crimsontt

The Essential Point-of-Sale

Wed, 28 Aug 2019 15:07:27 GMT

As brick and mortar retailers work on drawing customers back to shopping in stores, one of the most fundamental tools in the shopping experience, the Point-of-Sale (POS) system, needs to support that effort with a robust solution whose strengths must include:

Rich functionality at the front end and the back end . A commercial off the shelf (COTS) product is generally mature and stable and may offer most, all of the essential functionality that a retailer requires. However, adding new features can also be achieved via integration with other applications. Essential functionality such as cross-channel visibility helps store associates find the right product for their customers and even get it delivered if necessary.
Cloud and/or c lient -s erver a rchitecture. Client-server architecture is the robust, proven architecture for retailers. However, in an effort to cut costs and reduce the need for networking and server specialists, the entire POS system or parts of it can reside in the cloud.
Offline capability . Being able to operate with most all functionality when the system is offline and then sync automatically when connectivity is restored is a critical feature for offering reliable service to customers.
Interface with the right devices . Today’s POS must accommodate a variety of peripherals such as a variety of printer types, payment devices that accept tap and digital wallets and card readers or biometric devices for security access.
Versatile footprint . An essential POS system should be able to transition from traditional POS hardware (display, cash drawer, scanner) to tablets with peripherals connected via Bluetooth. The tablet format allows for more personalized time with a customer and provides line-busting capabilities to speed up the time to payment which is essential for today’s customers.
Rapid and reliable payment processing with a variety of tender types. While a number of tender types will need to be processed through the POS, the processing of those payments must be done quickly and in a secure manner. The POS system should adhere to the standards set by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council.

Easy to learn and use for store associates. An appealing and intuitive appearance that is customizable to meet the retailer’s business processes goes a long way towards ensuring the accurate completion of various types of transactions.
Integration with the online experience. When best-of-breed systems are desired, the in-store POS may not necessarily be the same application as the one a retailer uses in their online store. However, the brick and mortar POS must be able to integrate with elements of the online store so as to provide a personalized and complete shopping experience for the customer when they do come into the store.

Retailers mustn't underestimate the power of the experience they’re offering the customer when they arrive in a store. While innovative technologies can bring about unique shopping adventures, a retailer must first ensure they can expertly cover off the basics such as having the products these customers want and processing the sale quickly and securely regardless of being online or offline.

Remembering the Retail Essentials

Fri, 09 Aug 2019 15:49:19 GMT

As customers have more opportunities and choice in buying, it seems like the traditional brick and mortar store is always under pressure. The big box stores are serving up heavy price and assortment competition. Centralized shopping areas have moved away from the main street. Customers are transitioning to online shopping and have relegated brick and mortar stores to showrooms that serve to validate a future online purchase.

Online retailers are moving beyond the click and collect service to setting up anything that will make it easier for customers to get their products such as delivery services, self-serve collection locations and curbside pickups.

Despite, or due to, these pressures, retailers are still seeking to improve the brick and mortar store experience for their customers, regardless of location or other factors. While the melding of essential store concepts with online purchasing functionality has become the norm, stores must innovate to keep their customers and grow.

Recognizing the Online Onslaught

Online buying’s appeal has to do with what we could call the Birthday factor – “Ooh! Something to open!” with the contents sometimes being a bit of a surprise if no prior research was done in advance. Despite the ease of online ordering followed by the fun of receiving packages and opening them, it’s been found that roughly 83% of shoppers (1) prefer to return their online purchases to a physical store (called BORIS for buy online, return in store). Then, when they’re in the store, they may purchase additional items.

This merging of the online and the physical store also occurs when the customer decides to buy online and pickup in store (which is called BOPIS for short or click and collect). In this case, customers avoid shipping fees and can complete easy returns if necessary. Retailers must be ready to offer this service in an efficient way that may avoid the in-store queue for the service desk. Most importantly, inventory must be suitably accounted for since the store has now become the fulfillment centre.

Re vitalizing Brick and Mortar

To emphasize some great points about shopping in-store, Winners stores, a Canadian banner of the retailer TJX, ran an ad (2) in late 2018 that referred to “Offline” shopping where customers are present in the store and humourously advocated the speed of human search engines, multi-sensory feedback, instant add-to-cart technology and no shipping fees. While Winners does not offer online shopping, Bed Bath and Beyond does and in spring of 2019, they jumped on the same idea(3) by promoting touching items prior to purchasing them and the concept of immediate “shipping” using the tag line “Think Outside the Screen”.

Facing the Customer

Ultimately, the retailer has new opportunities of meeting the customer face-to-face. Getting those customers to have a superior in-store experience is an essential part of building loyalty.

While there are a number of tactics being used to attract and retain customers including mirrors (4) that can show a customer 360 degrees in their outfit, accepting cryptocurrency and using augmented reality (AR) to demo products to consumers (5), these innovative technologies must be complemented by the store having, or being able to locate, the products customers want and for the customer to pay for them in a timely manner using a variety of payment methods.

References :

(1) Leberman, Dan, “Buy Online Return In Store (BORIS) and Buy Online Pickup In Store (BOPIS): The Two Acronyms All Small Businesses Should Know.” Inc. Accessed July 2019. https://www.inc.com/dan-leberman/buy-online-return-in-store-boris-and-buy-online-pickup-in-store-bopis-the-two-ac.html

(2) Winners video, YouTube. Accessed July 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUs9h1-f7PU

(3)Bed Bath Beyond video, YouTube. Accessed July 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c_Br-mO7Po

(4) DeNisco-Rayonne, Alison, “How Neiman Marcus’ top-down innovation strategy transformed retail and increased revenue.” ZDNet. Accessed July 2019. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/augmented-reality-retail

(5) Forsey, Caroline, “Five Ways Augmented (AR) Reality is Transforming Retail.” Hubspot. Accessed July 2019. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/augmented-reality-retail

Migrating from Microsoft Access to Microsoft SQL Server

Fri, 17 May 2019 15:22:16 GMT

Microsoft Access is a popular desktop database management system that incorporates application development tools (Forms, Reports, Queries, VBA macros) with a relational DBMS. MS Access is ideal for individual users or for small workgroups where a few users work on the data at the same time by sharing an MS Access database file over a local area network.

With that in mind, if you’re an IT Administrator in a small to medium size company looking at best practices for migrating company data from a simple platform to a more robust, scalable one, then this article is a must read for you.

The limitations of MS Access begin to show when the number of simultaneous users grows above a handful. MS Access also has a database size limit of 2GB which can also be problematic to a growing company.

The transition from MS Access to MS SQL Server can be a painful one and something that’s best done gradually.

Through my years of experience, I found that there are four options to ease the transition:

1. Split the MS Access database, keeping Forms, Macros and Queries in one MS Access database and put the tables in another MS Access database. This approach allows multiple users to have access to the same data.

2. Upsize all database objects from an Access database to an Access project so that you can create a client/server application. This tactic requires some additional application changes and modifications to VBA code and complex queries.

3. Upsize only data or data definitions from an Access database to a SQL Server database.

4. Create an Access database front-end to a SQL Server database back-end so that you can create a front-end/back-end application. This approach requires very little application modification since the code is still using the Access database engine (ACE).

Of the 4 options listed above, I have found that option #4 is the best since it integrates the power of SQL Server with the flexibility of MS Access forms, VBA and Macros. This technique is the quickest to implement, requires the least amount of programming and provides the most flexibility to keep jobs going and to meet the end users’ requirements.

When Crimson’s Retail Suite was originally being developed back from 2000 to 2003, the development staff decided MS Access was not going to satisfy the application demand with a large implementation. The task to migrate from MS Access to SQL Server took about a month namely because of syntax differences with dates and casting from one data type to another.

In the end, the effort was worth the transition and in 2003, our first installation was installed successfully with MSDE (Microsoft Server Desktop Edition) 2000 at a 78-store chain.

The Art of Programming

Tue, 30 Apr 2019 21:13:33 GMT

Art is defined from a viewer’s perspective where many different facets can be applied to many different avenues. Is software development an art? Do developers consider themselves artists? From my perspective, yes on both accounts. Art is about an overall picture and encompasses the entire landscape of a solution. From the little details to the final product and how the users view your solution. It’s the details that make the solution unique and bring out the “wow” factor.

However, this art is fading, and artists are more like assembly line workers. They don’t understand the details, and frankly, they don’t care. But they should.

Back in the 80’s when personal computers were starting to become the norm, all developers had to contend with limitations to the systems and so coding needed to be efficient, concise, and non-repetitive. Developers had to be creative. We learned from others by examining their source code but honorably, not by plagiarizing someone else's work. Instead, we understood what was written and wrote our own within libraries. These libraries would be used as the core groundwork for system beginnings.

Today’s coders don’t worry about efficiency. They don’t have any limitations regarding disk space or memory. There’s a plethora of coding examples on the internet that can be borrowed, requiring very little creativity on behalf of the developers, but the creativity comes from adopting the found code to function with the project at hand. Coders are no longer considered artists. Artists are now the designers, the graphical technicians and even the project managers or business analysts. In this new age approach, the coding is becoming bulky, inefficient, and repetitive. If the program is slow, just get a faster machine or a machine with more memory; that will fix the problem. No, it won’t.

The Crimson Retail Suite was built from the ground up with an artistic perspective resulting in a product that requires very few resources to support. Looking back, some of our development has not been touched for quite some time but still functions perfectly, bringing an enormous sense of satisfaction.

Developers should be taught the art of creative coding and not assembly line work. They should work within limitations and be forced to use specific concepts which were the norm back in the 80’s. This will not only produce better systems but also remove the issues of bug-ridden development projects. Software development cycles will increase but ultimately a better overall product delivered to consumers.

Art would once again be appreciated and artists will once again be recognized.

Will Crimson’s Retail Suite fall victim to assembly line coding in future releases? Not as long as I’m in control of the code!