Consumer electronics stores or appliance stores have very specific needs when it comes to a point of sale (POS), especially when compared to other types of retail stores. Since these stores often deal with higher priced items, manufacturer warranties as well as store warranties, and sometimes even repairs and servicing, they have needs that other smaller ticket stores do not. That is why it is important that when considering a POS you choose one that is built with your electronics or appliance store in mind.
A good electronics store POS will allow for the easy management of inventory, sales, discounting, warranties, repairs and more. By choosing the right electronic store POS your staff can spend more time delighting your customers and increasing their sales commissions, and less time ringing up customers at checkout.
In this article, we we will cover:
POS systems for electronics stores and appliance stores provide the hardware, software and customer and product information that are needed to manage and run your store from inventory management, to sales, and after sales support. An electronics store point of sale is specifically made for stores that sell consumer electronics or consumer appliances and take into account the special requirements that these types of stores have.
When we say special requirements, we mean those features that do not come standard with all POS systems, but rather additional features like financing, warranty management and tracking, on site servicing, repairs, warehouse connectivity and other features specific to consumer electronics and appliance stores.
When it comes to home appliances and consumer electronics, your sales team is the most powerful asset your store can have. That is why as a store owner you want to equip them with the easiest technology to get their job done fast so they can deliver stellar service and quickly move on to the next customer (and their next commission).
The last thing your customers and sales team wants is a difficult checkout experience, or to have to spend an hour going through extended warranties, financing options, installation scheduling, or other common tasks. Having the right POS system in place can substantially speed up the purchase process: integrations with your financing company can lead to faster credit approvals; customer relationship management can make scheduling delivery as easy as taking a phone number; and warranty tracking means your sales team can let their buyers know what and for how long they are covered both by your store or the manufacturer.
This leads to your team being able to process more customers in their shift, and the time savings and smooth process means much happier customers who are likely to come back in the future.
The last thing any appliance or consumer electronics store needs is to miss out on a sale because they did not have a make, model, or color available on the showroom floor. Being able to instantly see what is available in your warehouse, your downtown location, or via rush order from the manufacturer can be the difference between a customer buying from you or your competitor.
A good consumer electronics POS connects directly with suppliers as well as other store locations like your warehouse so that you can provide your customers with the widest selection of items possible.
Whether you are providing customers with delivery, in-home repairs, installation, or warranties, you are going to need to keep track of customer data like home address, phone, email, and more. With the right POS system, it can serve as your CRM so that you can easily access customer information when needed, and even to let your customers know about your latest items and promotions to drive more sales.
A POS system can make this entire process easy, and lets you have all pertinent customer information available in one central place (your POS).
This is super valuable in a lot of situations: from a customer calling in for repairs or warranty information; to a delivery driver confirming a delivery address and time; to providing courtesy calls to make sure your customer is happy with their product installation. When you no longer have to track down customer information, you will wonder how you ever lived without it.
Do you know what brand of dishwasher or television sells best in your store? How about which salesperson serves the most customers per working hour? Or what hours of the day or days of the week where you may need more or less staff? A good pos system can provide the answers to this and countless other questions and provide you with the data you need to make important decisions to save or make you money.
When data is easily accessible, and in some cases visualized for faster interpretation, it makes making business decisions that much easier. With the right POS system you get instant access to that data directly from the source (your checkout counter) so you can simplify parts of your store management.
With the right POS system, you likely will never need a standalone work order software, as work orders for repairs, installations, or product servicing can be created and tracked directly within the point of sale itself. Regardless of whether you are fixing a washer or dryer, installing a wall mounted flat screen television, or servicing a refrigerator, your maintenance team needs to quickly know what needs to be fixed, where, and when.
With many consumer electronics stores offering services like home installation or onsite repairs, this is a key feature that does not always come standard with every point of sale software, so you should ask about it.
Given the events of 2020 and beyond, more and more POS systems are finding a way to support delivery for retail stores. However consumer electronics and appliance stores have needed delivery integrations or support for years.
Just imagine if you were selling a large refrigerator or even a big screen TV and you told your customer that they have to walk out of the store with it because delivery is not available. Chances are pretty high they might go with the competition.
Whether you offer your own delivery, use a third party, or have another way to get items from the sales floor to your customer, you will want a POS that makes scheduling and tracking deliveries easy.<./p>
When it comes to consumer electronics and appliances, you have both store warranties, manufacturer warranties, and in some cases extended warranties to keep track of. With the right POS system you can track all types of warranties easily using something commonly referred to as customer cards.
These cards use information provided by the customer (name, email, address) as well as information populated automatically by the POS (recent purchases, purchase dates, warranty dates, extended warranty purchased) to track whether an item is covered by any type of warranty as well as who is responsible for any needed repair costs.
This simplifies the older process of having customers track down their receipts and then having to communicate the issue with the manufacturer. Instead, a quick lookup will allow you to know what the next step is. This can save a lot of time and frustration for both you and your customers.
Aside from just tracking warranties and purchase history, using your POS as a customer relationship management (CRM) system for your appliance store makes marketing a lot easier too. Whether your POS provides direct marketing, or allows you to communicate through email integrations like sendgrid or mailchimp, you can drive repeat customers back to your store any time you have a sale or promotion.
On top of this, you can also measure customer satisfaction by sending surveys or follow ups from within your POS as well.
What better way to upsell than by letting someone know that this month Samsung is giving a $300 discount when 3 or more appliances are purchased at the same time? It might just convince a customer on the fence to take the dishwasher with their fridge and stove.
At the same time, you probably never want to be in a situation where you are unable to answer a question on what a manufacturer warranty covers, length of warranty, or something similar.
That is why it can be a very useful feature to have all product information and manufacturer discounts accessible through your POS. With the right system you can simply enter a product identifier or scan a barcode and get all the details you need.
Most POS systems only handle standard sales transactions, but most appliance and consumer electronics stores offer some form of buy now pay later, financing, rent to own, or flexible payment terms.
You might not find a POS system that allows your store to do financing directly through the POS, but the right POS should at least easily connect or integrate with your financing provider.
Most sales teams live for commissions, and if you offer your sales team commissions on their sales, you will want a good way to manage and track how much is owed. A good point of sale does the work for you by allowing you to group inventory by commission rate (eg: 5% for large appliances, and 10% for small appliances), as well as add bonuses for upsells or extended warranties.
These commission calculations can then be pushed automatically to your payroll or accounting system through built-in integrations so your sales team gets the right payouts on time every time.
As mentioned above, with the right POS you can track warranty information after purchase on customer cards, but what about extended warranties? Extended warranties are like a form of insurance, where a customer pays more upfront to extend the warranty in the event their electronics or appliance breaks in the future. These can be a great way to make additional revenue for your store, but only if they are easy to calculate, explain, and sell to a customer.
As such, you will want a POS system that stores existing extended warranty information that is accessible with a click, tap, or scan, and be able to calculate costs of extended warranties on the fly.
When you need new inventory for your electronics or appliance store, it should be easy to replenish your stock. Being able to order new inventory directly from your point of sale system can make this easy. Some modern POS systems allow you to access the catalogues of your suppliers to place orders directly from them when your inventory is low, or to order new (just released) items they have in stock.
This can be done either directly in the system or by using the system to generate a purchase order that can then be sent to your supplier.
Without this or other features mentioned above, managing your appliance store can be a little bit more complicated than it has to be.
The short answer, around $200 per month.
Although retail POS systems can sell as low as $69 per month, this amount increases depending on the number of features and integrations you need. The average appliance store or consumer electronics store (based on the features listed above) should expect to pay around $200 per month.
