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Did you know that your EPOS system can act as a fortune teller?
From a basic necessity to a powerful piece of business software, a good electronic point-of-sale system (EPOS) will support your business.
Here are four benefits of an EPOS system to prove it can help you predict the future! But first, let’s explore the basics.
An electronic point-of-sale system is an important bit of kit when you want to run a business. It lists your inventory, helps monitor your staff, manages tables, split bills and takes payments. Electronic point-of-sale features can be endless, but the right system can boost your bookkeeping and keep you tax compliant, but what’s the one thread that ties all these features together? The answer is data.
Every action you perform and payment you take is tracked by your EPOS system and saved to the cloud. While you’re busy working, your data is being cleverly aggregated and used to create the sales reports that you see at the end of each day.
Everyone has access to these reports, but few people understand just how important they can be for businesses. If you want to make predictions about customer behaviour, stock levels, and financial growth, these reports are the way to do it. So, if you want to make good business decisions, here are four ways you can use your EPOS system to predict the future.
Manage tables, identify best-sellers, predict busy days, and more. An EPOS system is a cornerstone of your business.
By customising your reports, you may immediately identify your best sellers, busiest days, or perfect price levels. Did the promotions you ran last month make sense? Did sales go through the roof and justify the discounts? Your EPOS tells you what worked and what didn’t.
Once you’re continuously monitoring your sales, you’ll be able to quickly update and adapt your strategy based on proven success tactics.
A modern EPOS does more than just tally up transactions. It uses EPOS data analysis to highlight top-performing products and reveal hidden trends that, if used smartly, could supercharge your business.
For example, you might own a café and discover that your bestselling sandwich isn’t what you expected, or that midweek lunch traffic spikes every other Tuesday, or that one item you thought was underperforming could sell better when paired with a specific side (do I sense a bundle deal coming on?). These are the kinds of insights you’d never catch manually.
By drilling into sales by product, time, or promotion, you can fine-tune your pricing, plan targeted flash sales for times when they’ll have increased impact, and optimise your menu to match actual demand. Plus, customer–item affinity reports show which SKUs are frequently bought together. This lets you craft compelling and legitimate ‘frequently bought together’ suggestions at the checkout and create organic upselling opportunities.
These actionable insights turn raw sales data into strategic decisions, helping you double down on what works and swiftly cut what doesn’t.
Are you sick and tired of managing inventory? Anyone running a small business knows that keeping on top of stock can be time-consuming. In the old days, you’d have to note every single item down on paper and pray you didn’t spill coffee on it, but with a modern-day EPOS and modern EPOS forecasting, the process can be far less painful.
You can choose to upload an Excel file that lists every product and price, or you can add them one by one in a matter of minutes. Once they’re in the system, stock levels will adjust automatically every time a sale or return is made. Simple.
Your POS system will let you know when you can expect higher demand, so you can capitalise.
Why does inventory management matter?
Well, it will help you make smart decisions when you reorder stock. What gets returned too often? What’s been selling more than you imagined? Why do people buy so many green juices at 11:00? And are they the same people who come back at 17:00 to buy wine?
Your POS system will let you know when you can expect higher demand, so you can capitalise. And because inventory ranking reports are based on gross margin, not gut feeling, you’ll get a honest overview of each product’s profitability.
Your EPOS system is a great assistant, taking away the hassle, so you can concentrate on being the perfect boss!
As you’ve probably already experienced, there are plenty of people out there with poor people skills on both sides of the counter, and no EPOS can solve that very human riddle.
But what your EPOS can do is act like the perfect assistant, so that you can focus on management. Based on the insights it gains each day, your EPOS can help you with things like staffing, so you know when to hire more help and avoid any long, frustrating queues in your busy months.
Pros and cons of EPOS systems
Pros:
Cons:
Also, your electronic POS system gives you an overview of each employee's productivity, so you can assign busy shifts to diligent workers and calmer shifts to workers who are a bit slower but perhaps deliver a more personal service experience. All this, based on insights from your staff accounts.
Your EPOS acts like a perfect assistant, so that you can focus on management.
The beauty of a well set up product library is obvious. Not only is it easy to use, it’s also simple to explain when you take on new people and continuously helps you monitor sales, telling you what you’re selling and to whom.
Customers aren’t like they used to be, they expect you to know them. Well, thanks to your EPOS system, you do.
You may often know more about your customers’ shopping behaviour than they do. If you identify your most loyal customers and give them some extra love, they may keep coming back for more. It may be much easier to keep an existing customer than to attract a new one.
Keep in mind that customers are demanding today and expect personal deals. EPOS systems make it possible to add customer details to a digital database and send them tailored offers. As well as top-notch service, they expect personal deals. Imagine you’re a regular and you receive a promotion for an item you’ve never ordered (like that matcha green tea smoothie you despise).
If your café had known that you always buy cortados on Thursdays and offered you a biscotti for free, you’d be back in a flash. These are the kind of offers that fill your seats, so remember, often your customers won’t know what they’re looking for, but with a smart EPOS system, you will!
Of course, the benefits of an EPOS system extend far beyond simply recording what customers have already bought. They predict what they’ll want to buy next too.
By analysing individual purchasing histories, you can spot loyal patrons and file them into VIP lists for exclusive targeted offers. For example, if John orders a matcha latte every Tuesday, your system can flag him for a complimentary pastry offer that day, boosting his lifetime value and reinforcing brand affinity.
Conversely, predictive analytics can also identify customers whose visits might have dipped, so you can re-engage them with personalised incentives, like a ‘we miss you’ discount.
EPOS-driven CRM also tracks redemption patterns, letting you test which loyalty rewards drive repeat visits, and which die on the vine. Over time, these targeted loyalty campaigns convert occasional buyers into loyal fans and ambassadors, filling your seats during slower hours and creating a community around your brand.
An EPOS system can be the backbone of an agile, data-driven business.
The benefits of an EPOS system include:
These four pillars: efficiency, insights, foresight, and personalisation, combine to transform your EPOS into a strategic asset that you’ll wonder how you ever managed without.
Ready to unlock your business’ future? Explore PayPal’s powerful EPOS solutions and start predicting, planning and profiting today.