The discount fabric store has a unique business model.
While regular fabric stores tend to focus on variety, discount fabric stores focus on volume — by stocking and selling high volumes of fabric and offering a lower price, they can generate high volumes of sales. Rather than trying to supply all of a customer’s fabric needs, discount stores’ inventory changes frequently and sometimes include non-fabric items.
Discount fabric stores sell fabric in bulk, sometimes require a minimum purchase amount, and offer more options for fabric customization. They also target a different audience than standard fabric stores — discount shoppers look for a bargain, while shoppers at regular stores tend to look for specific products.
Because of these differences, discount fabric store owners need to do things a little differently. They have unique operations and need to manage unique tasks, including bulk inventory purchasing, flexible pricing, and more. Luckily, modern point of sale (POS) systems are designed to make these tasks easier.
In this blog, we’ll go through the nine most important POS system features for a discount fabric store — and take a look at top POS providers.
A POS system at a discount fabric store must have robust inventory management capabilities to handle large quantities of fabric, including the ability to ring up custom amounts of fabric in fractional measurements.
As a small business owner, it’s essential to know how much inventory you have at any given time and how quickly that inventory is turning over. Find a POS system that stores this information and updates it when new inventory is purchased and items are sold.
Pro tip: Look for a cloud-based POS system that connects to the internet and syncs this information across all your devices.
Related Read: Quilting Inventory Management: 5 Best POS Providers
When you own and manage a discount fabric store, you need to have the freedom to shift pricing based on supply, demand, and bulk rates — and your POS system should support this. This means you need a POS system that allows you to shift prices quickly.
Promotions are a big part of a discount fabric store’s strategy, too. Make sure your POS system has tools to help you run promotions, including bulk pricing and limited-time offers.
A POS system designed for fabric stores gives you access to fabric suppliers. It’s especially important for a discount fabric store to find reliable suppliers, given the large-scale orders you need to place.
Choose a POS system that allows you to easily place high-volume orders from multiple vendors. Some POS systems also offer automatic reordering, which is helpful for your top sellers. If you consistently sell out of a product, you can set the system to automatically replenish your stock when it drops below a certain threshold. This way, you never run out of your most important products.
Related Read: How To Source Fabric for Your Store: 3 Options
Customer loyalty programs offer extra rewards to customers for repeat purchases and get them into the habit of visiting your fabric store. Loyalty rewards usually include free or discounted items — at your store this might include fabric, threads, or quilt books. Your POS system should make offering a loyalty program easy with tools for tracking customers and their rewards.
The easier a loyalty program is to learn and use, the more likely it is to catch on with your customers and achieve its goals. Make sure the POS system you choose allows you to easily check on and redeem rewards, so customers embrace the loyalty program.
If your discount fabric store has multiple locations, you need a POS system that gives you access to your entire business from one location. A cloud-based system allows you to view information for a single location or multiple locations — including inventory counts, sales reports, and other metrics — so you can make informed decisions for your business.
The more payment types you can accept at your fabric store, the more customers you can serve. Your POS system should be able to accept cash, cards, and digital payment methods like Google Pay or Apple Pay.
Your POS provider should also offer quality customer service to resolve issues that arise with payments. Make sure your POS provider responds to customer service inquiries quickly and professionally, so you can avoid downtime and complete more sales.
A POS system may have the best features, but to be effective, these features need to be easy to learn and use on a daily basis. Find a POS system that has an intuitive and customizable interface so you and your employees can quickly become proficient and comfortable with it.
Your POS system is full of important company and customer information — which in many cases is sensitive (think: credit card information). Your POS system should reliably store and protect this data so that it can be accessed by authorized personnel and no one else.
A POS system allows you to create logins with varying access. For example, an owner would have access to all data, while an employee may only have access to some data. You can customize these features to your needs to keep all of your information secure.
Related Read: Quilt Shop Security: 7 Best Practices
Selling online expands the reach of your business and allows you to serve customers who live at a distance from your store. An effective POS system is equipped with extensive e-commerce features. At a discount fabric store, customers tend to buy fabric in larger quantities, meaning you need a POS system that can handle large orders and help you manage the logistics of these orders.
A POS system gives you access to suppliers, shipping, website development, and other tools that help you accept orders, ship products, and create a great experience for your customers.
Related Read: How To Sell Quilts Online: 9 Small Business Tips
Now that you know what features you need in a POS system, here are our top POS system picks for your discount fabric store.
Like Sew is a cloud-based POS platform designed specifically for fabric stores. The system is equipped with customized features like class registration, work orders for sewing machine repair, fractional yards, and access to vendor catalogs.
Pricing: Contact for custom pricing.
Rain is an all-in one POS platform with versatile features for unique retail businesses. It offers inventory management, marketing features, and more.
Pricing: Contact for custom pricing.
Square offers an intuitive POS platform that can be customized to a variety of retail business environments. It’s a good fit for small businesses and is easy for staff members to learn.
Pricing: The most basic plan is free, plus transaction fees.
Shopify offers access to hundreds of external apps so you can customize your system to your business’ needs. It also offers extensive features for e-commerce.
Pricing: Cost starts at $29 per month.
Lightspeed is designed for general retail and offers detailed sales reporting, support for multiple locations, and more.
Pricing: Cost starts at $89 per month, with additional fees.
Running any business is a complicated and multi-faceted process — to simplify this process, you need a POS system designed for your industry.
For discount fabric stores, you need powerful inventory management, flexible pricing tools, multiple payment methods, and other essential features. Luckily, you can find these features in Like Sew.
Like Sew is a cloud-based system POS solution that helps you run all aspects of your business. Fully equipped with fabric store-specific features, the system automates processes you used to do by hand, saving you time and money.
To see what Like Sew can do for your business, schedule a demo today!