Top 5 benefits of having your POS integrated with your eCommerce

Incorporating technology in your attraction is a must for creating a seamless experience that suits the expectations of your customers. Connecting your online sales to your point of sales (POS) is the key to a successful omnichannel strategy. By recognizing that your consumers use more than one channel for their purchase decisions, you can better adapt your technology and systems in order to improve your whole customer journey.
Your POS system is the solution that allows you to process orders or transactions across various channels, but you should aim for extending your existing functionalities and connect your offline and online sales for a unique and seamless visitor experience.

We know it can seem daunting due to different reasons, such as the costs, risk of business disruption, or the need of changing existing systems. But let us help you by analyzing all the benefits this powerful integration will drive to your business.

1.   Better efficiency

Being able to manage and track all your orders from one unified system, will allow you to have a clearer overall picture of the needs and behavior of the visitors within your venue. This centralization of control will help you make smarter decisions and distribute your time and efforts in a more efficient way, which leads to a direct saving of money.

By tracking all your orders and purchases in a POS and eCommerce integration, you can better plan and organize for providing good customer service. For instance, if you know that at lunchtime the most ordered product is the burger menu, you can plan in advance how much food you need or how you should distribute your staff in an efficient manner.

Did you know that with Convious’ Mobile Food Ordering, visitors can order their lunch even before their visit? So, again, the integration of your systems will allow you to manage your venue in a more efficient and safe way.

2. More accurate decisions 

The more technologies you have well integrated into your venue, the better insights you will get about your customers. You will better understand their customer behaviour across different channels, which will allow you to make tailored and personalized recommendations and approaches. Did your customer buy a special ticket for taking their dog to the park last time? Surprise them and send them an email with a promotion so that they can take their pet next time too! 

You want that data to make better decisions and to implement successful strategies, but why would you want data if you cannot read it? Consider looking for a solution that can provide you with all the reports and insights your business needs to grow, such as the one we provide at Convious.

3.   Avoid mistakes & reduce errors

When systems do not talk to each other, problems are bound to arise. By integrating your POS with your eCommerce, will you have all your data centralized and this will avoid many errors. Otherwise, you would need to track the data from your different sources manually which besides being time-consuming, carries a  higher chance for mistakes.

Not only does this save you a headache, but also a significant portion of time. This is time you can now invest elsewhere in your business, such as making your visitor experiences smart or improving your holistic experiences by improving your app for creating a cohesive customer journey. At Convious, we consider that being in touch with your visitors at every single moment of their visit is crucial for a unique experience at your venue. 

4.   Cross-Channel Promotions & Customer Incentives

By having both systems integrated, you will be able to establish and develop loyalty programs, coupons, gift cards, for both online and offline purchases. Instead of having two systems working separately, you will be able to easily synchronize the setup of the prices on both channels at once.

Why don’t you give a coupon to visitors who bought something at your gift shop? You can get all the information you need from your POS and take action through your eCommerce. Send them an email message and let them know that they will have a discount next time they visit your store. 

5.   Operational benefits

With a well-integrated POS and eCommerce system, you boost your business processes, make smarter investment choices, as well as gain consistency over all your operational processes.

Once again, having an overall picture of all your processes will lead you to a better analysis of operational areas to improve as well as streamlining and simplifying complex procedures you might encounter in your venue.

Even if this integration has numerous benefits, you should make an analysis and assess whether this integration would make sense for your business and reflect on how it would improve your whole customer experience.

If you are currently operating your POS system and your eCommerce system separately, think of all the extra manual effort it takes to keep everything synchronized. Ask yourself if the integration would help save you time and effort.

In addition, consider what expanding your business online, bridged together with the right POS, could do for your business in a time where convenience is king, and therefore being where your customers are is vital

New generations keep increasing expectations from the technologies and programs they purchase; especially millennials, who want a faster and seamless user experience, and are less tolerant of poorly designed programs and even less accommodating for poor user experiences. 

You need to turn this need into an opportunity and make sure your systems are well integrated so that you design experiences that reflect a holistic omnichannel approach, which will allow you to provide seamless experiences for your visitors.

If you want to stay updated on more actionable insights around eCommerce, sales channels, and the latest industry trends, subscribe to our blog now and stay updated!