Point of Sale Integration

Posted on  | February 1, 2009  
Written by | Ian Griffith

As we discuss the benefits of launching a website with wine stores, we are often asked to recommend a point-of-sale system POS. Robust integration between a website and the POS is an important element in maintaining an active online presence. To support your business Beverage Media offers five possible points of integration with a POS. Not all are necessary for a successful website or ordering system and each POS handles these integration points in a different way.

1. Website inventory updates To make the most of your website you will want to update your product selection regularly, which doesn’t happen reliably unless this step is automated. Each night we read a fresh inventory file from the POS and send price and availability changes to the website.
2. Web order importing
   With some POS systems it is possible to import your web orders back into the POS. Orders can be either grouped together to simply deplete inventory for the day’s web business, or they can be treated as separate orders to be linked with customer accounts in the POS. Taken a step further customer accounts in the POS can be linked with website customer records. One reason to do this would be to identify loyalty program members who are eligible for targeted promotions. Some stores also upload their customers’ purchase histories from the POS, so this data can be mined to create targeted mailing lists for email campaigns.
3. Price file integration
   Consider the efficiency of browsing the pricing information in this Journal from within your POS. Beverage Media makes the wholesaler pricing for your market available in electronic form. Some POS systems can import this data for display alongside your products.
4. eOrders sales history
   For subscribers to the market pricing data, Beverage Media makes available our software tool, eOrders, which allows you to build and place orders electronically, over the Internet. eOrders runs on the store’s computer and reads the sales history from your POS. This information is used to suggest reorder quantities and orders are delivered to the wholesaler without sensitive information leaving your building.
5. eOrders purchase orders
   Depending on the POS, a completed purchase order can be exported from eOrders into your inventory system for receiving goods. This helps eliminate a common source of data entry errors.

To ease the installation of a new POS system, Beverage Media provides market data subscribers the current month’s pricing with UPC codes. Looking up products from this Journal by UPC code or by text search saves the labor and stress of typing each entry manually. Just scan items from your shelf, enter a count and price. Your SKU will be preloaded with product description, vendor and current market pricing.

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