Most retailers say that running a single store proved to be challenging but manageable. With more experience and cash, retailers often decide to open new stores. However as they do so, they complain that the business is now out of control. And yet, they were applying the same "success recipe". What happened?

Take the following example. The above successful retailer opens a new store and sets up exactly the same store processes: he contacts his pos vendor and orders the same pos, makes a copy of the data, and adjusts his inventory for products he has in the new store. He repeats the same process until he has, say, 5 stores.

He now has a chain of 5 stores, right? Absolutely not! He has 5 single stores but definitely not a chain of stores.

In the above scenario, our retailer was multiplying his initial effort by as many stores as he was opening. Not only the workload is becoming unmanageable, but the stores are also not as successful as the first one.

The root of the problem is the retailer does not have an INTERCONNECTED organization, where

• All stores are related to each other,
• They share the same set of information and,
• The retailer can aggregate or analyze data coming from the different stores for quick and rational decision making.

The first step is to choose retail software systems that have a multi store pos capability. However, interconnecting stores among themselves, via well known solutions like Oracle Retek or Microsoft RMS can prove to be too expensive though! The investment required in communication and IT infrastructure as well as license and support fees are often prohibitive!

Posterita Web pos technology and cloud computing can provide a real and affordable alternative to multi store owners.