POS solutions provide the precise management of retail businesses and their internal processes like online and contactless payments, online order processing, visitor management, employee management, monitoring of marketing and sales strategies, and more.
Some businesses use the market-available POS systems while others prefer custom POS software development. Which variant to choose? Keep reading the article to find out why custom POS software is more profitable for your business.
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Best POS systems on the market
Clover
Clover is a popular and rather affordable ready-made POS solution that provides the options of online order creation and contactless payments. To implement Clover hardware, you will have to pay starting from $9.95 per month depending on the range of features you need. Besides, you can have a free trial period during the following 30 days to test the system’s suitability for your processes. In addition, Clover offers an advanced hardware package consisting of a receipt printer, terminal, and a cash drawer that will cost you $1399 each month.
Lightspeed
Lightspeed is supposed to be one of the best market-available POS systems suitable for restaurants and retail businesses. This app offers an extensive range of options like an e-commerce platform where users can create their online stores, combining the business branches/ locations within the system, and others. The monthly fees start from $69 for a particular number of users. If you want to add more users, you will need to pay an additional $29 for each.
Toast
Toast is a POS platform from the restaurant industry. It offers an all-in-one solution providing management of restaurants like sales, transactions, and payments, visitors, marketing activities, employees, online orders, etc. Toast POS entails three different pricing plans starting from $69 per month. The prices are growing with the ranges of service you need to have in your POS system.
Cons of ready-made POS solutions
Due to the research and the reviews about popular ready-made POS solutions, we have collected the following problems most users struggle with using such apps.
Poorly technical support
Off-the-shelf POS systems are designed due to the common needs and requirements of retail businesses without considering the individuality of each company. Sometimes the system can go wrong and issue an error. However, you cannot fix them with your in-house team as you need to request assistance from technical support. As the number of POS users is likely to be large, you may wait for a long time which will negatively affect your business operations.
Irrelevant functionality
POS vendors decide whether their POS app needs functionality upgrade or not meaning your needs will not be considered if you need some changes at the moment. In addition, some functionality updates can make the POS system you use irrelevant and inefficient for your business anymore, forcing you to look for another vendor.
Non-scalable software
Market-available POS systems are intended for particular numbers of users of company branches (locations). If your business is scaling and expanding fast, there is a huge probability of disparity of POS functionality to your requirements and number of tasks.
How to choose a POS software development company
Considering all disadvantages and potential risks that may occur using the market-available POS system, custom POS software development would be a great solution to all issues your business struggles with. Although, the selection of a custom software development partner is no less important than choosing a POS vendor (a company that provides ready-made POS applications). So here you can find some tips based on GBKSOFT development team experience on what points to consider in your potential partner.
Proven experience in developing custom POS systems
To ensure the successful outcome from the cooperation with a software development company, the team that will work on your project should have relevant and proven experience in building custom POS applications that are still in use by their clients` businesses. Check the portfolio and you can also contact the previous clients to discuss the development process if such an option is available.
The design concept is pivotal in POS software
The design of POS should be easy and simple to use for all future users avoiding the need for a guide on how to use it. The design concept has to correlate with your employee and customers ensuring an attractive but still understandable interface.
Aware of security measures
POs entail online payments and collecting customer information which has to be 100% protected from breaches and thefts. Each type of software requires the following specific data security compliances, and PCI is the right one for POS software solutions. Make sure your software development partner is aware of the common security requirements for POS applications and keeps learning their latest updates.
Get more details about the partner`s company performance
The way your potential software partner holds the internal processes within the company will affect your cooperation and the overall development process. So it is advisable to learn more about their internal workflows, attitude to clients and employees, and the level of transparency they provide.
Additionally, get familiarized with each developer and expert working on your project – look through their resumes to check their domain and technical background, what projects they have been recently engaged in, and the outcomes of those projects.
To sum up
Taking into account all pros and cons of the ready-made POS solutions, we can surely say that custom POS software development is preferable for businesses to evolve and scale. If you are the owner of a startup or a small business company, then market-available POS may suit your needs for an uncertain period of time. However, as the major part of these solutions are hard to scale and upgrade, the need for custom POS development will arise.