There is one adage each retailer has to follow – keep the customer happy. Earlier, it meant stocking every product that the consumer may need or want. Today, it is equivalent to considering the hectic lifestyle of the patron and offering quick services. To this end, retailers have started working on tactics that leave the customer happy and fulfilled. The most common attempt to reach this goal is incorporating management software to their shops or supermarkets. In this article, we explain the what and the why of retail management systems.Understanding Store Management SoftwareRetail management is the process of increasing sales and consequently customer satisfaction. It is done by comprehending the product, service, and customer better. An organisational software for a retail shop is a system that ensures these goals are achieved. The network makes shopping easier, leaving the patron more satisfied and the merchandise store more profitable. This is the central definition of a management system. Our next step is to grasp how they benefit a department store chain.Benefits of A Retail Chain SoftwareThe advantages of a point of sale software for shops are innumerable, but two of them are the most important.

The software guarantees that the outlet is organised. For example, a customer comes to your general store and asks for X brand of shampoo. The POS System can be used to check if you have the shampoo in stock, where it is kept and how many of them are in your inventory. Thus, guiding the patron directly to the shampoo becomes quick and easy. The consumer never has to wait too long in the store or leave without purchasing anything. This is possible because the software allows the shop manager to save detailed information about each item in stock. One can even group product according to the type of customer (age & gender) who purchases it.

The second gain of a billing and inventory system is the tracking ability. Each time merchandise is added to the store, or an item is purchased, it is recorded in the software using a unique SKU (stock keeping unit). It signifies that a manager can regularly keep track of:

o all the products – how many are in stock and which need to be re-ordered?o the sales of the storeThe continuous record-keeping of goods also averts shoplifting and pilfering.Knowing what is a merchandise management software and how it can help a retail chain is half the battle. The other half is to identify the precise features the software should have.Must-Have Features of Retail Software a Manager NeedsFashion Retail Software or supermarket system, some essential applications should be included in all of them. These elements keep the business running seamlessly and efficiently. Hence, before investing in a POS software for a retail outlet check for these components:

Payment: A good billing system for any retail store extends the ability to pay in any mode. Cash, debit card, credit card, gift vouchers, coupon codes or digital apps, the customer has the convenience of transacting in any manner they wish. The system doesn’t just offer flexibility but also speed. Instead of an employee manually tallying the total of the entire cart, the software does it in nanoseconds.​

Inventory: The fundamental part of management software for retail outlets is registering every sale and material purchase. It is meant to reduce the time it takes to physically trace the products in stock and keep a tally of what has been sold and what not. This is accomplished by scanning the barcodes attached to each SKU or via RFID. The freed-up time can then be used to make the shop more productive and fatten the profit margin.

Promotion: Because the software has a history of all products that are purchased by shoppers, it can be used for promotion. Goods that are selling faster can be promoted further while products that are lying on store shelves can be discounted to boost sales. The information the POS system extends can necessarily be applied to push items to patrons.

Loyalty Programs: A store software is not limited to tracking purchase history. It also records which buyer bought which item and how many times. It can show you which patrons are repeat customers. The information can be applied to create loyalty programs that reward frequent buyers. It also helps in making targeted marketing campaigns. For example, patron A is known to purchase chicken soup every 14 days. This data can be utilised to sell a higher priced soup to the customer who turns to increased profit for the store.

An excellent billing software, a useful inventory feature that tracks purchasing and receiving plus a proper customer relationship management application are the requisite components of any retail shop software. If the system comprises of reporting, scheduling, sales order organising, and dashboard applications, it becomes even better.The Take-AwayPick a system that factors in all the needs of the retail store plus gives the customer a finer shopping-experience. Greater consumer satisfaction means thicker bottom line for you.

It’s no secret that software companies operate in a very competitive space where rivalry is increasingly fierce and where profit margins can be razor thin. New, smaller software companies are sprouting up each month and the leading software companies continually make strong advancements forward leveraging massive cash flow reserves. This cycle makes it difficult for the mid-sized software company to compete because (a) they don’t typically have the cash flow necessary to take giant leaps forward in the industry and (b) because they need to continually move forward to stay ahead of the smaller software companies that are vying for their slot in the marketplace. Consequently, making the jump from an unknown to a mainstream brand can prove to be very difficult for the mid-sized software company.Finding ways to create new revenue streams and to decrease current costs is imperative to the success of companies caught in this cycle. They need to be thinking on their feet, thinking ahead and thinking creatively, all at the same time. This can be a daunting task, as any software executive will tell you.Despite all of the challenges that face the mid-sized software market, there are several ways to create these much needed revenue streams and to decrease current costs. New advancements in technology and its use in training and development make generating these revenue streams possible.Setting the StageIt is almost taken for granted that when an organization purchases a software package from a reputable vendor, a certain amount of end-user, customer training will be either bundled into the purchase price or made available to them for an additional cost. If training isn’t available to the end-user customer, the learning curve on the new software package is going to be fairly steep, depending on the complexity of the software.Typical training expense categories associated with most mid-sized software companies include:1. The salaries of offline trainers2. The travel expenses of offline trainers3. The costs of producing hard-copy training manuals4. The time involved in offline, onsite customer trainingThese expenses should be under a watchful eye and should be consistently viewed as expenses that could be alleviated to some degree to not only improve the company’s attractiveness in competitive bid situations but to increase the profit margins of the supplemental training services provided by the company.At the same time, in the background, mid-sized software companies should be looking for ways to create new revenue streams that they aren’t currently capitalizing on to work in collaboration with their cost-reduction initiative.Step 1: Lowering Training Costs Using Custom e-Learning ContentThe first step to any well laid-out cost-reduction plan is to decrease the costs the organization currently incurs in order to get a better handle on profit potential from sheer cost savings. Previously we outlined what our target cost categories are…now we’re going to lower the costs associated with those categories by leveraging custom e-Learning content.Take this scenario: A mid-sized software company that develops intranet portal systems currently employs 3 trainers that are onsite with clients for end-user training 3 days per engagement and they each average approximately 50 engagements per year for a grand total of 150 days on the road per trainer or 450 days on the road collectively.For these trainers, the onsite training program for the end-user customer may look something like the following:Day 1: Software Introduction and Primary FunctionsDay 2: Functional Use and Administrative ActionsDay 3: Real-World Functions and LabsLowering the costs: By leveraging custom e-Learning content, the company used in the above scenario, can effectively reduce the onsite time required for each trainer, thereby reducing all costs associated with the training program across the board.By using a professionally designed, self-paced, custom e-Learning module to focus on the Software Introduction and Primary Functions training that normally occurs on Day 1 and then delivering that learning module online to their end-user customers at the time of purchase through an e-Learning Management System (LMS), this company could decrease travel time for all 3 trainers by 1 day per engagement. This would decrease travel time for each trainer by 50 days per year, or 150 days collectively during the year. In addition the end-user customers will already be familiar with the software package before the trainers ever set foot in the front door.This would successfully:Decrease the costs associated with those 150 days of travel that are now being saved.Enable the company’s trainers to perform more training engagements OR enable the company to decrease the number of in-house trainers it employs.Decrease the costs associated with creating and publishing the sections of the hard-copy training manuals that deal with the Software Introduction and Primary Functions training session that normally occurs in-person on Day 1 of the training engagement.Taking it one step further: Reducing each trainers travel schedule by 1 day is good, but it isn’t good enough. Software companies employing this cost-reduction method should take it one step further to enhance their end-user customer’s experience. They need to make sure that their end-user customers are learning what they need to know to ensure time isn’t being wasted covering the same topics when the trainer visits the customer site in-person.To do this, the software company needs to look at how they plan to deliver the online training to their end-user customers. They will want to make sure that the end-user customers can track and manage the online training portion of their sessions, whether it is self-paced custom e-Learning content or real-time online trainer/student collaboration. Selecting this delivery platform can be difficult but it should include the following basic functions:1. Student Knowledge Assessments2. Student Success and Progress Tracking3. Real-Time Interactivity4. Self-Paced Learning DeliveryBy selecting a delivery platform that addresses all four of these facets of end-user customer training, the mid-sized software company can not only decrease their own costs but enhance their client/vendor relationship by delivering more than what is normally expected or experienced in today’s software market. What’s the bottom line? The customer is pleased with their user’s performance and the value they received from the software company.Step 2: Creating Revenue Using Custom e-Learning ContentNow that we have lowered our costs, the company needs to look at how they can use their new learning technology to generate new revenue streams for their organization.Take this scenario: The mid-sized intranet portal software company used in the scenario above now has their own proprietary basic end-user e-Learning module to cover 1 day’s worth of what was previously onsite training. The company has effectively reduced their overall, offline training costs. Now it is looking for ways to generate new revenue streams using this technology to (a) make back their initial purchase costs and to (b) create more profit potential for the entire organization.Creating the revenue: One way for a mid-sized software company, such as the one we’re using in our example, to create this much needed revenue stream is to create subsequent, more advanced, self-paced, custom e-Learning training modules. Attractively priced, these learning modules could be made available to their end-user customers online without incurring any additional offline training costs.In order to do this efficiently and without incurring additional offline training costs, the company needs to make it easy for the end-user customer to purchase the more advanced training content and make it easy for the end-user customer to track their own learners as they attend the training courses so they can readily see its effectiveness. By investing the money today to build the more advanced, custom e-Learning content, this mid-sized software company could realize profits from the training modules within 12 to 24 months once they begin marketing and selling it to their existing client base. Such profits would be dependent on development timeframes, how they market their new training service and their chosen modes of delivery.Taking it one step further: Making the more advanced e-Learning content convincing and attractive to purchase from the client standpoint takes some ingenuity. People are very susceptible to purchasing something that is located right next to the checkout lane at Target. Similarly, it stands to reason that client of this mid-sized software company will be more apt to purchase additional e-Learning content if it is readily available to them and if they can purchase it without any hassle.One way to accomplish this is to publish the new, more advanced, self-paced e-Learning modules to the company’s LMS portal and then make the modules available for purchase via credit card using e-Commerce or via standard invoice with a single phone call. This essentially acts as the product stands we all see at Target next to the checkout lane. Since everyone needs to pass through checkout lane, it makes sense to put additional products available for purchase there. In other words, if the mid-sized software company is delivering portions of their beginner training program online to their end-user customers, this more advanced e-Learning content should be available for purchase right next to those basic training modules, thus, increasing its visibility and increasing the attractiveness to buy from the client perspective.The Completed SolutionBecause of the tight software market and the strain put on mid-sized software companies to perform, if these companies can decrease the costs associated with their current training programs and create new revenue streams at the same time, it becomes a win/win situation both for the vendor and for the customer. The software company gains a competitive edge and continues to move forward while the client gains an easy-to-engage training program and added value from their software vendor.Synapse SE Staff Contributor

You will be forgiven for thinking that I am teaching you how to make illegal pirate copies of your software after reading the title above. Well rest assured I won’t be walking the plank as this article is for information purposes only. As a programmer I understand how software piracy can hurt companies so I do not recommend it. There is plenty of good software that can be downloaded for free, especially if you don’t need all the fancy features of expensive software. This article explains how people used to pirate software from retro computers such as the Spectrum and the Atari ST.SPECTRUM AND COMMODORE 64Spectrum and C64 software came on cassette tapes which were inserted into data recorders (or tape recorders) and could be loaded into memory by typing a command such as load””. These computers relied on a series of sound signals which were never pleasant to listen to as they were horrible screeching sounds. Quite often you would have to wait up to ten minutes (for a Spectrum 128k game especially) to load when it could crash, meaning you had to re-adjust the volume and start again. In case of a low recording, the game cassette would usually have a separate copy on the other side.
Most people could copy these games by using a hi-fi system with twin cassette decks. By inserting the original game cassette in the first deck and pressing “play”, and inserting a blank cassette in the second deck and pressing “play and record” you could get a perfect copy. You could buy cassette tapes for saving data such as a C15 which allows you to record up to fifteen minutes. Some people would use a C90 which would allow them to store many games at once.If you didn’t have access to twin cassette decks then you could use software. On the Spectrum you could use something like “007Spy” which would allow you to load the entire game into memory and then back up onto a blank cassette. Some games had different ways of loading such as the pulsing (or clicking) loaders, a method used by many Ocean Software games. This led to the release of other software capable of tackling these loaders. The average Spectrum game would consist of a short piece of code (the header), a loading screen and the main code. This is the standard loader, easy to copy.When the Spectrum 128k +3 was released it came with a built in floppy disk drive. As there were only so many games released on +3 disks, methods were used to transfer them from tape to disk. The standard loader was easy. All you had to do was type merge”” to get into the editor code and save that to a +3 disk (save”a:program-name”). Next you would load the loading screen higher into memory (load “screen-name” code 30000) and save that to a +3 disk. Finally you would do the same thing with the main code and add the load commands to the main header code.For the more complicated loaders a suite of programs called “007 Trans-Master” was used to convert the files into the standard format so they could be saved to +3 disks.ATARI ST AND AMIGAThe great thing about the Atari ST and Amiga computers was that you could lay your hands on hundreds of pieces of free software, no need to pirate commercial software. There were many PDLs (Public Domain Libraries) who would distribute free software for the price of a disk and postage, and for their distribution work. The actual software is free and covers anything from demos to games and pictures to music files. There was also the shareware method where you pay a small subscription fee to receive extras for full versions of the software and licenceware where the PDL would offer a small commission to the original contributor.Atari ST software was normally copied using dedicated disk copiers such as “Fast Copy” while the Amiga used the popular “X-Copy”. However some disks were protected and therefore other more powerful copying software had to be used.PROTECTION METHODSSoftware publishers have used many forms of production to deter copying such as the more complicated loaders on the Spectrum. Other methods would require the user entering a word or letter from the manual before they could get into the game, or choosing a series of colors or symbols from their book to match the ones on screen. Some games allow you to think you have copied them until you have played them for so long and notice some nasty surprise. The game “Shadow of the Beast” turns the screen upside down on certain levels for example.This lead to the rise of Cracking Groups such as the famous “Pompey Pirates” on the Atari ST who would hack into the game and remove the copy protection. They would then release a number of games (hacked and packed) onto a single floppy disk which were passed around to various users.CONCLUSIONThe battle between software publishers and pirates is an on-going one and people will always want free software if they can get it. Old retro software is freely available for download on various websites for people who want to re-live the old days so there is little need to copy them from originals. I am not going to tell you how to copy the latest PC software. I only wrote this article to explain how people used to back up their software for the older systems. I stated that there is a lot of free and in-expensive software available for the PC and I urge you to use that rather than resort to piracy.