What Does An E-Commerce/POS Sync Actually Mean?
Connecting offline point-of-sale (POS) systems to online e-commerce platforms has never been more necessary. More and more shoppers want to take their money to small businesses, and an online platform that works in coordination with the brick-and-mortar side better meets their shopping needs.
Syncing your e-commerce with your POS system will help you make the most of every customer interaction and save you a lot of time. How does it work
The Importance Of Synchronization
In the offline sense, you may be familiar with using POS hardware, like a cash register. When a customer buys a product in a physical store, the salesperson scans the barcode to update the transaction in the store’s POS system. It’s an action that deducts the product from the store’s warehouse, letting the store keep an updated inventory of what’s in stock. They can know when the amount of a product is running low, when this product sells out, and more information without searching the shelves or back room.
For a long time, technology made it difficult for small businesses to keep up. They would have to do everything manually and twice: entering data in multiple software systems, training employees to use both types of systems, adjusting stock discrepancies between these systems, and handling any issues from all of that extra administration.
Now, syncing the information between the e-commerce and physical POS system can simplify how they maintain both parts of a business. As consumer buying habits change, it also sets small businesses up for future success!
What Is E-Commerce-POS Syncing?
E-commerce-POS syncing is very simple, and it doesn’t take a lot of work on your end – your digital service does most of the heavy lifting. Once the system is set up to handle the information coming from both sections, small businesses can have both their selling channels automatically coordinate their selling information. By using this real-time synchronization, the data of all transactions – at both online and offline POS systems – sync together and gather on a central system.
Syncing your e-commerce and physical point-of-sale system means adding a system that connects all products throughout different locations using a real-time platform. SlyFox can help small businesses bring on one single system that centralizes their inventory, orders, and customers for both their online and offline stores.
Why Sync E-Commerce With Your Point-Of-Sale System?
Syncing the two spheres also means no more manual reconciliation of the product inventory. Syncing the two helps small businesses avoid product errors and the inevitable follow-up emails when someone pays online for a product you just sold in your store. It also gives you more time to focus on running both parts of your small business!
It can also help your bottom line. Research out of the Harvard Business Review shows that shoppers who shop on multiple channels also spend more money in the physical stores – 13% more, according to their study. It’s the ideal way for a small business to bridge the gap between serving online customers and welcoming in-store customers again!
While it might feel unending, the lockdowns and pandemic measures will be over eventually. Syncing e-commerce with the point of sale can help you meet new and changing customer expectations and provide customers with a seamless move online to offline and back again.
