Are modern Point of Sale (POS) terminals, also known as smart POS terminals, solely for gaining a competitive advantage over peers? Nothing could be further from the truth than this assumption. With faster-than-ever adoption of POS terminals across sectors, the retail management solution has become a must-have for businesses to stay profitable.
Pharmacy owners today are not just in a race against other stores to secure a market share in a given locality. Over the years, several feature-rich e-commerce platforms have given them a run for their money by offering countless substitutes (medicines with the same composition and quality) across brands and price ranges.
The Case for Point of Sale Terminals in Medical Stores
To begin with, it is worth asking: as e-commerce platforms have made it affordable to get medicine delivered to one’s doorstep, what is the relevance of a medical store? While it is true that it is more convenient to order medicine online, the importance of pharmacies persists due to the following reasons:
To help medical store owners make informed decisions about the kind of POS system they must invest in to get the maximum returns, in the blog we will explore the following:
Key Considerations Before Selecting Point of Sale Terminals for Medical Stores
Here are some top priorities of pharmacies that POS terminals help address:
A few major factors influencing a customer’s in-store experience are queue wait time and loyalty programs, which help buyers enjoy attractive discounts and accurate bills. These factors are common in FMCG or clothing retail stores as they are in a medicine store. However, the customer journey and the purpose of visiting a pharmacy differs vastly from the look, feel, and necessity of a grocery store or clothing outlet.
For example, most pharmacies in India are not set up like supermarkets where the customer picks up the items from the shelves and can potentially self-checkout. At a typical Indian pharmacy, customers usually place the order and pay for it at the same counter where the staff packs the items and generates the bill, making the checkout process lengthy.
A robust all-in-one POS terminal or POS system with a comprehensive set of peripherals, including printers and barcode scanners, can speed up the billing process by:
A well-stocked inventory ensures that when customers visit the store to buy medicine urgently or to purchase the drugs they need regularly, the buyers may begin to think that they can count on the store to meet their needs. As a result, people are likely to visit the store frequently and recommend the outlet to others, thereby boosting the popularity and profitability of the business.
However, inventory control in pharmacies is as much about upholding the quality of service as it is about shrinkage reduction and compliance. For instance, expired medicine in the stock implies loss. At the same time, if an expired batch of medicine is sold unintentionally, it can be lethal for the consumer and hence, trigger legal action against the business.
The inventory control modules of POS terminals can help businesses:
As discussed earlier in the blog, e-commerce platforms may be strong competitors of medical stores, but stores continue to be relevant. Therefore, integrating one’s operations with e-commerce sites may open an extra revenue stream for pharmacies seeking to expand their customer base.
Additionally, keeping track of repeat orders can help the medical stores foster loyalty amongst customers by catering to their needs regularly. However, keeping a tab on repeat orders manually is challenging. This is why, CRM integration into one’s retail management system is crucial.
The importance of e-commerce and CRM integrations, amongst other integrations such as that of the CCTV feed into the retail management system of medical stores makes a strong case for a modern POS terminal. This is because the device seamlessly connects these third-party platforms to a single source of truth.
With cloud-native retail management, business owner(s) can remotely track factors such as:
However, perhaps the most important usefulness of a cloud-based retail management tool, particularly a cloud-based POS terminal, is scalability. Any business aiming to expand its presence across multiple locations should opt for a cloud POS. This is because cloud POS can centralise data without any manual intervention while also providing a more secure environment than on-premises systems.
The remote access of the POS system allows medical store owners to look at the CCTV camera and identify theft or misdealing. At the same time, to reduce the number of money or inventory mismanagement, the owners or managers can restrict access to certain modules and fields of the POS terminals. The billing machine also can protect sensitive customer information, encrypt transactions, and offer security-enhancing login protocols.
In terms of scalability, if the market best practices change, pharmacists can easily adapt to them with the help of cloud POS as the billing terminal enables regular software updates while keeping the business data safe.
By leveraging a robust modern POS terminal, pharmacists can in a single touchpoint:
Medical stores looking for an efficient POS terminal should note that Posiflex has a long-standing legacy of boosting retail success with the help of its world-class retail management tools, especially POS terminals. Our POS systems and peripheral devices come in a wide range of configurations and prices.
Want to know in-depth about the capabilities of our Point of Sales terminals?
Contact our team of experts today!
Published on 20th February 2025