Dec. Discounts on Retail Pro

Online shopping during Cyber Monday (Monday after Thanksgiving, known as Black Friday in retail outlets) surged 26%, indicating that the holiday season is off to a good start. The peak shopping days are expected to continue this season, both for online activity and brick and mortar retailers.

More than 42% of adults will shop online this holiday season, up from the 40% who shopped online last year, according to Consumer Reports. And Internet access at home will spend 11 hours shopping for the holidays. The poll also showed that the number of people planning to shop is up 4% from last year.

While it may be understood that this is a promising holiday season for retailers, if they are not prepared for a heavy shopping period, they could lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. A retailer not having integrated eCommerce with their point of sale software system is going to lose out on the success online retailers are having this season. Also, slow checkout can make customers walk out the door, and a robust point of sale software system, like Retail Pro, is equipped to prevent that from happening.

To assist retailers in getting a comprehensive POS software system One Step Retail Solutions is offering specials throughout December on Retail Pro – starting with a 30% discount on Retail Pro during Week One of December, with an additional 10% with the purchase of POS hardware. It’s the biggest discount of the month, so it’s a perfect time for retailers who need a better POS system to take advantage of One Step’s offer at the beginning of Dec.

Contact a sales representative at One Step today. Call 800-266-1328 or email sales@onestepretail.com.

Read article:
“More than 40% of adults plan to shop online this holiday season”

Online Retailers Plan Deals for Cyber Monday

In the Boston Globe article "Online Retailers Plan Deals for Cyber Monday," it states:

A Shop.org survey issued today said that 72.2
percent of online retailers are planning a special promotion for Cyber Monday -
the Monday that follows Thanksgiving - up from 42.7 percent from two years ago.

This is the biggest shopping day of the year and marks the beginning of the retail holiday season. This 4th quarter shopping can account for 50% to 70% of retailers’ sales and profits for the entire year. Read full article.

According to the National Retail Foundation’s 2007 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, U.S. consumers will spend an average of $816.69 on holiday-related shopping and spend an additional $106.67 on special “non-gift” purchases during seasonal promotions and discounts offered by retailers. The total of $923.36 indicates an estimated 3.7 percent increase over 2006, according to the news release.

Another news article "Selling the Retail Season" states,

Gift cards are expected to extend the holiday shopping season into 2008,
according to Niemira. An estimated 30 to 40 percent of those receiving
gift cards are expected to redeem them in the week after Christmas and into
January.

Read full article.

Record sales of gift cards predicted

Press Release excerpts:

New technology for retail management of gift card programs through retail point of sale systems drive growth ahead of holiday season.

According to a National Retail Federation survey, gift cards have become the number one selling item at retail stores. With the adaptation of new technology for online management through POS retail system, rates of acceptance of integrated gift card program has skyrocketed.

The National Retail Federation reported that this year’s holiday gift card sales will reach record-high sales to $35 billion, continuing year over year at over 50% sales growth since gift card programs first rolled out in 2004 and 2005.

Retail chains also have made a big effort to upgrade to more sophisticated software such as Retail Pro at the point of sale to process gift cards. Retail Pro is a highly sophisticated point of sale software that includes the capability to integrate gift card programs.