The Computer System in the Context of Retail Business
w Today, retailing businesses have to had up to date technology in order to be
successful. Accurate, efficient communication sending and receiving can affect the
business. So it is very important that to have the latest technology such as computers
and networks. Retailing on a local and global scale can also affect how successful is the
business. Locally, efficient networking that retailing businesses had allow customers
purchase goods more faster such as the new bar-code scanners in supermarkets helps
customers reduce time waiting in order to purchase goods. Globally, such as trading, eg:
a computer retailing store may like to purchase some stock from over seas, they can make
contracts by using the Internet.
w Computer systems in retail trading on a local and global scale played an important
role in today's society. Computer systems such as :
the supermarket POS system, provides efficient and accurate calculations when customers
purchasing goods.
Absolut Software, provides a host of state-of-the-art capabilities vital for
increasing sales and productivity. Absolut Software will easily reduce the number of
operators and supporting hardware by 15 percent. Absolut Software provides a training
mode for novices and a high-speed mode for the experienced.
Features:
* Complete mailing list management
* Promotion tracking
* Catalog and telemarketing
* Importing sub-system
* On-line order entry
* Inventory control (multi-site, serialized, lot number, decimal quantities, and
style-color-size)
* Credit card billing
* Computer-driven in-store POS with "Suspend and Hold;" availability displayed
* Wildcard search
* User-definable extended search
* Unlimited text and binary (graphics) storage for key fields
* A complete financial (A/R, A/P, G/L) sub-system
* E.D.I.
And the international network system which brought customers information, e-mail address,
and contract forms of customers are interested.
w A retail computer system can do tasks such as:
Stock control is the control and how much stock were around the business, and the price
of the items. Eg: Such as the SMART System is a totally integrated and interactive retail
business system that includes the following modules: Order Entry, Inventory Management,
Sales Analysis, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Monthly Lease, Financial
Accounting, Payroll, and Customer Mailing. Modules may be purchased separately if
desired. An optional module for contracts and insurance calculation and form printing,
known as EZYCALC, is also available and can be integrated into the system. The system was
originally programmed for the Retail Furniture Industry but works equally well for any
big ticket retail operation. All affected files are updated as each transaction is keyed
providing real-time information and reports also the system will handle multiple and
remote store operations.
Personnel Management is the system which kept the record of employees and staff, also
the information of their salary, holidays and absent days. The system is designed to
manage is wages and staff going right or not.
Checkout Eg: The Easy Sale Scan is a bar-code scanning point of sale application which
automatically organizes business functions from any central computer site. Bar-code
scanning minimizes keyboard data entry errors and user frustration
while providing unlimited information selection, transmission, updating, and reporting.
Features:
* Automatically calculates quantity discounts, special customer discounts, sales tax
amounts, credit limit verification, and change due.
* The Work-in-Progress feature automatically generates a current production schedule of
orders to be processed by customer or product.
* The Inventory feature flags price fluctuations or dangerously low stock quantities on
site.
* A built-in expert system displays the latest trends for re-order decision support.
* A universal API provides open connectivity to any database or hardware platform. Easy
Sale Scan is currently portable to over 140 computer platforms.
Customised labels can help customers to know which region of store sales which item and
show customers new items which were out.
w Hardware played by retailing store:
Point of Sale System is designed for retail and/or wholesale businesses that need to
generate at-counter customer invoices and monitor product inventory levels. This
easy-to-use system improves employee cash handling efficiency and accuracy by displaying
all cash transaction data. It supports split tender payments, unit of measure pricing
(including metric pricing) and "look up" features that allow the user to view product,
price, and customer information directly on the terminal. The reports generated include
margin, price, inventory valuation, minimum on hand, and daily summary. For multistore
chains and franchises, a remote store processing add-on is available. The system
interfaces with Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, and Purchase Order Management.
Single and multi-user versions are available..
The electronic funds transfer and payment processing system. The system performs credit
card sales, refunds and voids. It also performs debit card sales and voids and has full
transaction "stand-in" store-and-forward capabilities to maintain sales activity if
transmission lines go down.
The Central Computer contains all necessary information in the business and operates as
a server. It contains data such as database on items and employees.
w Retailing businesses has been effected by the introduction of computer systems by the
demand of the customers. Such as efficient and accurate calculation when purchasing
goods, convenient cash transfer ( cash registers) and efficient of shock keeping and
record keeping.
w The development of technology brought about by the needs of the retail trade:
Customised Software- as the growth of large and small retailing store and the demand of
efficient systems were increasing. So developers were starting to increase and to produce
more produces.
Bar code readers- designed to be more efficient when calculating and reading prices off
the item.
Eftpos- the Electronic funds transfer at point of sale system were also designed to be
convenient to customers who wouldn't carry a vast amount of money around when purchasing
goods.
International bar code convention- Bar codes were placed onto every package of product.
When bar code readers attached the product and it will automatically display the
product's information and calculate the price.
w Retailers have dealt with the issues of:
Privacy- not allowing people to access the database of the store and may set password to
protect it.
The nature of work- Many jobs were done by people before but they can been taking over
by more faster and powerful computers which enable jobs to be done more efficiently and
more accurate.
Copyright- laws to stop companies braking into other companies computer systems and
stealing their developing plan or secrets and trading price.
Ethics- they are issues that determine the action is right or wrong. Is some information
open to public in the retailing that anyone can access? Business had to consider that
before they take the action.
Computer Crime- Computer Crime had been increasing due to the companies starts to join
in to Internet and local area networks. Companies may set password protecting the data.
w Ways that certain issues have been effected by the use of technology in retail
establishments:
Power- Power consumption were much higher than before due to the brought of computer
system.
Control- Decreasing of control by retailing due to the freedom of users. But retailing
business had control on information that can be open in public and which cannot. That was
related to the freedom of information policies.
Equity- some jobs can be done by people who were menially ill and companies should
provide opportunity to them.
The Environment- The technology had a great effect to the environment, such as power
saving computers, less radiation computer in retailing business and also air condition to
change the temperature of the workplace.
* Similarities between the computer based systems in the context of libraries and context
of retail trade are that technology had been a great influence. Technology had been more
and more advanced as time pasts to meet the needs of people. Both the context of
Libraries and Retailing trade considered many factors such as privacy, nature of work,
copyright, ethics and computer crime as well as power, control, equity, and the
environment.
* Differences between the context of Libraries and context of Retailing trade are
libraries considered the flow of information to people such as help people to access to
information they would like to have but retailing considered only on their own
information but not others.
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