As one of the largest investments you will make for your business it is important that you understand how to calculate the Return on your Investment(ROI). The first step in evaluating a new retail management system is understanding where you can save costs and generate new revenue streams over the life of the system.

ROI Analysis:

Todays retailers are using technology more and more as margins shrink and the competition becomes smarter. The in-depth information below will show you some examples on how Counterpoint and C&K Systems can help increase your Bottom Line and drive new Revenue Growth to your business.

Adding to Top-line revenue:

 More cash-in per customer through up-sells when they are checking out.
 Ability to tailor specific promotions to your customers that buy certain     types of products.
 Improved management and analysis of sales and promotions.
 Highly targeted marketing to segments of your customer base.
 Frequent customer discounts and volume purchase discounts     programmed directly into the system.
 Improving cash flow with Gift Cards tracked automatically by the system.
 Adding a web store will increase sales by approximately 10%.
 Knowing what products are selling at what times during the year and     building promotions around those items.
 More time available for management to focus on building their business     rather than doing overhead and operations type functions.

Increasing Gross Margins:

See an immediate impact on your gross margin through:

 Dramatic reduction in pricing errors.
 Tracking exactly which products are the highest margin and focusing
    promotions around those products.
 High margin up-sells in the checkout line or with sales associates.
 Knowing which products to stock according to what is really selling.
 Knowing what products are not selling so you can reduce dead inventory     improving cash flow and reducing inventory carrying costs.

Marketing Effectiveness:

Increase the effectiveness of your monthly marketing budget.
Regardless of the size of a marketing budget, our solution will increase the
effectiveness of those marketing dollars through:

 Tracking ROI calculation for each marketing campaign.
 Use marketing dollars to target specific segments of the customer     database including customers who haven't purchased recently or those     who have purchased certain types of items.
 Use the data from marketing campaigns and sales activities to make     better marketing decisions in the future.

Inventory Management Efficiencies:

Inventory Management Efficiency is the cost of money for the amount of inventory overage that a business has at any given point due to lack of automated purchasing and inventory control processes. Example: If you have $3000 of extra inventory then that $3000 has a value of what it could be earning for your business if it was used elsewhere. Typically this is in the 7% to 11% range. Through automation, the business owner will be able to get daily buying reports of what products need to be purchased based upon inventory control levels that are pre-set in the system and changed when ever is necessary.

Have an ability to automatically seasonally adjust restocked inventory for the off season allowing the owner to run a Just In Time Inventory (JIT) control process and only stock what is absolutely necessary when the demand dictates. Rather than having to have a significant amount of overstock, the owner will only have to keep exactly what is needed. This represents a significant advantage to cash flow.

Inventory Count – Labor:

Reduce the labor cost associated with the inventory counting process.
Through have a POS automation solution a business will be able to reduce the labor costs associated with counting inventory by an average of 32%. Every single transaction is automatically logged, allowing for immediate access into inventory levels of every product in stock. Through the use of handhelds periodic cycle counts can be done to adjust for shrinkage.

Reduce Shrinkage/Theft:

Reducing shrinkage is always a concern for a retail store. While the retail automation solution does not act as a security device, it has been proven to reduce shrinkage by:

 Immediate access to inventory levels versus quick counts of floor     inventory.
 Reports showing shortages in inventory.
 Intimidation factor of employee theft due to computerization of the store.
 Employees able to watch the storefront closer due to lower time     requirements in checking customers out at the each register.
 View shrinkage history reports to determine which items need to be     closely monitored.
 Know exactly which employee was at each register in order to track
    responsibility.
 Directly integrate with video security system to record activity of POS
    terminal and floor activity.

Restocking Expenses:

One of the ongoing challenges of any retail business is to deal with purchasing product. This can be a very time consuming process and is almost always completed by the most valuable people in the business; owners and manager. Through the POS solution, purchasing new product becomes easier by:

 Automatic re-order levels set with each item.
 Automatic generation of PO's based upon multiple different criteria.
 Easily manage suppliers and know who is giving the best pricing most
    recently, as well as historically.
 Save PO's and edit them later as well as re-use them for future     purchasing.
 Take the hassle out of the manual purchasing process and focus on the     key activities that drive the success of the business. Re-stocking Shipping

Efficiencies:

Lower shipping rates will be able to be achieved through proper planning and management of the purchasing process. Rather than having to pay higher rates to get items in quicker because inventory is running low, items can be sent by ground or cheaper methods to reduce costs. Lower shipping rates are also achieved through purchasing larger quantities and ordering by the palette.

Technology efficiencies include:

 Speed of which you can access data using state of the art SQL database     technology reducing labor costs and system resources.
 Reducing paper costs as all reports canbe generated from history on     demand and viewed or electronically sent via email, reducing long     distance changes for fazing PO's and other documents.
 Unattended posting and report generation freeing up system resources     for when they are needed most.
 Keep in touch with employees though built in messaging.

Checkout Line Processing:

There are multiple benefits that come from reducing the amount of time required to check a customer out. These include:

 Lower labor costs
 More satisfied customer that don't have to wait in line.
 Few customers who walk out due to long wait times in line.
 More parking spaces open in front of your store to allow other customers     to shop and fewer customers who don't stop and shop.
 Reducing credit card processing times to 2 seconds.
 Employees are available to complete other tasks like retail floor     management, stocking shelves, upselling etc.

Management Reports:

The benefits of having access to reports that show the key business metrics is absolutely vital to the success of a retail store. Being able to see trends developing and track sales activities is critical. Some of the key benefits include having reports on:

 Top selling items.
 Top producing employees
 Loss Prevention exceptions such as Returns and Overrides.
 Most productive departments or product categories.
 Trend analysis.
 Inventory valuationsMost product departments or product categories.
 Most profitable items.
 Least profitable items.
 Best suppliers.
 Best customers.
 Customers who have not purchased recently.
 Highest margin products.
 Aged Inventory to find stale stock
 Hundreds of other reports and key business data that is available through
    completely customizable reports.

Accounting Integration:

Reduce bookkeeping expenses and get access to up-to-date accounting
information in a real-time basis. The Counterpoint solution will enable any retail business to have every transaction directly entered into back-office accounting program. QuickBooks, Peachtree, Sage MAS and Microsoft Dynamics Series plus other major accounting programs are supported. There is an immediate impact in lower bookkeeping expenses, as well as the ability to access key financial information that is up-to-date and accurate. A retail business will know exactly what daily cash flows and accounts receivable are, as well as daily balance sheets at the end of each day. Built-In Time card functions elimate costly time clocks and interface to ADP, your accounting or other payroll processors.