Insights

Top 7 Retail Software Solutions To Have Excellent Omnichannel Presence

In the digital age, all the retail stores are delivering excellent customer experiences to be in the competition. It is quite important to manage all the operations and store processes to automate the business effectively. These retail stores need powerful software that can offer the staff members more powerful tools to run the operations effectively and complete the tasks on time.

What Is A Retail Software?

Retail software is a wonderful way to reduce human error in sales processing and invoicing. Amazing discounts product promotions can be easily applied using a retail software. Instead of writing up a quick purchase order for fewer items, stock orders can be generated right from the point of sale.

Why Is Retail Software So Important?

The retail industry is undergoing constant changes due to the customers’ influence and shopping behavior. Customers are getting increasingly impatient. This is because of the competitive scenario in the marketplace. Following are some stats to check.

• 85% of the customers leave the shop when they do not find the item they are looking for or if an assistant is not available to help them
• Only 25% of the customers wait for a minute or so to check if the item they are looking for is available in the stock.
• Above 75% of customers do not use the same retailer after one of two late or incomplete deliveries.

Building retail software is the correct decision for companies and stores of different sizes. Such software can easily integrate with any retail business. Retail software is scalable and meets the requirements of both a single shop and retail chain that consists of multiple Points Of Sale (POS). Let us check out a few benefits before we dive into different types of Retail Software.

Advantages Of Retail Software

Automation

You can automate the store tasks including inventory management, inventory auditing, billing, reporting, payroll records, price regulation and processing of the returns.

Real-Time Visibility

The systems allow you to control the warehouses and shops in offline mode. You can easily and quickly identify if particular items are out of stock. The system can also send alerts if something is out of order which avoids downtime.

Excellent Customer Service

Your staff can spend more time engaging with the customers while the system performs other operations efficiently.

Retail software can be of two types. It can be on-premise and cloud-based. On-premise solutions are generally installed on computer systems or the local servers of the retailers. Such a solution requires IT specialists and experts to maintain the system and handle the issues.

Cloud-based retail software just requires an internet connection. Software-as-a-service are automatically managed by service providers.

Types Of Retail Software Solutions

Retail software consists of various digital solutions that allow the retailers to manage and effectively automate in-store and out-store operations. Such solutions can offer functionalities for the retail sector or industry-specific features including software for supermarkets, departmental stores, online eCommerce stores, and other shopping portals.

Payment Processing Software

Payment processing software connects the stores with banks and payment systems. The functions of such a retail software solution include the following.

• Secure storage of customers’ details
• Bank reconciliation
• Credit card processing and online payment
• Secure payment gateway solution
• Customizable invoicing
• Report creation and management

Inventory Management Software

Inventory control and management software control the warehouse stocks and automate the processes. Here is how this software helps you.

• Automatic synchronization manages the inventory and enables supply chain decision-making.
• Automatic invoicing saves tons of hours and streamlines revenue and price formation.
• Automatic report generation provides real-time insights for planning the procurement. This optimizes the stock and helps in predicting sales.
• Automatic expiry tracking reduces and eliminates the issues of delivering inferior-quality goods to customers.
• Retail inventory management software can easily integrate with the RFID, barcode scanning process, and tracking technologies.

Point of Sale (POS) Software

The Retail POS software system consists of hardware and software that are implemented in brick-mortar stores. This helps the stores to conduct accurate sales on the spot in real-time. Point of sale combines multiple functions such as financial processing, inventory control, product returns, and discount management. The POS system depends on the hardware it runs on.

• The mobile point of sales solutions allows performing transactions on the go. These solutions usually run on smart devices and can be easily used by your delivery partners.
• The Desktop POS system is installed on the computers in the store. These retail software solutions are comprehensive and more powerful.
• Self-service kiosks or cloud retail software solutions are highly popular in fast-food restaurants. These solutions enable the clients to make orders and pay without any assistance. Such a solution reduces wait-time and increases the average check size.

Retail Management Software

Retail management software solutions are digital platforms used by retailers to integrate a set of tools to manage business activities.

A retail management solution provides a variety of services such as:

• Invoicing and billing
• Effective inventory management
• CRM
• Online marketing management
• Stock verification and auditing
• Report generation
• Advanced data analysis

Incorporating a retail store management software allows the business owners to automate the operations and deliver transparent customer service. Apart from that, such a solution also offers relevant information about the finance and the quality of items and products.

Retail Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

ERP software is very applicable in the retail industry. Such a system integrates all the essential modules in your retail software to help you steer the business in the best way. These are some of the features of the Retail ERP System.

The customer management module collects all the required customer data such as search history, shopping behavior, age, location, and gender to improve your marketing campaigns. This helps you plan out your sales strategies.

• The employee management module organizes the internal communication and controls the human resources.
• The financial management module deals with the cash flows and manages all the commercial transactions.
• The supply chain module looks after the balance between your warehouse and orders.
• The project management module takes care of your product catalogs and categorizes all your products. It also manages and controls the product life cycle.

The Enterprise Resource Planning solutions are fully customizable. Retailers can easily use these solutions with multiple third-party systems to develop specific modules depending on their requirements.

eCommerce Platforms

Several businesses are vying to get more customers and sales online. This is one of the reasons why retailers are involved in the eCommerce industry. eCommerce platforms are becoming a must for customer acquisition and online sales. Let us check out a few features of an eCommerce platform.

• Product catalog creation and management
• Advanced search options and filters for a simplified online shopping experience
• Shopping cart for keeping track of the purchase history
• Checkout
• Payment processing
• An integrated and secure payment gateway for easy transaction
• Inventory management
• Marketing campaign management
• Customer data management

eCommerce platforms are on the rise with new technologies like AI, AR VR and Blockchain. If you have a business idea, you must have an online presence and having an eCommerce platform helps you with that.

Omnichannel Retail Platforms

A retail solution platform is no good if it does not have an omnichannel presence. Offline customers are becoming online shoppers and the number of smart devices being used is increasing. Customers spend more time on omnichannel purchasing channels and that is why having an omnichannel presence has become the need of the hour in the eCommerce industry.

Omnichannel retail system solutions are digital eCommerce solutions that focus on both online and offline sales. These systems offer synchronization at all touchpoints be it a website, mobile app or an offline store. If you have an online presence then you should go for an SAP Commerce Cloud. This system offers a wide range of commerce services.

• Order and product management
• Content personalization
• 360° customer query management
• Help-desk support
• Catalog management

On top of that, these features are delivered to all the integrated touchpoints of your eCommerce store. SAP Commerce Cloud offers a headless eCommerce approach and is quite beneficial for retailers.

Turning You Into Digital Retailers

Retail software development is among the core competencies of DRC Systems. With extensive experience in developing retail software development and eCommerce stores, our developers have been delivering enterprise-grade solutions in the retail industry. If you have an online business idea, we would love to help you become a well-known brand in the retail industry. Contact us right away for a free consultation.