In my years as a freelancer, I've seen countless businesses flounder and fail. Sometimes it's because the owner is inexperienced; sometimes it's because the market wasn't ready for the product; sometimes it seems simply to be a matter of luck. If you want to manipulate your own luck, though, there are some tricks you can use--little things that will make it easier for you to get your new small business off the ground and keep it there. In this new blog, I'll be sharing those tips and tricks with you and answering your questions on how to help yourself as much as possible.
If the POS systems you use to carry out customer transactions feature a set of scales that are used to weigh your products, you should have these scales calibrated regularly. Continue reading to discover why.
To avoid profit losses
If your point-of-sale system's scale is not calibrated regularly, it may eventually provide inaccurate readings.
If the scale's calibration issue causes it to underestimate the weight of the products that are placed on it, you will then end up selling your goods for less than their retail value.
In this situation, you would then have to restock your inventory at a much faster rate than you anticipated when you first drew up your annual business budget, but would not have the extra profits needed to cover the cost of restocking these items.
Even if the scale's inaccuracies are relatively small, they could still lead to significant profit losses over time. If your business is relatively new and is not financially stable, these losses could eventually contribute to the closure of your enterprise.
When you consider this potential outcome, paying a professional to recalibrate your POS scale seems like a sensible decision that could potentially spare you a lot of financial heartache and professional difficulties in the future.
To retain your customer base
If you decide not to bother having the scales in your point-of-sale system calibrated, you could also end up losing some or all of your current customer base.
The reason for this is as follows: if the scale overestimates the weight of the products you weigh on them, this could then result in you unintentionally overcharging your customers.
If these customers check the weight of the products they have purchased from you on their own scales at home and discover that you have charged them more than the advertised price for these products, they could decide not to shop at your enterprise anymore.
Furthermore, if this happens to several customers, these individuals may start to have negative conversations on social media platforms and review sites about your business. They may even imply that you deliberately overcharged them.
These discussions and rumours could damage your professional reputation and make it extremely difficult for you to find enough customers to keep your business afloat.
Given this, if you want to retain your customer base and avoid having your reputation permanently destroyed, it is vital to ensure that the scales for your POS systems are calibrated several times per year.
Share6 October 2018
