Point-of-Sale System Analysis

This assignment delves into the functionalities and components of Point-of-Sale (POS) systems used in retail environments. It examines the hardware aspects such as computers, barcode scanners, and printers, alongside the software designed to manage sales transactions, inventory, and customer interactions. The analysis also considers the role of POS systems in shaping modern retail operations and their impact on both businesses and consumers.

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Executive Summary
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is a small nursery located in the Colorado. The point-
of-sale (POS) can be helpful in flourishing the business operations of the company. Several
beneficial and non-beneficial aspects are related with POS system. The report explains all
how Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can be benefitted adopting the POS system. The
WAN can provide several advantages to the POS system. The wireless technology and WAN
technology can simplify communication among the employees and the stakeholders. There
are many issues and challenges associated with POS system. Recommendations will assist
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery to use POS in appropriate manner so that best results
can be achieved.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. Background of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery and introduction of POS system.....3
3. Advantages and disadvantages of the new POS system........................................................4
4. POS system helping the business to gain competitive advantages........................................5
5. Advantages of having a centralised database.........................................................................6
6. POS system facilitating decision making...............................................................................7
7. Recommending telecommunication options for this POS system.........................................8
8. Type of risks POS system bring and procedures to protect the business against those risks 8
9. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................9
10. Recommendations................................................................................................................9
11. Bibliography.......................................................................................................................10
12. Appendices.........................................................................................................................13

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1. Introduction
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery plans to adopt the POS system to flourish the
business activities.
The report illustrates the beneficial aspects of point-of-sale in details. There are
several advantages and disadvantages associated with adaptation of POS system. Four
Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery must consider all those issues before adopting the POS
system (Abel and Obeten 2015). Recommendations will help to identify all the risks
associated and will help Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery to acknowledge how they
should adopt POS system and conduct business activities. POS can give them the edge so that
they can get a competitive advantage and stay ahead of other companies.
2. Background of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery and introduction of POS
system
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery is a small nursery based in Colorado. They
conduct business activities like other small businesses. They use manual registers to track the
inventory and manage the inventory. They use the manual registers to identify which items
yield maximum profit (Refer to Appendix A).
A point-of-sale is the area where sales are made. POS system contains the software as
well as the hardware components. POS systems offer flexibility and ease daily transactions.
POS also makes business operations faster. Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery have
decided to take up the POS system to furnish the business activities. They must choose the
POS software and will have to consider various aspects of the POS software (Pantano and
Viassone 2014). At first, they will have to verify all the functionality of the system; they will
have to notice that the POS system meet all the business deliverables. They will have to

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consider the budget while taking up the POS system. Bindo, Vend, ShopKeep and
TouchBistro are some of the popular POS systems.
3. Advantages and disadvantages of the new POS system
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can acquire several benefits adopting POS.
The report explains all the advantages in the report as follows-
i. Financial Accuracy- It is natural for the humans to make mistakes while
calculating the financial data. However, the POS comes with advanced solutions by which
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can get error-free solutions. The company even can
get fast and accurate results with the aid of POS system (Siahpush et al. 2017). POS make use
of some algorithms and give results. Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can get the best
outcome configuring POS in the system.
ii. Accountability- POS can facilitate Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery to keep
records of the products usually they manufacture and sell in the market. POS can facilitate
them too in tracking the shipment of the products. Even, the POS is helpful for tracking the
employees’ activities (Pantano and Priporas 2016). Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery
can monitor and control all the activities of the employees working in the company with the
assistance of POS system.
iii. Speed- The business activities of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can get
furnished with the aid of POS system. POS can make the employees of Four Seasons
Greenhouse and Nursery to serve customers proficiently (Greco 2015). The products
transaction of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can get increased with the help of POS
system.

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iv. Stock Management- The stock of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can get
managed by adopting POS system. POS system can facilitate the company so now they can
check the stock (Ephraim and Samual 2016). Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can get
an overview of how much products they are dealing with.
v. Reporting- The business reports can be developed with the aid of POS system. The
POS helps in generating data analysis. POS also facilitates measurement of annual profit
margin. Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery adopting POS system can get an overall view
of the business operations-
i. Costing- POS system is quite expensive to adopt. The small companies, even the
mid-size companies, struggle to adopt the POS system for their company. Four Seasons
Greenhouse and Nursery is a mid-size company, and for this reason, they will face immense
crisis and difficulties to implement and configure POS system on their premises. The
company will have to subscribe POS system monthly or yearly basis, and they will have to
pay heavy for the system (Garvey 2014). This is the issue for which Four Seasons
Greenhouse and Nursery can face while adopting POS system.
ii. Maintenance- High level of maintenance is required for configuring the POS
system. POS requires maintenance on a daily basis. Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery
will have to interrupt the business at the time of maintaining POS system.
4. POS system helping the business to gain competitive advantages
The business transaction details can be well traced from the sales transactions made,
and this is only possible because of adaptation of POS system. POS system can facilitate the
employees of the company (Rese, Schreiber and Baier 2014). POS system can ease the labour
of the employees so the employees will not have to make an effort to keep a record of all the

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sales manually. Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery after configuring POS system can
store data, can access data and can process data profoundly. The POS system also furnishes
inventory management. Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery design several products and
POS system can help them to analyse which product will yield maximum productivity. POS
system is efficient and is way better than the traditional cash register used by Four Seasons
Greenhouse and Nursery right now. The point-of-sale system aids tracking, inputting and
distribution of data. The company can set price for every item they manufacture and can earn
maximum profit. The POS system helps in decision-making as well. The management staff of
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery with the aid of POS system can offer responsibilities
to the workers of the company. They can monitor the products’ manufacturing; they can
monitor the employees’ activities. Thus Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can get the
opportunity to earn maximum profits. All these factors give the competitive edge, because of
POS system they can stay ahead of all others and perform all the business activities.
5. Advantages of having a centralised database
The centralised database has multiple benefits to offer, and this report illustrates all
the benefits in details. The centralised database can benefit all small and mid-size companies.
i. Data preservation offers facilities like the redundant storage and the fault tolerant
setup. The company’s system can fail, and their hardware failure can cause data loss. Data
preservation procedures help Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery to accumulate, store and
preserve data so that the data can be used in future (Rese, Schreiber and Baier 2014). The
data preservation techniques also offer backup functionalities. So Four Seasons Greenhouse
and Nursery can protect their data by taking necessary backup where there is a chance of data
loss. Thus Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery by data preservation can protect all the
confidential data, and they will not have to worry about hardware failure.

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ii. Data preservation also offers security. The security breaches and data breaches can
lead to data loss. However, the data preservation ensures data security (Lloyd 2017). Data
preservation thus can mitigate the chance of data breaches as well as the data loss.
iii. The centralised database can offer cost-effective, profitable services. Four Seasons
Greenhouse and Nursery can enjoy several advantages the centralised database offers.
Though the configuration for the centralised database storage is quite expensive, however, the
maintenance cost of the database is relatively less.
6. POS system facilitating decision making
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can maintain the accuracy of the inventory
data due to the adaptation of POS system. The POS provides the facilities for decision
making. The inventory of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can be better managed by
advanced decision making. The company carries out the business operations on the basis of
the assumptions (Kumar, Singh and Shankar 2015). They place orders solely based on
assumptions. Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery follow strategies to carry out their
business however, those strategies contain multiple flaws. The adaptation of POS system can
give them new ray of hope. Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can control inventory, can
control the stock with the aid of the POS system (Renko and Druzijanic 2014). The managers
of Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can be able to decide what to buy, what to buy,
how to buy, what to be sold by the assistance of POS adaptation.
7. Recommending telecommunication options for this POS system
Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery must choose the WAN connectivity as that can
help them to furnish their business activities. WAN network simplifies file access, and that is
why the company can access the files relatively faster (Kallweit, Spreer and Toporowski

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2014). The workers of the company can be benefitted with the aid of WAN network. WAN
network also facilitates communication among the employees, and so they stay connected all
the time. The employees can provide cost-effective, profitable service to the clients with the
help of WAN connectivity. WAN connectivity can provide the security solutions to the
customers, stakeholders and the clients of the company so that they can conduct the business
activities securely and smoothly (Rodríguez 2017). Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery
can get the competitive edge and can stay ahead of all other companies with the aid of the
WAN network.
8. Type of risks POS system bring and procedures to protect the business against those
risks
Security- The insecure system and insecure network are deadly for any companies
and Four Seasons Greenhouse, and Nursery is no exception. The hackers seek an opportunity
of this weak network and attack. They make the system vulnerable to use. The attackers steal
all the confidential data, modify those data and even delete those data. the company must take
initiatives to protect those data from being hacked or compromised (Lee et al. 2015). The
company database contains all the financial data. The security breach can prove fatal for the
company. The installation of antivirus program can help them to protect from the attackers.
Confidentiality- Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery must assure safety and
security of the database and the system. The company must take initiatives to protect the data
of the customers and the employees. Due to a security breach, the company can lose the
confidential data of the employees and the customers (Guoet al., 2015). The financial data
can get compromised due to eth security breaches. Thus confidentiality can get threatened
due to the intruders’ attack.

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Privacy- Due to the malware attack the employees’ privacy can get endangered. The
can attack, and the can access and steal all the information from the database and the system.
Privacy of the employees can be ensured by installing a suitable antivirus program (Guan et
al. 2015). The workers of the company must set up username and password, and they must
not share the password with anyone else. Sharing of the password can lead to a privacy
breach.
9. Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above discourse that the Four Seasons Greenhouse and
Nursery can be benefitted with the help of the POS system. POS system provides various
multiple facilities to the company. Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can get a
competitive advantage by configuring POS system in their premises. WAN connectivity can
enhance the communication among the employees. The company can face issues related to
security, privacy and confidentiality. Recommendations have been made in the report. The
recommendations will help to know that the Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery can
flourish their business with the aid of the POS configuration in their premises.
10. Recommendations
i. Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery must appropriately adopt the POS system, and they
must meet all the business needs. The company with the aid of POS system can get fast
effective and error-free solutions.
ii. Four Seasons Greenhouse and Nursery must configure antivirus program in all their
system. The sensitive data of the company along with the customers’ data can be protected
with the help of the antivirus program. The company can get rid of intruders’ malicious
activities.

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iii. POS system provides facilities for decision making. They must focus on the innovation as
this can help them to scale up the business.

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11. Bibliography
Abel, E.E. and Obeten, E., 2015. Restaurant Customer Self-Ordering System: A Solution to
Reduce Customer/Guest Waiting Time at the Point of Sale. International Journal of
Computer Applications, 111(11).
Ephraim, B. and Samual, J., 2016. Advanced Cycloshift Encryption (ACE) for Point of Sale
Barcode System. Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research, 2(10).
Garvey, W.D., 2014. Communication: the essence of science: facilitating information
exchange among librarians, scientists, engineers and students. Elsevier.
Greco, A.J., 2015. The Integration of Short and Long Range Planning for Retailers through
Expanded Point-of-Sale Based Information Systems. In Proceedings of the 1984 Academy of
Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 348-348). Springer, Cham.
Guan, H., Li, J., Yu, Y., Chapman, M. and Wang, C., 2015. Automated road information
extraction from mobile laser scanning data. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation
Systems, 16(1), pp.194-205.
Guo, B., Chen, H., Yu, Z., Xie, X., Huangfu, S. and Zhang, D., 2015. FlierMeet: a mobile
crowdsensing system for cross-space public information reposting, tagging, and
sharing. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 14(10), pp.2020-2033.
Kallweit, K., Spreer, P. and Toporowski, W., 2014. Why do customers use self-service
information technologies in retail? The mediating effect of perceived service quality. Journal
of retailing and consumer services, 21(3), pp.268-276.
Kumar, R., Singh, R.K. and Shankar, R., 2015. Critical success factors for implementation of
supply chain management in Indian small and medium enterprises and their impact on
performance. IIMB Management Review, 27(2), pp.92-104.

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Lee, J.G., Henriksen, L., Rose, S.W., Moreland-Russell, S. and Ribisl, K.M., 2015. A
systematic review of neighborhood disparities in point-of-sale tobacco marketing. American
journal of public health, 105(9), pp.e8-e18.
Lloyd, I., 2017. Information technology law. Oxford University Press.
Pantano, E. and Priporas, C.V., 2016. The effect of mobile retailing on consumers'
purchasing experiences: A dynamic perspective. Computers in Human Behavior, 61, pp.548-
555.
Pantano, E. and Viassone, M., 2014. Demand pull and technology push perspective in
technology-based innovations for the points of sale: The retailers evaluation. Journal of
Retailing and Consumer Services, 21(1), pp.43-47.
Renko, S. and Druzijanic, M., 2014. Perceived usefulness of innovative technology in
retailing: Consumers׳ and retailers׳ point of view. Journal of retailing and consumer
services, 21(5), pp.836-843.
Rese, A., Schreiber, S. and Baier, D., 2014. Technology acceptance modeling of augmented
reality at the point of sale: Can surveys be replaced by an analysis of online
reviews?. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 21(5), pp.869-876.
Rodríguez, R.J., 2017. Evolution and characterization of point-of-sale RAM scraping
malware. Journal of Computer Virology and Hacking Techniques, 13(3), pp.179-192.
Siahpush, M., Tibbits, M., Soliman, G.A., Grimm, B., Shaikh, R.A., McCarthy, M., Wan, N.,
Ramos, A.K. and Correa, A., 2017. Neighbourhood exposure to point-of-sale price
promotions for cigarettes is associated with financial stress among smokers: results from a
population-based study. Tobacco control, 26(6), pp.703-708.

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12. Appendices
Appendix A: Point-of-Sale (POS) System
A POS (Point-Of-Sale) system is a computer system typically used to manage the
sales in retail stores. It includes hardware components such as a computer, a bar code
scanner, a printer and also software to manage the operation of the store. The most basic
function of a POS system is to handle sales. When a customer arrives at a POS counter with
goods to purchase, the cashier will start a new sale transaction. When the barcode of a good is
read by the POS system, it will retrieve the name and price of this good from the backend
catalogue system and interact with inventory system to deduce the stock amount of this good.
When the sale transaction is over, the customer can pay in cash, credit card or even check.
After the payment is successful, a receipt will be printed. Note that for promotion, the store
frequently issues gift coupons. The customer can use the coupons for a better price when
purchasing goods.

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Figure 1: Point-of-sale (POS) system