They know that using a modern POS can save hours of manual work on accounting and inventory management. Plus, it can eliminate costly mistakes and provide lots of helpful reports and insights in the process.

But these days, cloud systems can handle much more than the nuts and bolts of checkouts and transactions. They also can help retailers craft a pleasant customer experience and put all the pieces in place to maximize their sales.

Here are a few of the tools that come in most of today’s POS cloud systems that can help retailers boost their sales.

Discounts and Promotions

Most retailers occasionally discount their slow-moving stock, or host special sale events to increase foot traffic or awareness.

Your POS system should make running a promotion easy by automatically calculating any combination of the discounts you’ve specified at checkout.

Of course, there are the classic promotions run by most retailers, such as buy-one-get-one-free, buy-one-get-one half off, standard percentage discounts, dollar discounts, or even percentage discounts that are contingent that increase with the number of products purchased. Retail cloud systems should also be able to limit the promotions by the date, the type of customer, the customer’s purchasing behavior, and more.

From a transactional perspective, these systems can eliminate mistakes and provide for a smoother checkout (which can keep customers happy). But POS systems go beyond that to integrate with email marketing software, pushing out promotions to your customers at the right times and tailoring your offers to their needs.

POS software also makes it much easier to track which types of promotions performed the best, controlling for factors like the time of week or year.

Loyalty Programs

When customers know they’ll earn loyalty points with each purchase they make at your store, they’ll feel more comfortable shopping with you — and spending more with each purchase.

Retailers can reap big benefits from loyalty programs. Loyalty program members have been shown to spend up to 18% more than non-members, for example. And keeping your customers engaged and happy with rewards can keep customers coming back and telling their friends about your store.

There are many ways to structure a loyalty program, and there are many types of rewards to consider, from points to bonus gifts to birthday coupons.

However, the best programs make it simple for customers to enroll in the program, whether they’re live in the store, on your website or checking out online. Good loyalty programs also make it easy for customers to see how many points they’ve earned (ideally, along with their other purchase and account info), and make it easy to contact rewards members about special opportunities.

Learn how to leverage loyalty using Vend in this recorded Cloudscape masterclass.

Custom Offers and Messages

It’s easy enough to blast your entire audience or subscriber base with announcements or general promotions that anyone can take advantage of. But the real value comes with more targeted offers and personalized messages.

When you can tailor discounts and perks for specific customer groups, you can really boost your value to customers and deepen your relationship with them.

The best cloud systems for retailers allow store owners and managers to analyze customer data and behavior so that they can tailor their content and offers to their needs.

Other examples of personalized offers and messages that can boost sales include abandoned cart reminders or notifications when “favorited” items go on sale.

Product Suggestions

Hopefully, your sales staff has been trained to understand your products and your customers’ needs enough that they feel comfortable making product suggestions to customers who come into the store.

They might suggest a pair of earrings to complement the dress that a customer has tried on, for example, or remind a customer to buy some batteries to go along with a new electronic device.

Your retail cloud system should be able to play a similar role automatically, both with online transactions (showing related items or items that other customers bought with a certain product) and with in-store transactions (reminding sales associates to suggest other products upon checkout).

Product suggestions can also be great when combined with carefully timed email marketing. For example, if you sell goods and services that naturally run out after a certain amount of time (such as cleaning products or personal care products), your cloud system can reach out to customers automatically asking if they’d like to re-order (and showing them a few other items that are relevant to their interests based on what they’ve purchased already).

Selling in More Places

The more places you can make your products available for sale, the more potential money your store can make.

For some stores, selling in more places will mean finally getting a robust online store up and running in addition to their brick and mortar location. For others, it means being able to sell your products on sites like Amazon or Etsy in addition to your own website, or even directly through social media sites like Facebook.

These sales channels don’t have to bring in a lot of revenue for it to be worth listing products. In fact, having your stores and products listen in more places online can boost your visibility and improve brand awareness, which can go on to boost sales from all channels over time.

Plus, with the right cloud system for retailers, you can track your inventory and sales across all of these channels at once, and streamline your messages and customer experience, as well.

Mobility for a better customer experience

While this isn’t a tool as such, I feel that this is the one point that gets missed by most business owners when they compare cloud-based systems to on-premise and traditional systems. On-premise systems require expensive infrastructure like servers, PCs and databases which not only have an upfront capital expenditure but also long-term and ongoing maintenance and generally lack mobility. These days, modern systems can offer tablet and phone-based hardware that makes it a breeze for the staff as well as create a better customer checkout experience.

Choosing a Retail Cloud System

As we’ve discussed, cloud systems for retailers can be powerful tools for saving time and boosting sales. They can also integrate with other specialized software, such as POS, CRM, HR, and accounting programs to create comprehensive solutions for your business.

However, it takes many hours of research to vet program options, get them set up, and train staff on how to use them.

Retail cloud systems are super valuable, but it can take many hours to get them up and running.

If you’re currently trying to decide which eCommerce software fits your needs or how to prioritize your eCommerce budget, we hope you consider teaming up with our cloud-based software specialists.

At Cloudscape Technologies, we work with retailers to streamline the job of finding and implementing the best software on the market. We enable owners and managers to continue the hard work of running their business without any disruption from the software search. We’re certified in the best retail software on the market, and we cater to the needs of small and medium-sized retail businesses.

To learn more, click here to request a free, no-obligation consultation.

But now, with the threat of the novel coronavirus keeping people at home and out of restaurants, meal delivery is playing an especially important role.

At this point, no one is sure how long this pandemic will affect people’s ability and willingness to sit down in restaurants to eat. So even if your restaurant has been doing OK with offering curbside pickup alone — or if your area hasn’t been as restricted by the pandemic — now is still a good time to explore (or re-evaluate) meal delivery options.

There are a growing number of technology tools and cloud integrators that restaurateurs can choose from to manage their delivery orders, but you shouldn’t rush into adopting one app or another. If your delivery services aren’t executed properly, delivery could end up losing your restaurant money or damaging your brand.

Here’s what to consider when it comes to choosing a restaurant cloud integrator for delivery.

The Growing Demand for Meal Delivery

Plenty of people have theorized about why the demand for meal delivery continues to grow, but regardless of the reasons, it’s worth paying attention to the trend.

QSR magazine summed up a few helpful statistics on the growth of meal delivery in this article analyzing the market share of delivery apps:

• Statista pegged revenue in the online food delivery segment to $94.385 billion in 2019. It estimated revenue to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2019–2023) of 9.3 percent, resulting in a market volume of $134.49 billion by 2023.
• Per a report by wealth management and equity research firm UBS, it’s estimated that global online food ordering will expand to $365 billion by 2030. That represents 20 percent growth each year from the current $35 billion reality.

In the past, you may have hesitated to offer delivery due to legitimate worries like these:

• Offering delivery options would affect the quality of the food (for example, your restaurant’s specialty food simply might not travel well)
• Offering delivery might corrupt your brand (for example, plastic utensils and styrofoam might not fit with the upscale vibe of your dining experience)
• Offering delivery might distract from your primary value proposition (expanding into delivery does require a significant investment of time, money, and staff that can distract from your other operations)
• Offering delivery might not be worth it financially due to the fees and other expenses required

However, the growth statistics we just cited suggest that it might be worth reconsidering those hesitations or finding ways to work around them. Delivery just might be essential to keeping your restaurant relevant in light of new marketplace dynamics.

In-House Delivery vs. Third-Party-App Delivery

The biggest decision that restaurateurs have to make when it comes to choosing a cloud integrator for delivery is whether or not they’ll handle the delivery themselves or use a third-party service to deliver meals.

With an in-house delivery system, restaurant managers hire and equip their own drivers and handle orders internally, usually through an existing POS system or specialized cloud-based delivery app.

If you choose to use a third-party service such as DoorDash or UberEats, though, you’ll access delivery data through that service’s app, and completely outsource the delivery logistics to that service’s fleet of contracted drivers.

Some restaurants’ point of sale systems integrates with third-party meal delivery apps so that restaurant managers can see the data and orders directly in their own system.

For example, Lightspeed Restaurant and TouchBistro both integrate with the program Deliverect for this service, which allows managers to centralize delivery data and update their online menus and from one centralized location.

Meal Delivery Software Features

Regardless of whether you choose to use your own app or a third-party app for delivery, you’ll want to use a cloud integrator to manage the process. Using a spreadsheet or other kinds of manual tracking is time-consuming, leaves too much room for error, and doesn’t provide as much help for data analysis later.

A good cloud integrator makes the meal delivery process easier for customers, drivers, and restaurant employees.

Here are a few of the features your cloud integrator might offer.

• An online menu – Integrators allow managers to choose which meals and prices to feature for customers who are ordering for delivery or pickup. The best ones make it easy to modify the menu with specials and discounts and customize it to look the way you want.
• Online ordering and payment – With the best cloud delivery apps, customers can easily submit their orders and payment online.
• Kitchen management features – If the system is integrated with the restaurant’s POS system, the online orders may be automatically sent to the kitchen for preparation along with the restaurant’s other, in-store orders. Some systems have inventory and tracking features that help staff keep track of supplies and orders.
• Delivery management features – Restaurant managers can see where drivers are and where meals have been ordered in real-time. They can also see and adjust the areas where delivery is permitted, and adjust the fees for different delivery zones.
• Driver routing features – Some apps can direct delivery drivers to customers’ locations. They can even use existing map systems to account for things like traffic and suggest optimal routes.

Reports and Success Metrics

As we mentioned earlier, offering meal delivery can be unprofitable and even hurt your restaurant’s brand if you aren’t careful.

Make sure you have the tools to measure your success and expense so that you can recognize problems early and make the appropriate changes. Your delivery dashboard should shed light on things like profit margin, user engagement, customer loyalty, and customer satisfaction.

If the service starts to seem unprofitable, you can consider pivoting to a new cloud integrator, changing up your menu, adjusting your pricing, or otherwise making changes to your process to boost profitability.

Offering meal delivery can be unprofitable and even hurt your restaurant’s brand if you aren’t careful.

All of this can be a lot for restaurant owners to take on, to say the least.

Deciding to launch a delivery program is a lot of work, especially if you’re also going to finally adopt a cloud-based POS system to run the rest of your restaurant.

If you want to make sure that this work doesn’t distract from the job of running a restaurant — and that the software selection and implementation process goes as smoothly as possible — it’s a good idea to work with professionals.

At Cloudscape Technologies, we work with restaurant owners throughout the Middle East to identify the best cloud integrators for their unique needs. We then work on-site in person at their restaurant until the software is completely ready to use and the staff is fully trained.

To learn more, visit our web site or reach out and contact us.

Modern software saves hours of time and prevents errors when it comes to tracking cash and products.

However, many small business owners are still missing out on the power of cloud-based software for other super-helpful options, including managing their employees.

Managing human resources can be a time-consuming, detail-oriented job, from keeping track of employment records or making schedules. HR cloud systems can handle much of this kind of work easily.

Even better, the best HR programs can integrate with your POS and accounting software to make business ownership even easier — and provide more helpful insights.

Here are seven HR cloud system features that can save your business time and money.

Employee Records Management

Let’s start with perhaps the most obvious benefit of HR software: It allows you to keep all of your employee information and records, including emergency contact info, payment info, and other related documents in a secure, easily searchable, central place.

Most modern HR cloud systems also have self-service portals that allow employees to log in and make updates themselves, which can help improve the accuracy of your records and the efficiency of your system.

For example, if your employee changes their email address, phone number, or mailing address, they can simply log in and make the change on their own with no additional work needed on the administrative end.

Staff Scheduling

Scheduling retail employees and then managing those schedules has traditionally been one of the more difficult and tedious tasks that store managers have to contend with.

Manually making a schedule that takes everyone’s needs and preferences into account and makes sure that the right employees with the right skills are filling out each shift can easily take hours. Plus, schedules can shift and change at a moment’s notice when employees get sick or fail to come in.

With staff scheduling tools, employees always know their schedule because they can check it online at any time — plus, they can get automated reminders of shifts and alerts for changes.

They can also use the tools to request time off (which keeps automatic records). If they have to call off for a shift, scheduling programs can suggest and contact potential replacements and begin contacting them right away. Employees can even swap shifts on their own through the software with no need for management to get involved.

Some tools have an auto-schedule feature that factors in sales forecasts, bookings, expected foot traffic, and more.

These programs may also take fair employment laws into account to make sure that your business stays in compliance with them.

Time Clock / Punch Clock / Timesheet Management

Tracking employee check-ins and check-outs and tallying up total hours is the perfect job for software. There are plenty of simple programs that specialize in timesheets alone, but the most powerful programs come baked into more robust HR cloud systems with the features we just mentioned.

With many of these programs, employees can check in and out online with a convenient app. They also make it really simple for managers to review and approve timesheets, and can alert managers to potential overtime issues

Time clock software should also integrate with the program that handles your payroll so that issuing checks based on hours worked is simpler than ever. These programs can even account for regular hours, overtime hours, and double overtime hours and change the pay rate accordingly.

Hiring and Onboarding

If you run a small business with multiple locations or are experiencing a burst of growth, hiring can start to become a very distracting and time-consuming job.

In this case, you might really benefit from an applicant tracking feature in your HR software.

Some HR Cloud Systems, including Bamboo HR, make it easy for hiring managers to post jobs, track applicants, communicate with applicants throughout the hiring process, and send official job offers.

After the employee is hired, these programs may automatically take them through onboarding too. With these features, employees can electronically sign legal agreements, submit their banking and payroll information, and enroll in benefits.

Some HR cloud systems can also integrate with payroll or accounting software so that new employees are automatically added.

If you’re interested in the onboarding features without the hiring and applicant tracking features, onboarding features may be available soon in your scheduling program: Deputy, which is an industry leader in scheduling, is working on releasing onboarding features.

And, of course, all hiring and onboarding records and legal documents are stored securely online.

Employee Training

These HR cloud systems certainly don’t stop being useful once an employee is hired. Some of them actually make it easier for new employees to learn the ropes.

For example, the HR cloud system Planday integrates with an app called Flow, which offers training modules for common services industry roles such as bartender and server. New hires can use these modules to learn about cocktails and wine, for example. New servers can learn the basics about how to set a table, plate a dish, take orders from customers, and more.

However, in other cases, training new employees simply becomes easier with the help of a cloud-based POS system, whose electronic interface can take employees through new processes step by step and guide them along the way.

Task Management and Performance Management

Many HR systems have features that allow managers to track what employees have accomplished during each shift.

For example, Deputy has a task management feature that assigns tasks per shift and monitors which employees complete them.

If you connect your HR software to your POS system, you can see reports that combine sales and personnel data. This can lend additional insights into how many products employees sell per shift, for example, or how much revenue in sales each employee brings in over time.

Related post: How to Integrate Deputy HR Software With Vend

Finally, HR programs like BambooHR even incorporate automated performance management tools, which can make the review process much less painless.

Offboarding

Letting an employee go might be a relatively simple (yet never easy) task for most small businesses.

However, those with a growing number of employers will certainly appreciate the ability to offboard employees in a streamlined, compliant way in their HR Cloud System.

Certain tasks have been checked off the list when employees leave. For example, their keys may need to be collected, and they may need to have access to software disabled. There are also documentation requirements for departing employees that you might want to keep a record of in your system along with the employee’s other data.

Do You Have Questions?

A small retail or restaurant operation with just a few employees might not have a pressing need for all of these HR features.

But if your goal is to scale up, add locations, or hire more people in the future, at some point the cost of handling your HR work manually will become so great that investing in an HR cloud system will be a no-brainer.

HR cloud systems can be well worth the investment for rapidly growing businesses.

If you have more questions about how HR cloud systems integrate with point of sale systems, marketing software, inventory management software, and more, please reach out to us at Cloudscape Technologies. We specialize in helping restaurateurs and retailers choose and implement the best software systems on the market today and would be happy to discuss your business software needs.