Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
At the Yarn Garden in Charlotte, point of sale software makes it easier to track inventory,
start a customer rewards program, or keep the most popular products in stock.
This is the Yarn Garden. We sell fine yarns for hand knitting and crocheting, and we do
classes and really impart our knowledge to other people and hope to carry on the craft.
This is my classroom area. And up here, this cabinet here, is where I keep all of the sock
yarn. Sock yarn is really popular right now. A lot of people like to make socks. They're
really great to wear and very functional.
This yarn here, this is some yarn from sheep here in Charlotte, which is kind of fun to
really support the local economy.
When I first took over here at the Yarn Garden, it was 2007. The previous owner, Kim, did
have a website presence, but it wasn't updated regularly. So we implemented a newsletter.
I use Constant Contact as my provider. I send it out every Friday and if it's not out by
5:00 on Friday afternoon I actually get phone calls, like, "Where's my newsletter? I want
to know what's coming in, what's new."
I invested in a point of sale software and that enabled me to have a bar code on each
unique product, and that way I can know with just a few clicks of some keys how much of
something I have in stock. So if a customer calls me and says, "Hey, I need this yarn.
I'm almost done with this project but I ran out of it. Do you still have it in stock?"
I can look it up real quick on the computer and tell them yes, or no I don't have it in
stock right now but I'd be happy to order it for you. So that does make it so much easier.
There is a little bit more involved as far as receiving products and making purchase
orders, things that maybe I should have been doing by hand before that I wasn't. But it
has made it more accurate for me to order things. So I think it's made it so that I
can keep the things in stock that sell the best so that I make more money that way. So
maybe it doesn't save me necessarily time, but I think it helps me make more money because
I keep in stock what sells.
I have been able to hire two employees since I implemented the point of sale system, which
frees me up a little bit to teach the classes and do more of the owner-type duties.
So I have my scanner here. We just scan the bar code and it'll pop up the item. And I
can put in whatever quantity it is the customer is interested in having. And then I just ring
up each item separately. If for some reason the scanner doesn't work, I can type in any
number of things to help me bring up that item.
The total today is $42.50 for this purchase, so if the customer is offering me cash, I
click on the cash button. I type in whatever amount they give me. So if I get a fifty dollar
bill I can type in the fifty, click save. It'll tell me how much change to give them,
and then I can pop that up. Automatically opens up my cash drawer, automatically prints
my receipt once I click that.
So that's a sale. A typical sale for the Yarn Garden.
The great thing about this point of sale software is it has a built in customer rewards program.
All we have to do is make sure at the start of each sale we put our customer's name into
the database if it's not already there, and then the computer will track that customer's
purchases. I have customers that every time they get a receipt they check it and see,
and it'll tell them how close they are to their reward. You know, if they've got $15
to go before they get their next 20% off, they'll go and find something for $15 to make
that purchase so that they'll get the 20% off on the next one.
So it's been really fantastic for me, and a goal of mine in the next couple years is
to have an online shopping cart to be able to sell to a national audience instead of
just a regional or local.