The hobby and toy segment of the retail industry stands $17 billion strong. Hobby shops can get in on the game with the right tools—and one of these tools is a good hobby shop POS solution. Let’s take a look at three ways to craft better business with hobby shop POS.
1. Take advantage of flexible, specialized inventory management.
Hobby shops typically cater to a specialized customer base whose loyalty can be challenging to earn. Unlike other types of retailers, they also carry thousands and thousands of SKUs, including very small individual parts. This breadth of merchandise inventory management is a time-consuming process, and it can sometimes be difficult to know when to re-order merchandise.
However, a hobby shop POS system can be configured so that re-orders are automatically re-generated when SKU levels reach a user-defined threshold. Consequently, customers need never leave the store empty-handed and poised to shop at another retailer for their hobby and craft needs. Many hobby shop POS solutions are designed to give operators the flexibility to sell items by length and volume, as well as by unit, cross-referencing these in the system for easy access during the customer checkout process.
2. Implement purchase history tracking capabilities.
In these days of ever-stronger competition, hobby shops must strive harder to attract customers, as well as to keep them coming back to the store for more.
With a feature-rich hobby shop POS solution, you can collect information about customers’ purchases and preferences and use it to send targeted offers to patrons via email or regular mail (provided they have opted in to receive this material). This leads to more focused sales efforts that not only increase customers’ inclination to make a purchase at your hobby shop, but also boosts the likelihood that their tab will be higher because the items promoted to them truly suit their interests.
For example, suppose a consumer who likes to build model airplanes receives a coupon generated by hobby shop POS—but the coupon offers 10 percent off the purchase of a multi-pack of clay. That consumer would probably ignore the offer. However, the same individual would likely redeem a coupon good for 10 percent off the price of an airplane model kit—and possibly buy another in the bargain.
3. Recognize and reward special customers.
The ability of a hobby shop POS system to track customers’ purchase histories also bodes well for a customer loyalty program. The hobby shop POS can keep a “running tally” of points accrued for buying, or dollars spent on purchasing, hobby shop merchandise. Once a reward has been earned, the system can automatically generate a notice on the bottom of the customer’s receipt, as well as print a separate coupon redeemable for the reward itself.
Some hobby shop POS systems are sophisticated enough to have a mobile app component consumers can use to keep track of their point accruals and how close they may be to redeeming a reward. Accessing such a component ups the excitement ante for customers and may increase the number of items they buy or the amount of money they spend in order to earn rewards faster.
While the focus of your shop is hobby-related merchandise, the store itself must be operated like a true business and not a leisure-time activity. Taking advantage of hobby shop POS to build that business comprises an important strategy for getting the job done.
