Tills, bar codes and scanners

[NBT]

Hi,

I have just joined. I am opening a children's gift shop in Buckingham in September and need to get the whole till system sorted. I have been reading all your posts on the matter and it seems quite complicated.

Background:

- I want to start bar coding my products from the start as I manufacture own brand too and will be selling to retailers (we have just secured a department store so need to get sorted sooner rather than later!).

- It is just a small shop so we just need one till

- There will only be two staff in the shop (not huge team)

- I will be selling online, through market place sites, wholesale and in the shop so need something to help track stock????

- I would like software linked that can do daily targets and weekly sales and Vat reports.

I do not want something that is far more superior/complicated than I need but do not want to upgrade 3 months later either.

Any help would be really appreciated,

Becky

 

[kulture]

Personally I would go out, buy a cheap till and not even think about EPOS etc until you have traded for at least a year. Then you will know what you NEED. Don't waste the £3,000+ at this point. You can get away without a system, you may need the cash for emergencies.

 

[mhall]

There are plenty of threads on here about epos systems and you can get them from £20 a month upwards or spend £10k +. Unless and until you know exactly what you want the system to do it's better to do as Kulture suggests. Controlling the stock system with paper and pencil is the best learning method going. A simple day book is al that you may need. Don't spend a penny unless you have to. If you are selling hundreds and hundreds of lines then look to use an excel spreadsheet.

 

[ballista]

I wouldn't go down the EPOS route either, too expensive for a start up. A decent till with ability to program individual products will work perfectly. Straightforward to track inventory each day against a spreadsheet or notebook

 

[EPOS Solutions]

We provide very affordable EPOS systems, which are fantastic for new businesses. As the business owner we give you the ability to design how you generate your reporting and also basic retail operations. If you are interested in talking about it feel free to drop me a message.

 

[DoubleSpeed]

As a start up business you will need a website not just a brochure site, if you sell in-store you will want to maximise your sales potential by having an ecommerce site and you need to know you won't over sell so stock control/tracking is going to be important if you don't want to upset your customers.

As a startup you need flexibility, you need to control your costs so consider. Systems like www. ShopTill-e .com provide the ability to sell online and instore with combined eCommerce Websites, they are flexible, no contracts, no upfront costs, they are hardware friendly as they work with PC, Mac, iPad/iOS, Android touch screen or mouse, support barcode scanners, receipt printers etc.

As there are no up-front cost and as it works with your existing hardware which means the ShopTill-e full featured free trial is truly risk free!