In food service retail, the adage “convenience is king” still rings true. What has changed is the understanding of — and associated expectations for — what it means to be convenient. Gone are the days of location being the primary factor in whether a food service retailer is a convenient place to shop. On-demand culture, gig economy vendors, and rapidly-evolving technology have vastly impacted consumer expectations for their retail experiences.
True convenience means getting exactly what you want instantly. It means accessing quality products with the touch of a button, sometimes delivered right to a consumer’s doorstep. It means easy navigation and options for how to pay.
Today only 3% of US grocery spending occurs online. Even active adopters of online grocery shopping continue to “split their carts” between brick-and-mortar and online retailers. This opens a tremendous opportunity for food service retailers to inject ease, accessibility, and yes, convenience, into their online and offline offerings.
Source: Store of the Future infographic by Phononic, featuring data from a Regina Corso Consulting study commissioned in January 2018.
A cloud-based point of sale (POS) is a great toolbox for improving customer experience and meeting consumer expectations for a seamless, omni-channel shopping experience. Here are some features to utilize within your POS to foster an ultra-convenient experience:
Third-party Integrations
Loyalty Programs
Tablet Interface
Real-time Inventory Insights
Third-party Integrations
Versatile POS systems offer seamless integrations with vetted, third-party partners to meet retailers’ specific business needs. Integration solutions span many different areas, including online delivery, e-commerce, customer relationship management (CRM), loyalty, and more. These options allow you to customize your business offerings and design the solutions you need for the functionality your customers want.
Loyalty Programs
As new technology colors the retail landscape, so too does increased competition. In 2019 there were nearly 40,000 supermarket stores in the US. With an extensive stream of foodservice retailers vying for shoppers’ attention (and dollars), grocers need to implement experience differentiators that add real value for visitors. One way to ensure shoppers become repeat customers is to reward their loyalty.
With a loyalty program integrated directly with your POS, all your systems and data sets will converge within a single dashboard. That means you’ll be able to cross reference customer information with transaction data to create meaningful rewards and promotions for your top shoppers. It will also help you create smarter, data-backed marketing messages, and will afford you multi-channel options (e.g. email, mobile app, SMS texting, etc.) for engaging with and retaining your customers.
Tablet Interface
Speed of service is a major factor in delivering an ultra-convenient customer experience. With a cloud-based POS platform, operators can easily train staff and keep lines moving with the intuitive interface of a tablet-based system. Cashiers can quickly and easily view a detailed product matrix, apply discounts, enter product quantities, and select payment options.
Retailers that opt to include a customer display system (CDS) can also extend the familiar tablet interface and overall ease of use directly to shoppers. Customer-facing screens offer easy prompts and clean design. They can also host tailored messaging for greetings, promotions, loyalty program updates, and other notices.
Real-time Inventory Insights
Cloud-based POS platforms allow operators to view business insights anywhere, any time. You can instantly confirm your top-selling items, fastest cashiers, slowest-moving inventory, and real-time sales figures. A mobile POS gives you all the critical data you need to successfully run your business from the palm of your hand. Whether you are conducting an on-site store visit or returning from a (much-needed) vacation, you can identify and address everything from low inventory to staff schedules in a matter of swipes.
An article by McKinsey & Company reads: “Analytics create value when big data and advanced algorithms are applied to business problems to yield a solution that is measurably better than before.” Applied data insights are increasingly setting retailers ahead of their competitors. Real-time access to the numbers and the story those figures tell should be a priority for retail operators.
Constant Evolution
Ironically, change may be the only constant in the rapidly-evolving landscape of foodservice retail. In 2018, U.S. convenience stores sales overall surged 8.9% to $654.3 billion (according to NACS, an industry trade association). Innovation is non-negotiable when an industry of this size encounters changes in consumer behavior. As trends adjust with the whims of customer expectations, arm your business with the resources you need to prioritize convenience in its myriad forms. Agile, tech-forward tools will help you stay competitive. A cloud-based POS is a great place to start.
If you’re interested in learning more about the functionalities and tools available through cloud-based POS platforms, visit revelsystems.com
By Revel Systems
Founded in 2010 with major offices in Atlanta, Lithuania, and San Francisco, Revel Systems powers the ambitions of restaurants and retailers with a robust cloud-based point of sale (POS) and business management system. The Revel Essentials™ solution, which has been deployed at thousands of customer locations, is designed for the needs of small chains or single sites. The Revel Enterprise™ solution is tailored for large chains and leads the industry with a broad footprint of national, big brand customer implementations. Improving day-to-day operations and fueling merchant growth, Revel’s streamlined ecosystem helps customers seize their future by pairing an intuitive POS with powerful management tools on a single platform.