8 Types of Softwares Used in Retail

Do you own a store and are wondering which retail softwares to use to help you in your work? Are you getting lost between all the options available? This article is for you! Discover 8 types of software that will help you manage your store:

1. Point of Sale Softwares (POS)
2. Accounting Softwares
3. Payment Transaction Softwares
4. Supplier Orders Softwares
5. Employee Scheduling Softwares
6. Marketing Softwares
7. Website Creation Softwares
8. Image Editing Softwares

If you are interested, read on to know why these softwares are essential to your success!

1. Point of Sale Softwares (POS)

The point of sale software is the most important software for the management of a store. It is like a traditional cash register, but better! It is a powerful tool that saves you time and makes your work easier. 

You can connect other retail softwares directly to the POS by means of integrations. Point of sale software is the basis of good business management! Indeed, it centralizes the operations of the store; it allows you to process transactions; to create the inventory; to follow orders; to create reports of the store’s activities; and much more! In short, if you have a retail business, you can’t do without a point of sale software! 

A POS is useful to keep track of sales. Thanks to the automations, you can better organize your work while reducing cash register errors. Your employees also gain autonomy!

With point of sale software, transactions are managed efficiently. Find out more by reading our article on the 6 key features of a POS system.

2. Accounting Softwares

Accounting is very important for your business. Several types of accounting softwares exist to help you. It is therefore essential to know the needs of your business in order to make the right choice for the software. The right decision will allow you to better organize your time. In addition, using an accounting software will facilitate your expenses flow, tax returns and other essential data.

Payroll Softwares

A payroll software accurately and efficiently handles:

• payrolls;
• pay slips;
• pension payments;
• year-end bonuses;
• etc. 

It also ensures smooth day-to-day operation of business activities; maintenance of employee satisfaction and morale; competent payroll management; and tracking of employee compensation expenses.

Tax Softwares

Tax software helps you manage your store’s accounting. The integrity of your business is at stake! You can also manage international tax regulations in a simple way if you sell in other countries. So, don’t neglect this software for your store. 

QuickBooks, Xero as well as FreshBooks are efficient accounting softwares that can save you a complicated process and leave you more time to run your store and make sales.

Now that you know that the point of sale software is the basis of good business management, and that the accounting software is also useful in your business, it is important to understand their differences. Indeed, you must not confuse them!

3. Payment Transaction Softwares

If you want to significantly reduce your billing workload, consider automating your monthly billing and automatic payments. This will give you a significant advantage over your work and payment management. Automation makes the repayment process easier and keeps a detailed record of all your payments and account credits. You’ll even know if you’re waiting for a payment from one of your customers and avoid them forgetting to pay their bills. 

A payment transaction software is also essential if you offer a subscription service! Indeed, automatic payments are very practical and appreciated by customers. 

If you process credit cards, you can use a simple payment processing solution such as Global Payments (Canada) or CardConnects (USA), which offers you a better guaranteed rate for life; automated billing; turnkey service; real-time reporting; and much more!

4. Supplier Orders Softwares

Do you want to manage and track your supplier orders? What you need is an ordering software that will help you manage your inventory turnover efficiently. 

This type of software allows you to have all your suppliers and their product catalogues in one place, so it is faster to order products for your inventory. This will allow you to better optimize your time, because everything is at the same place.

Software such as PivoHub, in the specialty beer retail industry, and OrderEase in the pet store and garden center industries, for example, allow stores to centralize their orders. Utilizing supplier orders software, you make your job much easier!

5. Employee Scheduling Softwares

Do you spend too much time preparing your employees’ schedules? Do you need features that simplify the overall control of your schedules? You should consider using an employee scheduling software! 

It allows you to manage everything related to the management of schedules:

• Access editable schedule templates;
• Optimize your time spent communicating schedules to employees and supervisors;
• Access timesheets;
• Control work time and employee attendance;
• Accelerate activities related to replacements;
• Integrate interns and volunteers into the team.

With an employee scheduling software, you will save time and facilitate your business management.

6. Marketing Softwares

As you may have noticed, there are several types of retail softwares that help you better manage your store. Did you know that there are also softwares to help you promote your business to your customers? 

With marketing softwares, it’s easy to promote your store and encourage your customers to come back! You can offer exclusive promotions to build customer loyalty. Your advertising will be done directly to your customers.

Also, you can optimize your work by structuring your tasks. A marketing software is there to help you stay organized and efficient in the gathering and analysis of your marketing data. It’s a great way to improve your marketing practices and use your budget wisely. With this software, data collection is automated and information is organized in a way that makes it easy to understand.  

The following softwares are good options to better understand your customers, satisfy them and maximize your revenue: 

• Mailchimp: email marketing tool
• Constant Contact: email marketing tool
• RAANGE : text messages marketing tool

In the world of marketing, it is essential to connect with your community and potential customers. Email marketing is an effective tool to create customer engagement. Try it if you want to make more sales! 

In order to stay on top of things, here are 4 marketing tools to consider:

1. Social media management platforms;
2. CRMs;
3. Campaign measurement and analysis solutions;
4. Customer relationship management tools.

7. Website Creation Softwares

A retail business must have a website that is professional, functional and attractive to customers. A well-done website distinguishes itself from the competition and that’s what you need! Creating a website can be done in many ways. If your computer and artistic skills allow you to create it by yourself, don’t hesitate to do it!

Softwares like WordPress and Squarespace have a variety of professional and versatile templates that you can use as a starting point for creating your web pages in line with your brand. However, if this is not your cup of tea, you can easily work with an agency that will use web design softwares to build your own website according to your needs and requests. 

8. Image Editing Softwares

If you have an online store, visuals are very important, since good quality images sell better. An image editing software is therefore essential if you sell products online. For example, for an online store catalogue, you should favour clean and quality images, in order to leave a good first impression to the customer. Indeed, images that are too busy can confuse the customer who will not pay attention to the essentials of the product.

With image editing software, you can edit your product pictures to give them a professional look. Skipping this step would greatly decrease the quality of your images and the overall look of your online store. 

In the best image editing softwares, we find Photoshop, GIMP, Canva and Photopea.

For photos that are sure to be professional, you can obviously work with photographers. They will then take care of the modifications to be made in the image editing softwares!

Benefits of Using Retail Softwares

As you’ve seen, retail softwares have many benefits for your business such as increased efficiency and speed of progress on your projects, as well as decreased costs. Here are four major benefits to using retail softwares: 

1. Global Reach 

E-commerce has no borders, which allows anyone to manage an online store or a website throughout the world! The only limits are the legal elements to respect according to the countries and the payment systems. 

2. Saving time and resources

All the software mentioned in this article, whether it is a point of sale software or an accounting software, will save you time and make your work easier and less demanding for your team. 

3. Market growth and industry leadership

By making changes in your work habits and getting efficient, innovative and widely used softwares, you will be ahead of your competitors and grow faster than you think!  

4. Low threshold and quick start

Using easy-to-use software will help you reach your goals quickly and easily.

The point is that the logistics behind running a business can sometimes be difficult. There are several retail softwares packages available to help you grow your business. Your life will be easier and your efficiency will increase.

In this article, we only talked about eight of them: point of sale softwares, accounting softwares, payment transaction softwares, supplier orders softwares, employee scheduling softwares, marketing softwares, website creation softwares and image editing softwares.

While it is important to invest in quality softwares for your business, it should not be the focus of your business. It should be an asset to you, not a driver of your business. Don’t accumulate softwares, but rather take the time to choose the ones that suit you best and that have a well-defined utility. Your choice should be based on your needs and not only on the comments of your colleagues and friends who strongly suggest a software that is useful to them personally. 

Your choice of software should take into account your industry, your needs and the size of your business. A small company has different needs than a large company. For example, the more employees your company has, the more comprehensive the payroll software should be. Identifying effective softwares for your business is therefore essential.

A point of sale software like Alice POS brings together several softwares and platforms in one place. This opportunity allows you to centralize your platforms. Would you like a free demo of this powerful point of sale software? Reach out to our team!