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Serving Retailers since 2000                       Newsletter
October 2009
In This Issue
Trade Shows
Hand Held Inventory
Good Computer Practices
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As we head towards the end of the year, the economy is showing signs of recovery.  Customers in many cases are ready once more to spend on discretionary items.  Are you ready to draw them in to your store?  In this issue, we're going to discuss common tips for preparation for this busy time of year.
Preparing your Inventory

As always, stocking up can be a tricky task; too little inventory, and customers will be unsatisfied with the selection, while too much could leave you stuck with unwanted items.  Consider doing the following:

- Take a full physical inventory, early in the month while there's still plenty of time, to make certain that your figures and what's really on the shelves agree with one another.  This should really be the first step.

- If this is not your first year in business, consider looking back at old reports to see what departments and categories particularly pick up, and when sales seemed to accelerate.  This will allow you to schedule labor as it's likely to be needed.  The Sales Analysis Report is a wonderful tool for this.

-If you deal with used product, consider running promotions for extra trade in credit on items in order to build up used stock.  If you do this, advertise it to your customers and outside your business where you can; in addition to building stock, this can be a great way to draw new customers, and having a wide selection of used inventory will help keep them coming.
Hiring Holiday Help
According to the US Department of Labor 520,000 seasonal workers were hired for 2008 in the holiday season, a number expected to rise this year.  (Among other information, this can be found at their website) If you're considering joining the group of retailers employing these workers, you should start looking now.  

Remember that while these employees are temporary, they are still representing your business to the world.  In some cases, these workers are hired with insufficient consideration or interview processes, which can hurt the company in the long run.  They should be put through the same process a long term employee would be.  A temporary hire may turn in to a permanent employee if an opening comes available during or immediately after the busy season.
Promotions
Promotions are a powerful tool for providing discounts and specials to customers.  While they require some initial setup, they can be quite simple and automatic to use once this is done. 

1.  You'll need to enable promotions in the options menu.  (From the main invoice screen, tools -> options -> invoice settings)  Either the automatic or manual setting can work, depending on your desire for the feature.  Additionally, from the same screen, Combine Lines must be disabled; this feature and promotions are incompatible and, if they are both turned on, Combine Lines takes priority and promotions are automatically disabled.  After changing these options, restart the software.

2.  You may set up and edit promotions from Promotion Maintenance, found from the main invoice screen via view -> promotions.  You may have one or many (or, of course, no) promotions going at any time, but only one promotion will be applied to any given line item.  In the event that the same item is eligible for multiple promotions, the first one will take precedent.

3.  Upon creating or editing a promotion, you may choose to have it be continuous, recurring on specific days or the week, during a specific date range, or tied to a discount card.  You may also set a promotion to be inactive, which will prevent it from being applied to any invoices.

4.  Promotions may be set to sales for departments or categories, sales for specific items, or for additional trade in credit.  For the sales promotions, either a percent discount or a specific price may be set, and a minimum quantity purchased to trigger the promotion.  For trade ins, only a percent may be entered.

5.  For sales, you'll need to select what items it applies to.  Note that only items meeting all criteria are discounted; if you leave both new and used unchecked, for example, or do not select any departments no items will fall under the promotion.  For trade in promotions, you'll need to mark check-boxes for store credit and cash trades.
For the month of October, we're selling cases of 50 rolls of receipt paper for $99.99 and orders of 12 or more rolls of white labels for $14.99 per roll.  Don't get yourself in a situation where you have to use overnight shipping or even run out; reorder early!

For customers on an update plan, the most recent version of the software is 2.06.0033.

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You may view an archive of our emails here!
Sincerely,
 

Jeremy Spencer
Support Manager
Extreme Point Of Sale Inc
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