Big business style Integration for the small retail business
Rating: 10 out of 10
IncentivizedUse Cases and Deployment Scope
We use Rain Point of Sale as a modern web-based solution to integrate virtually all of the computing needs we have as a music retail store. Lesson payments (lesson scheduling and billing with auto pay is in development as of now, June 2018), Rent-to-Own with auto pay, Automated purchasing lists, Receiving with serial number tracking, Location transfers with serial tracking, Web Site with Web-store, Automated marketing features, and very helpful is the Repairs section. Add the work and the price to the repair entry and one click sends the repair customer a text message that the instrument is ready to pick up!
The only activities we do outside of Rain Point of Sale are certain back-office tasks like using QB online as a general ledger for paying vendors and utilities and using QB online to produce estimates and invoices for school deals needing a PO paperwork trail. Everything at the front counter is very smoothly run through Rain. The level of integration and the cross-linking of screens combined with no limitation on how many users or any need for special networking requirements are huge advantages over the industry standard Aimsi software we migrated from. Eliminating the customer query "I should be in there" when you are running several databases that aren't integrated makes a much better impression on your customers and raises the likelihood of creating loyal repeat customers. We love having pre-shoppers show up to our stores with an item listed on our website pulled up on their device to show us what they are interested in!
The only activities we do outside of Rain Point of Sale are certain back-office tasks like using QB online as a general ledger for paying vendors and utilities and using QB online to produce estimates and invoices for school deals needing a PO paperwork trail. Everything at the front counter is very smoothly run through Rain. The level of integration and the cross-linking of screens combined with no limitation on how many users or any need for special networking requirements are huge advantages over the industry standard Aimsi software we migrated from. Eliminating the customer query "I should be in there" when you are running several databases that aren't integrated makes a much better impression on your customers and raises the likelihood of creating loyal repeat customers. We love having pre-shoppers show up to our stores with an item listed on our website pulled up on their device to show us what they are interested in!
Pros
- Integration. One customer list. One product item list. One inventory count. POS and website store that function in real time with each other.
- Responsiveness. New features and tweaks to the user interface are actually constantly being developed based on our feedback and requests.
- Multiple location support. We have two stores and many of the other platforms we shopped didn't have good solutions for that. Rain lets us have a combined product database with different reorder preferences. Also, a new update to the system made transferring serial numbered products even easier.
Cons
- Reorder amount preset options could more sophisticated. I'd like to see the option to automatically "round up" the preset reorder qty up to 10 or 12 or 6, etc. This was possible previously but they added other options that changed the automated reorder suggestion to the difference between your current count the ideal count you have set for each product. This is good for some items, but not for others. Guitar strings come in a box of 12, but sheet music can be any number. And then some items we purchase in a box and then sell individually. Rain does allow for that in the purchase order automated reorder quantity. Mostly, I change each reorder quantity as I am copying and pasting the product codes into the vendor's website. Not huge deal breaker. And I believe they will eventually add more options like I want to see.
- You do need the internet to do business. So in case of a localized broadband outage you can use your mobile device as a hot spot.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are doing all the different streams of business music stores or similar small businesses would have Rain Point of Sale is a great solution. If your store is more similar to a gift shop or cafe it may be too much for your needs.
MS
Miles Stewart
Manager of Sales in Sales at musiciansupply (1-10 employees)
Vetted Review
2 years of experience