Microsoft Launches New Solution for Small Retailers

HostReview.com
Wednesday, May 18, 2005; 03:26 PM

With today's release of Microsoft® Point of Sale, small retailers can confidently and cost-effectively do what their larger counterparts began doing years ago: pull the plug on inefficient electronic cash registers and manual business management methods.

Microsoft Point of Sale is an easy-to-use, affordable application that enables small, independent retailers to track and manage sales, inventory and customer information.

Retailers can use Microsoft Point of Sale out of the box with their existing PC and peripherals or can purchase complete hardware and software bundles from leading technology providers.

"Microsoft Point of Sale levels the competitive playing field for small retailers, empowering store owners with better insight and control of their businesses with an easy-to-use, affordable solution," said Mike Dickstein, director of Microsoft Business Solutions Point of Sale Solutions.

Rick and Elizabeth Geist don't miss their old electronic register or manual inventory tracking since they adopted Microsoft Point of Sale at The Landing Music Ltd., a small record and CD store they own in Seattle.

They used to spend an hour and a half completing their monthly sales tax report -- a task that now takes five minutes. The only way they could be sure of filling a customer request was to manually check the racks. They scanned paper sales logs or polled their employees to find out what was selling. Now they automatically track inventory and quickly process transactions via bar codes on all items.

"Microsoft Point of Sale has given us back our lives; we no longer spend endless hours tracking inventory, guessing what stock to order or closing the till," Elizabeth Geist said.

The Geists are among the rapidly growing ranks of small retailers that have abandoned their electronic registers and manual recordkeeping to gain the greater business insight and control offered by POS software and eliminate expensive credit and debit card payment terminals and transaction fees.

Paula Rosenblum, director of retail research for Aberdeen Group, agrees. "Small businesses need POS technology not only to survive against retail giants, but also to keep up with other small and medium-sized businesses that are already benefiting from the insights and efficiencies of store automation," Rosenblum said.

Unlike other POS products that provide isolated snapshots of a business's aspects, Microsoft Point of Sale offers shop owners a holistic view of their business by working with the Microsoft Office System and accounting applications such as QuickBooks.

Familiarity with and confidence in Microsoft software as well as the product's ability to work with popular accounting applications was the tipping point for the Geists, who, after investigating POS solutions for more than two years, chose to implement Microsoft Point of Sale.