightmare

“I remember pulling into the parking lot that morning and thinking, great! Now I have this to deal with on my busiest day of the week,”

The first thing that Roland, the owner of the Bread and Bretzel Basket did was call the police to report the break-in. Then he called Tri-City Retail Systems, his Point of Sale System vendor, to find out what his exposure was if the thief tried to hack into his POS system to get customer data or other valuable information about his business. “My initial concern was the data but then I remembered that it was all in the cloud, (remote computers that store information)” says Daldrup. “As long as I froze my account in time, I knew I would be fine.” That’s because his POS system, MyPOS Connect, only allows connections from users with an IP address that’s recorded on a safelist, (whitelisted IP addresses). “My call was returned within two minutes, says Daldrup!” “I spoke with the support agent and he immediately blocked all access to my database to protect my customer’s personal information as well as my sacred business data.”

Michael Steg, one of the managing partners at Tri-City Retail Systems remembers getting the call from Roland. “He certainly sounded upset,” says Steg, “I guess it throws you for a loop when you realize that bad things can happen to anyone. It was lucky that Roland emptied his cash drawer before leaving the store the night before.” Unfortunately, because the cash drawer was closed, the thief had to take it along with the POS terminal that ran his retail management system. If he had left the drawer open, the thief would have seen that there was nothing in the till and probably would have left it alone. This is a very common mistake that many business owners make; always leave the cash drawer open when you close the store.

What now?

Roland’s next challenge was replacing his POS system and getting it set up so that he could process sales and get his business up and running again. Since he was using MyPOS Connect, all of his product and pricing information was still intact and safely stored in his database in the cloud. Everything from his customers to his suppliers to his sales history was also backed up and available for him. So, he needed to install MyPOS Connect on any Windows device and the support team at Tri-City Retail could connect it to his database. In 10 minutes, he would be up and running as if nothing had happened.

“Roland wanted to know how much a new POS system would cost and how quickly we could get it up and running,” says Steg. “I remember telling him that it could take a while to order a replacement system and suggested that he just use any other computer in his store. But like many of our customers, Roland only had one POS terminal that he used to run his entire business. I told him not to worry, we would provide a temporary replacement point of sale terminal that we would lend him until his replacement arrived.”

“Tri-City Retail’s response was beyond any of my expectations. I was given a loaner POS system to re-establish my business until the new terminal arrived,” says Daldrup. Within a few hours, his system was set up and connected to the Bread and Bretzel database; it was business-as-usual!

“The Tri-City Retail staff was extremely helpful and quick to act during this bump in my journey,”

When asked what advice he would give other retailers similar to him, Daldrup said: “don’t wait for something like this to happen before you get a cloud-based POS system. But if it does, you won’t find a better replacement for your POS system than MyPOS Connect.” He went on to say, “MyPOS Connect has helped me better control my inventory, profit calculations, and staffing. I have also had an increase in revenue because I can measure the popularity of certain items and their busy times and days.” When asked about his POS system provider, Daldrup said this: “the service at Tri-City Retail is remarkable. Anytime I need assistance with any issue I can call their support department. They are always positive and helpful and they resolve my issues every time.”

We were so glad that we could be there for Roland during such a trying and stressful time. And we’d like to thank him for allowing us to share his story. If you would like to learn more about Bread and Bretzel Basket, visit their website at www.breadandbretzelbasket.com

Is your merchant services provider charging you additional fees for PCI compliance each month?

August 8, 2019

How closely do you read your bank and merchant services statements each month? Do you ever see fees for PCI compliance? If you’re not performing annual PCI self-audits or contracting a PCI compliance expert to certify that your POS system is PCI DSS compliant, you could be paying significant non-compliance fees from your merchant services provider each month.

But paying additional monthly fees to your merchant services provider is just the tip of the iceberg. If your POS system has access to payment card data and you are ever found to be the source of fraudulently used credit card data, you could be in line for massive financial penalties.

In this week’s Blog post we’re discussing one of the retail industry’s most controversial topics: PCI DSS compliance and what it means to you, the independent retailer.

What exactly is “PCI DSS Compliance”?

In 2018 alone, more than 6,500 data breaches were reported according to a report from Risk Based Security. While this statistic includes breaches of all kinds, a great many of them were perpetrated on retailers and were specifically targeting credit card data. At one time, the credit card companies would bear the cost of credit card fraud; when card theft was largely due to sloppy card handling practices by retail cashiers. But as computerized POS systems became more and more prevalent in the industry, it became clear that hackers were gaining easy access to the data of thousands, even millions, of credit cards. That’s why the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or PCI DSS for short, was created.

In terms of your retail business, the PCI DSS is a series of technology rules that define how your POS system needs to be architected and deployed in order to eliminate or minimize the possibility that your system could be hacked. It also includes recommendations for what cashiers and sales reps should do to make sure they are not inadvertently putting your customers’ credit and debit cards at risk.

If you take a skeptical view of the PCI DSS, you could say that it’s the credit card companies’ way of transferring the burden of credit card fraud onto the merchant; rather than bearing it themselves as they used to do prior to the PCI DSS being published. But we think that it’s better to view it in a more holistic way. By following the PCI DSS guidelines, you’ll minimize the risk that your customers’ card data could be stolen by hackers – and you’ll become part of an industry-wide movement to protect all retail consumers from card data theft.

Don’t risk customer confidence in your business

Your clients trust you with their card data as they make transactions in your business. Should you get breached, you’re not the only one that suffers. Your clients’ card data needs to be protected by your business. Would you go to a business if you knew it was likely that your credit card information would get stolen? Probably not.

Customer confidence can really affect whether your fiscal year is profitable or not. People are less likely to visit your store if they don’t feel confident that you’re keeping their data safe. Two-thirds of US adults surveyed said that they wouldn’t return to a business after a data breach. So if you ever get breached, or if your customers aren’t confident in your security, your revenue could be severely impacted.

Oh, and don’t labor under the misconception that your business is too small for hackers to bother with. According to a survey by Verizon, 61% of data breaches affect small businesses. So getting PCI DSS compliant and promoting that to your customers shows them that you are serious about security and you’re taking every precaution to keep their payment data safe. It gives them (and you) peace of mind.

What are the tangible costs of a data breach?

If you do fail to protect your customer’s data, you are opening your business to all kinds of fines and lawsuits, especially if you falsely claim that your business is secure. A good example is the Wyndham Hotel fiasco. After they were breached three times, Wyndham Hotel was sued by the Federal Trade Commission because they had falsely claimed that they were secure after each breach. This lawsuit ended in a settlement, but it shows what repercussions you could have in the event of a data breach.

And who can forget the TJX Companies (TJ Maxx, Marshalls) data breach of 2006, when the data for 94 million cards was stolen. Consumer Affairs reported that the company ended up paying $41 million to Visa, $24 million to MasterCard and another $9.75 million in consumer protection settlements to 41 States.

After a data breach, businesses can face multiple types of financial penalties, including:

Merchant processor compromise fines: $5,000 – $50,000
Forensic investigation: $12,000 – $100,000+
Onsite QSA assessments following the breach: $20,000 – $100,000
Free credit monitoring for affected individuals: $10-$30/card
Card re-issuance penalties: $3 – $10 per card
Breach notification costs: $2,000 – $5,000+
Technology repairs: $2,000 – $10,000+
Increase in monthly card processing fees
Legal fees
Civil judgments

Furthermore, you need to also consider the cost of damage to the reputation of your brand. After a breach, many businesses have documented losing up to 40% of their revenue from customers losing confidence in their brand. That’s a cost that you may have to deal with even years after the breach.

Protect your business and your customers

Every PCI DSS requirement is there because a breach could have been prevented by having that security and control in place. Take the extra time and money to make sure your business is complying with the PCI DSS standard. By doing so, you’re protecting your business, your employees, your clients, and your brand. You may even end up paying lower fees to your merchant services provider.

For more information on PCI DSS compliance, and how to make sure you are compliant, contact your merchant services provider. If you want to know more about the specific guidelines, check out the PCI Security Standards website at https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/

Customer Highlight – Mill Creek Chocolates

July 23, 2019

In today’s article, we’re showcasing our customer, Mill Creek Chocolates: a manufacturer and retailer of fine gourmet chocolates. When we met Jodie Lofts, Special Projects Manager for Mill Creek Chocolates, she was struggling to manage a manufacturing facility, a warehouse and three stores – all using “pencil and paper” to account for sales and control inventory. Jodie decided to deploy MyPOS Connect, first in the manufacturing facility then later in the warehouse and stores. Her journey through the process of single-handedly converting the entire operation from a manual system to an automated Retail Management Point of Sale System, all while continuing to manage the business, is truly impressive.

Following is a series of responses to questions we asked Jodie about a year after we helped her deploy MyPOS Connect throughout her entire operation.

Tri-City: How long have you been in business and what is your company’s mission?

Jodie: Mill Creek Chocolates has been in business since 1997. Back then, generic big box stores were opening on every corner. So it was our desire to create a luxurious, personal shopping experience for all of our customers by offering the most decadent handmade chocolates presented in beautiful boxes, wraps and ribbons. Every facet of Mill Creek Chocolates has one goal: for our customers to love us.

Tri-City: Tell us how your business grew to the size it is today and what challenges force you to look for a new Point Of Sale system.

Jodie: We started with one store in Port Elgin. Not long after, a second store opened in Owen Sound. Inventory was stored in the Port Elgin location and shipped to Owen Sound, as required. This worked for a number of years because their stock could easily be seen “at a glance” in the storage room in the Port Elgin store. Then about 3 years ago, we opened our third location in Kincardine, which presented new problems because all the extra stock we were making to supply the Kincardine store was still located in the Port Elgin location. So keeping track of stock levels was even more difficult and time-consuming.

Our breaking point came when we moved all of the inventory storage to a new warehouse facility, about 2 years ago. All our product was made in one location, shipped to the storage warehouse and then distributed to the three retail locations from there. While at the warehouse, the basic products were also packaged into a variety of boxed items and gift baskets. Controlling hundreds of items across four locations had become impossible.

Tri-City: What equipment/system did you use to process sales prior to using MyPOS Connect?

Jodie: Before MyPOS Connect, sales were completed on a cash register. Products were grouped into categories and the retail staff needed to know which category each item belonged to so that they could enter the sales using the right department keys on the cash register. Inventory was manually counted, almost daily, which was time-consuming and expensive. We managed to keep track of how much of each product we were making, but we didn’t know how much was going to each store or how much was being sold.

Tri-City: How has MyPOS Connect impacted your business?

Jodie: MyPOS Connect has had a huge impact on our business. Almost everything we do has been altered in some way. From implementing new bar code labels to tracking stock as it changes from a humble individual chocolate to its place in a glorious gift basket, this was an enormous undertaking. We are still refining our procedures to develop a system that works perfectly for us. With that said, I can’t imagine how we would have moved forward with pencil and paper.

Now, I can’t even imagine how we would run this business without MyPOS Connect. The average shelf life of our products is between 2 and 5 months. We can’t afford to misplace stock for any length of time. Inventory is moving daily between locations, changing from simple materials to hundreds of new products all against the proverbial time clock.

Tri-City: Once you started using MyPOS Connect, did you have to make any changes to your business or business processes that you weren’t anticipating?

Jodie: I think the keywords here are “weren’t anticipating”. I did anticipate that everything was going to change. Except for almost daily counting of stock, we didn’t keep track of very much. We were basically starting from scratch with this system. We can now track actual products. In the past, we only had sales summaries to look at. We have only just completed a full year with MyPOS Connect, but I can easily look back and see how much ‘peanut brittle’ (for example) we sold in the week before Christmas. This allows us to be better prepared; previously, we would only know that we sold $x.xx of snack-based items.

Tri-City: Before deploying MyPOS Connect, did you look at other POS solutions; what were some of the key reasons you chose MyPOS Connect over the other systems?

Jodie: Moving to a POS system was a big investment for Mill Creek Chocolates. So we looked at 7 different POS companies. The upfront cost of new POS hardware was fairly equivalent across the other companies; but as I did more research between the different POS companies, the ‘deal breaker’ became needing our own server, which I decided I could not support. With MyPOS Connect, we didn’t need to have our own server/storage; and the low monthly fee was another big selling feature.

Regarding features, all the POS solutions had nice sales screens, but we also had to be able to “see” everything, everywhere. As I watched the demonstrations from the other companies, it was the stock management that I focused on and MyPOS Connect had the strongest capabilities in that area.

Tri-City: What is your favourite feature or part of our product? Why?

Jodie: I love the reports portal. Since our staff is so new to this, I can easily help look up inventory, track product that seems to be missing, produce a report – from anywhere!

Tri-City: Have you used our customer support team? If so, do you have any feedback from your experience?

Jodie: Love! My contact is John – he is so awesome. John responds to my emails very quickly. He is always patient when updating our ever-changing ip addresses, but most of all he was a great teacher. He gave me the bare bones and said GO! Always encouraging and NEVER condescending. He guided me to learn on my own and build the confidence that I could handle this undertaking. Before working with MyPOS Connect, I didn’t know what a POS was and I had never used Excel. I had never even used a cash register unless you could count my grandpa’s corner store 35yrs ago. At no point did I ever feel that this task was too big.

Tri-City: What is your advice to others who might be considering MyPOS Connect?

Jodie: Any company that is still working with pencil and paper to keep track of inventory, and is finding it overwhelming, should consider making the leap. The level of technical expertise is minimal, and you can learn it as you go. It does take time to keep track of your inventory, but the information provided in the reports will really help define your direction.

Tri-City: How would you describe MyPOS Connect if you were explaining it to a friend?

Jodie: MyPOS Connect provides a simple way to make sales and easily keep track of all your inventory.

Tri-City: Would you recommend MyPOS Connect to a business associate?

Jodie: YES! I do so every chance I get.

If you would like to taste some of Mill Creek Chocolates’ amazing confectionary treats, go to their webstore at https://www.millcreekchocolates.ca/product-categories/