In recent years, much has been developed to provide the typical retail user with POS solution hardware that incorporates the latest technology and great aesthetic design. Unfortunately, POS Solution software has not kept up with these innovations in hardware design.
Most POS software, by default, collects huge amounts of data during normal daily use. Unfortunately, this information is largely unused, because most POS solution software does not provide the proper data extraction functionality and user screens to use this information to help run a business.
In the coming weeks we are going to explore the possibility of applying ‘Artificial Intelligence’, ‘AI’ for short, to this data, and reveal the benefits in various areas of a retail business. The areas we will cover are:
1) Target marketing of retail customers
2) Product price and margin control
3) Automation of product orders
4) Real-time stock valuation automation
5) Use of key performance indicators
TARGETED MARKETING OF RETAIL CUSTOMERS
There is no doubt that point of sale solutions that include integrated proactive retail marketing are becoming crucial to growing a successful retail business. It is widely accepted that customers are more expensive to acquire than to maintain.
POS solutions, using tools like ‘AI’, can train their systems to recognize customers based on products purchased, amount spent and frequency of spending.
An Email Marketing campaign, aimed at these customers, could be in the form of a newsletter, an offer for a specific product, related to their general area of interest, or a Loyalty Voucher combined with news of a new product. It is relatively easy to decide what to send, when the POS solution, using ‘AI’, has prepared a list of customers. With a couple of mouse clicks, this campaign can be sent.
Consider this possibility…
POS solutions, using ‘AI’ and spend analytics, can be trained to identify customers who are in the process of leaving support for a business. Research shows that offering these customers a special coupon or free product can help retain them. In the long run, this can make a huge difference to a company’s revenue!
Monitoring and evaluation of campaigns
An intelligent POS solution would then allow full monitoring of the campaign, to assess its effectiveness. You must answer questions like the following:
1) Did sales volumes increase during the campaign?
2) Did you increase sales revenue during the campaign?
3) Did you increase sales margins during the campaign?
4) How many customers read the email?
SMS, or Short Message Service, can be used in exactly the same way as emails. Special sale day reminders, new product deals, $coupons and website links can be sent via SMS. And it all goes almost instantly to the client. POS solutions using ‘Artificial Intelligence’ allow all this and more to happen automatically, with just a few clicks of the mouse.