| In many residential areas, businesses utilize | | | | as price changes. |
| old-fashioned cash registers and manual bookkeeping | | | | This system, therefore, enables a store to shed old |
| in order to keep track of their sales. Restaurants, video | | | | constraints and embrace a forward-thinking mentality. |
| rental stores, retail outlets and other enterprises still use | | | | A point of sale system helps the store do this by |
| mechanical systems to track sales and record | | | | simplifying the process of tracking and processing |
| inventory orders. This is a fine system, but with the | | | | data. The store can now respond to changes in |
| technology available for most businesses today, it has | | | | market conditions much more quickly and efficiently, |
| become very outdated. In particular, stores across the | | | | without any time delay due to the data having to be |
| country have started to switch to electronic point of | | | | manually entered and interpreted. The point of sale |
| sale systems by the hundreds. | | | | system does this for the store. |
| The point of sale is where the transaction actually | | | | With data processing now fully automated, the store |
| takes place; where payment is exchanged for a good | | | | can program the computer to alert management |
| or service. Previously, the mechanical cash registers | | | | whenever their inventory needs replenishing, whenever |
| and manual ledgers had filled the role of a point of sale | | | | a customer returns an item, etc. This confers several |
| system. Now that electronics have computerized point | | | | advantages upon the store; for instance, tracking the |
| of sale systems, the recording and processing of | | | | number of returns of a particular item may indicate |
| transactions has been made that much easier. Stores | | | | that the recent batch ordered may be defective or |
| now have the ability to see what products are selling | | | | otherwise ineffectual. This lets the store discriminate |
| or not in a real time, visual format. This is due to the | | | | between products more easily, thus ensuring that only |
| visual display technology that uses LCD touch screens | | | | quality products are ordered and stocked on their |
| to display data. | | | | shelves. |
| Touch screens represent an enormous advance in | | | | Efficiency is a matter of having the ability to improve |
| efficiency over older, mechanical systems. This is | | | | faster than the rate of customer satisfaction. This |
| because touch screens, as the name suggests, allow | | | | means that, while customer satisfaction is ultimately |
| data to be manipulated by touching the correct part of | | | | the reason behind a store's success, the rate at which |
| the screen. In this way, numbers can be entered, | | | | the store improves must always be a little ahead of |
| graphs adjusted and other regular store functions can | | | | customer satisfaction. This is why the point of sale |
| be executed by a programmable system that can | | | | system using touch screens helps the store so much: |
| respond in real time. The key thing to understand about | | | | management can see what is happening before the |
| touch screen point of sale systems is that they are | | | | customers do, and therefore they can respond and |
| electronically interconnected with a central computer. | | | | correct any errors before customer satisfaction is |
| This computer can be programmed from a remote | | | | impinged. |
| location, such as the manager's office, with data such | | | | |