The Tell-Tale Signs Of An Outdated Retail Website
The world of retail has changed a lot over the past decade. Sales are increasingly being made online instead of on Main Street. One of the things that generate loyalty amongst customers is an excellent shopping experience. That used to be defined by the way that you kept your shop and the staff that worked there. Now it is your online point of sale software that makes all the difference. Updating it can be very expensive and time-consuming, so you aren’t going to be giving it a complete overhaul every few months, it’s just not practical. You will inevitably need to make small updates fairly regularly, but when it comes to implementing an entirely new point of sale system, you need to pick your moment carefully. So, how do you know when it is time to update?
Bad Customer Experience
The most important thing about your point of sale system is a quality customer experience. One of the common reasons that people need to update their software is new payment systems. A website that doesn’t support PayPal could be a bit of a pain to use nowadays. When new payment services are released and start to become more widespread, you’ll need to make sure customers can use it on your site. Otherwise, they’ll go somewhere they can.
Slow websites are also a huge turn off for customers. If it takes them ages to find what they want, add it to the basket, and then pay, they will be less inclined to use it again. A site that doesn’t run well can cause concerns about safety. If improperly maintained, customers might worry about inputting their card details.
New Operating Systems
If you first built your point of sale software a while back, then there are likely to have been quite a few changes in operating systems since then. The new ones might not support your software correctly, and functionality will suffer. You don’t need to update every single time a new operating system is released, but it is a good idea to use things like QASymphony to check whether everything is still running smoothly still.
Cyber Security
Cyber criminals develop their arsenal all time, and it can be difficult to keep up. Security services are updating their defenses all the time to keep up, but sometimes it isn’t enough. If your point of sale is outdated, criminals will be able to exploit all of the holes that they have found in the old software. By keeping things up to date, you reduce the risk of your website coming under attack from hackers.
Growth
When you’re first starting out, your site won’t need to host that many customers at one time, so server space can be fairly low. Hopefully, you’ll be growing quickly, and your website might start feeling the strain. If you notice that a lot of customers seem to be having trouble on the site, then it’s probably time to update to accommodate more people.
