Here are ten point of sale peripherals you should be using in your business:
- Barcode Printer – A good quality barcode printer is a must for quickly printing barcode labels to attack to your inventory items, making them easier to scan and track during receiving of inventory, during inventory counts and during checkout.
- Till Barcode Scanner – Coupled with the barcode printing abilities of the barcode label printer, you’ll need a barcode scanner to be able to scan barcodes during check out.
- Portable Inventory Barcode Scanner / Data Collector – A portable mini-computer that is capable of scanning inventory barcode labels, performing basic data manipulation such as for example asking the user for the quantity of items counted for the current scanned barcode, and storing the data within its memory banks until it is uploaded to your point of sale software.
- Electronic Cash Drawer – An electronic cash drawer interfaces with your point of sale software which sends a signal to the cash drawer to open only during transaction checkout times keeps your cash more secure than using a cash box.
- Integrated Debit / Credit Payment Terminal – An integrated payment terminal will interface with your POS software and help you keep track of which payments were received by debit, Visa, Mastercard etc. for easier day-end procedures and more accurate payment tracking.
- Integrated Scale – Electronic scales can also be used to interface with your POS software, automatically sending the current weight of the item being weighed to the POS software. This allows quicker and more accurate sale of items by weight such as fruit, vegetables or other produce items.
- Receipt Printer – A thermal receipt printer can automatically print a receipt for each customer at the end of a transaction with all the pertinent transaction information included in the receipt.
- Touch Screen – Depending on the type of business you are running, a touch screen coupled with a touch screen enabled POS software can be used to run the point of sale terminal instead of using a keyboard and mouse. This is especially a popular option for restaurants, grocery stores and increasingly most retail stores.
- Magnetic Card Reader – These types of card readers can be used to scan magnetic cards such as customer loyalty cards, gift cards or even employee tracking cards.
- Pole Display – A pole display integrates with your point of sale software and allows the customer to see the total amount owing in the transaction as items are being scanned and once the total is calculated.
Source by Nelson J. Packard
