Retail Point Of Sale Spotlight

Everyone knows how the saying goes: Never put all your eggs in one basket. Diversification is the key to successful risk management, right? Or is it?

When it comes to running a thriving retail business, Wild Bill’s Tobacco touts the benefits of using one company – FasTrax Solutions, for all of its point of sale, wholesale, and marketing solutions.

POINT OF SALE SOFTWARE

Jeff Samona, POS Administrator for Wild Bill’s Tobacco explains why they decided to use FasTrax Solutions for their point of sale, inventory management, as well as digital signage for their large retail operation. “We’re pretty much all in with whatever FasTrax Solutions develops,” he recounts.

“We have 73 stores and we’ve used nearly every FasTrax Solution there is from FasTraxPOS to Warehouse to Uplifts to their Digital Signage. That’s the trust level we have with FasTrax. We’re very happy with everything their software has to offer,” he explains.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPED FOR RETAIL BY RETAILERS

FasTrax Point of Sale software was designed to be both intuitive and user friendly because it was developed by the owners and operators of a large retail chain who understand the complex demands of managing inventory, as well as employees. Darren Schwartz and Doug Nolan are partners and owners of FasTrax Solutions, Smokers Choice tobacco chain with more than 50 stores, and Munchies convenience stores with three stores and growing.

About ten years ago, they purchased the Point of Sale software they were using in their stores and began their mission to eliminate the gaps that other software left behind.  “Our solutions are developed directly based on the needs we found in our own retail chain and requests from our customers,” explains Doug Nolan, CEO of FasTrax Solutions. FasTrax Solutions POS, as well as its many other solutions were designed to eliminate the pains and frustrations experienced by retailers and wholesalers alike.

TOUCH SCREEN POINT OF SALE SYSTEM

In an industry plagued by rapid turnover, it’s necessary to have a Point of Sale system that’s easy to use.  FasTrax Solutions has an intuitive touch screen point of sale system that walks cashiers through the entire process, drastically reducing training time and speeding up check out for the customers.

“FasTraxPOS has made our cashiers more effective,” says Samona. “Being able to put buttons wherever we want makes it very simple for our cashiers to find what they are looking for. Now they can focus on making sales and connecting with the customers rather than spending all their time searching for the right buttons.”

POINT OF SALE INTEGRATION

All of FasTrax’s solutions work together to create a cohesive, fluid user experience. FasTrax Director is the back-office interface for the POS. The price book tools allow business owners to manage sales and inventory data at a granular level. It’s a powerful tool for not only tracking, but also in making more informed purchasing decisions.

“The most important thing for us is having everything centralized and being able to use one system to manage everything! FasTrax Director gives us the flexibility to do a number of things we wouldn’t be able to do using other programs, such as adding multiple price book zones. It’s also easy to make mass changes in our price book using the Mass Updates feature. This can be an incredibly tedious process with other programs. It’s a very powerful utility,” says Samona.

INVENTORY CONTROL

Inventory is the largest investment a store owner makes. Keeping accurate counts is crucial to preventing loss, out of stocks, and overstock. When Wild Bill’s Tobacco needed help with their inventory management, FasTrax Solutions was there.

“Inventory control is another thing FasTrax has really helped us with. In the past, we had tons of issues with inventory management. Purchasing handheld devices for the majority of our stores has really allowed us to stay on top of our inventory since the stores can do their own counts,” Samona explains.

For Wild Bill’s Tobacco it made perfect sense to use Fastrax Solutions for all of its retail enterprise solutions. Since all of the software is designed to work in harmony, it eliminates the need to come up with work arounds when attempting to use software solutions from multiple companies.

Samona adds, “The FasTrax staff are wonderful! There’s always someone there to speak to if we have an issue and I know they really appreciate our feedback.”

This article was written by FasTrax Solutions, a software solutions provider specializing in Retail POS, Warehouse Management Systems, Digital Marketing Solutions, and Customer Loyalty and Reward Solutions.