In recent years, much has been developed to provide the typical retail user, with Point of Sale Solution hardware that embodies the latest technology and great aesthetic design. Sadly, POS Solution software has not kept up with these innovations in hardware design.
Most POS Software, by default, collects enormous amounts of data during normal day-to-day use. Unfortunately, this information is mostly not used, because most POS Solution software does not provide data mining functionality, and suitable user screens, to use this information to help run a business.
In coming weeks we are going to explore the possibility of applying ‘Artificial Intelligence’, ‘AI’ for short, to this data, and reveal the benefits in several areas of a retail business. The areas we are going to cover are:
1) Target Marketing of Retail Customers
2) Product Price & Margin Control
3) Automation of Product Ordering
4) Automation of Real-Time Stock Valuation
5) Use of Key Performance Indicators
TARGET MARKETING OF RETAIL CUSTOMERS
There is no question that, Point of Sale Solutions that include integrated pro-active retail marketing, are becoming crucial to growing a successful retail business. It’s widely accepted, customers are more expensive to acquire, than to keep.
POS Solutions, using tools like ‘AI’, can train their systems to recognize customers based on products purchased, spend amount and spend frequency.
An Email Marketing campaign, targeting these customers, could be in the form of an informational newsletter, an offer for a specific product, related to their general area of interest, or a Loyalty Voucher combined with news of a brand new product. It is relatively easy to decide what to send, when the POS Solution, using ‘AI’, has prepared a customer list. With a couple of mouse clicks, this campaign can be sent.
Consider this possibility…
POS Solutions, using ‘AI’ and Spend Analysis, are able to be trained to identify customers who are in the process of dropping support for a business. Research shows that offering these customers a special voucher or free product can help retain them. In the long term, this can make an enormous difference to a business’s revenue!
Campaign Tracking & Evaluation
An intelligent POS Solution would then allow complete Tracking of the campaign, to evaluate it’s effectiveness. It should answer questions like the following:
1) Did it increase sale volumes during the campaign
2) Did it increase sales revenue during the campaign
3) Did it 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 offers, $ Vouchers, links to websites can all be sent using SMS. And it all goes almost instantly to the customer. POS Solutions using ‘Artificial Intelligence’, allow all this and more, to happen automatically, with a few mouse clicks.
