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newsletternewsletter 326
pcAmerica in the Press pcAmerica in the Press David J. Gosman’s (CEO of pcAmerica) article Beyond the POS Register, was published in the July, 2009 issue of Vertical System Reseller Magazine. What does your local supermarket, chain coffee shop, and mall clothing store have in common? Your credit card will process in less than two seconds, sale pricing will calculate automatically, and some point-of-sale (POS) systems can even count out your change for you. Most small and large businesses that have adopted a modern POS system are evidence that ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) have done a good job delivering fast checkout, one of the primary objectives of a point of sale system. Most POS software packages have adopted some "beyond the register" functionality including a varying degree of inventory tracking, customer history, and employee labor tracking. Recently, new marketplace trends have emerged, and point of sale ISVs have been introducing new software features to address these trends. The new trends discussed in the article include topics such as self-checkout (becoming popular in supermarkets), self-ordering systems (used in quick-service restaurants), and personalized marketing which includes techniques such as personalized customer coupons based on buying habits and personalized displays facing customers at checkout recommending additional items to purchase at checkout. To read the entire article, go to: Or go to verticalreseller.com and search for pcAmerica. pcAmerica Now Twitters and Blogs If you missed last week’s newsletter, pcAmerica now Twitters and Blogs. For the Twitter account, go to twitter.com and search for pcAmerica. For the Blog, go to http://www.talkpos.com/. For more information, go to last week’s newsletter available at: http://www.pcamerica.com/pos_newsletter_archive.html
Retail Sales Are Up (or What Are You Smoking?) The good news is that many newspaper, magazines, TV and radio headlines have reported that retail sales were up in June. According to the headlines, spending is up (or more accurately, spending by Congress and local governments are up). All this is wishful thinking. A closer look at the headlines show if you subtract auto sales and gas sales, retail spending is down. Gasoline sales are up because the average price of gas rose during the month of June. Auto sales were slightly up mainly due to some great prices offered by the many GM and Chrysler dealers that are closing. July doesn’t look any better. According to the Wall Street Journal, sales declined by 0.9% during the week ended July 11th. The National Retail Federation (NRF) forecasts that back-to-school spending will drop by 7.7% this year as more households cut back on purchases amid pay cuts and continued job losses. Do I have any good news? Not so much. I am a business person and one of those people that believe that lower taxes are good for business and higher taxes are bad for the economy. I don’t like getting into politics especially within the newsletter, but I thought that our President promised not to raise taxes on Americans making less than $250,000. Have you checked your taxes lately? Social security taxes have gone up. My local sales tax has gone up. My tolls have gone up. Here’s the point… If you go to CNN.com you can see the headline Retail Sales Rise For Second Straight Month: http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/14/news/economy/retailsales_June/ You can see the same type of headline in many other publications. However, if you actually read the article carefully, you will see that the rise in retail sales comes from auto sales. The article does state that the rise comes mainly from auto and gas sales. The article does not mention that if you subtract auto and gas sales, retail sales actually went down. It also doesn’t mention that gas sales are up due to a June increase in gas prices. It also doesn’t mention that auto sales are up due to temporary bargain prices that many people jumped on in June. You can get the alternative view by looking at The Wall Street Journal at: http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090714-707657.html Now on the positive side, the Wall Street Journal quotes economists surveyed by MarketWatch forecasting sales to rise by 0.7% in the near future. And, there really is some good news. Lots of restaurant owners that I have spoken to feel that sales have bottomed out. Although things are not great, they have seen some hope of a turn around. Sales at three of my favorite local restaurants are up by 12% in June (vs. June of last year). That’s my tacky local survey after talking to three local restaurant owners. Why the sales increase? All three owners have been doing lots of marketing, and spending lots of time making sure that their customers are happy and keep coming back. Firefox is Booming. Internet Explorer is Tanking. For those of you who don’t know, Firefox is an alternative web browser that you can place on your computer and use instead of Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer comes on your computer and was created by Microsoft. Internet Explorer works great for most people. There is nothing too wrong with it. Microsoft recently released Internet Explorer 8 which is significantly better than Explorer 7 which probably came with your computer. It is a little faster, works a little better, and is somewhat safer to use by helping to avoid internet sites containing viruses and spyware. The upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 is FREE. Firefox is an alternative browser which you must download to your computer from Firefox.com. If you decide to download or use Firefox, you can still use Internet Explorer whenever you want. Both browsers can be on your computer at the same time. Firefox now has a 26.8% share of the market (compared to a 55.7% Internet Explorer market share). This compared to previous years when Microsoft practically owned the entire market. Two other browser, Safari (from Apple) and Chrome (from Google) have the remaining share of the market. I mainly use Firefox now. It has several advantages. It is significantly faster than Internet Explorer. It also has a great security feature. You can set it so that when you exit from Firefox, your browsing history and allyour cookies are automatically deleted. If you are on the internet more than an hour a day, you may want to give Firefox a try (go to Firefox.com to get it for free). |
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