A POS or Point of Sale is a place where you receive payments from your customers for what products/services buy from your store/business outlet. Your customers make a Point-of-Sale transaction when they purchase any products each time from your retail shop.
Advanced POS system goes beyond payment processing through cards. It enables you to have contactless payments, mobile pos features, eCommerce integration capabilities, and allied others.
A Point-of-Sale system is a central system of your business where you can merge many things – inventory management, sales, customer management, and payment processing. It is a combination of hardware and software components. As hardware, it has a monitor, barcode scanner, card reader, receipt printer, and cash drawer. On the other hand, the software of a POS system Dubai is of two types – On-premise POS and Cloud POS.
Differences between an On-premise and Cloud POS
Both on-premise (installed) POS systems and cloud (hosted) POS solutions are different. They differ from one another in features and functionalities. Here are some basic differences in installed and hosted point of sale solutions:
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On-premise POS – As a user, you have to buy one or more licenses and install the software solution on your computer. With your solution provider, you keep it updated and maintained. The installed point of sale system may require you to have a dedicated IT professional to operate it if your retail outlet is bigger. It has more upfront costs as you have to buy hardware components.
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Cloud POS – It allows users to access the solution on any device from anywhere. From time to time, the users get updates online from the provider. Only two persons, you and your authorized person, can access the solution. Such a point-of-sale system has a lower upfront cost.
What is ideal for you?
For example, an on-premise POS system is a good choice for you if you are a small retail business owner with one cash register. You will buy, install and host the POS solution on your computer system. And you will update the solution when you feel updating the solution is crucial for you. You will also have to purchase hardware components like a scanner, printer, and card reader.
On the other hand, a cloud POS system Dubai is a better option for you if you are a restaurant owner and your restaurant business is at multiple locations in a city/country. With such one, you can easily communicate with your people at all different locations.
A point-of-sale system with flexibility or a user-friendly interface is ideal for you.
