Consider needs, structure
When choosing the structure of a product, an enterprise should first consider its demand according to its own business situation. Supermarkets and supermarkets should use split POS cash registers with flexible placement; simple all-in-one machines should be used in specialty stores and convenience stores; department stores and shopping centers can be selected according to space.
According to the system platform selection of the front-end software being run, if the front-end software is running in an embedded system, the requirements for the CPU, memory, and hard disk of the cash register are relatively low. If the foreground software runs under the windows platform, dual-core CPUs and 1G memory or more should be used. Otherwise, the high-cost configuration may be too high and increase the useless cost, or the configuration may be too low to ensure the normal operation of the foreground software. At the same time, the power consumption of the CPU should be considered. The power consumption of an ordinary CPU is more than 30 watts, and the power consumption of a low-power CPU is less than 10 watts. The CPU is an important heat source in the cash register. If the temperature is too high and the heat dissipation is poor, the cash register may crash. Therefore, a low-power CPU should be selected.
Check performance and quality
The performance and quality of the product itself are important indicators of the cash register. The performance indicators that the purchasing company should pay attention to are: the external bus of the motherboard, the external interface capability, the main frequency and power consumption of the CPU, the power consumption of the whole machine and the heat dissipation design.
There are many kinds of main boards of the cash register, and the external bus bandwidth is 33MHZ, 66MHZ, 100MHZ, 133MHZ, etc. The higher the external bus bandwidth, the faster the cash register runs.
Most of the main boards of cash registers have more than 4 serial ports, one or two parallel ports, cash drawer port, Ethernet port, keyboard port, mouse port, USB port, etc. Since the needs of commercial enterprises often change and often need to expand cash register functions, products with more external interfaces should be selected. When considering the product structure, the main frequency and power consumption of the CPU have been involved. If it is not for special business needs, a low-power CPU is sufficient.
The most important thing in the operation of the cash register is stability. If the machine crashes, it will cause a long queue of customers to wait for a long time. Therefore, try to choose products with low power consumption for the whole machine, and eliminate the crashes as much as possible. Another willingness to pay attention to the overall power consumption of the cash register is: the use environment of the cash register is relatively poor, and the ventilation is poor, so the heat dissipation design of the whole machine should be considered at the same time, especially in the southern high temperature area.
Assessment price, cost
The cost of the product usually includes the purchase cost and the use cost. The prices of mainland brand machines and Taiwanese products are between 3,000-10,000, and the price difference of imported machines is relatively large, which may be between 10,000 and 30,000. It should be said that the quality of foreign famous brands is better than that of mainland and Taiwan products, but the gap is not very big. The failures of POS machines mainly occur in printers, motherboards and keyboards; most of the motherboards use high-reliability dedicated POS motherboards, and the products have high reliability. Therefore, for companies with poor financial strength, domestically produced machines with higher cost performance are a better choice.
The cost of printing paper, ribbon and other consumables for the cash register is a daily expense, and it is also a problem to be considered when choosing a printer. In addition, considering the cost of use (training), generally simple and easy-to-use equipment and software should be selected. Because the cashier's mobility is large, novices often appear. If the operation of the selected product is very complicated (including application software), it will increase the difficulty of use and training time. At the same time, if the operation of the cash register is complicated, the efficiency of the cashier in the collection process will be reduced, the waiting time of the customer will be lengthened, and the labor intensity of the cashier will increase accordingly.
Any mechanical product needs certain maintenance and maintenance after reaching a certain trial period, so the maintenance cost must be considered before purchasing the product. Generally speaking, the maintenance cost of imported brands is higher (international practice, personnel cost), and the maintenance cost of mainstream manufacturers in mainland China is lower. The maintenance cost of general products (materials and labor) accounts for about 8% of the purchase price in the second year, about 12% of the purchase price in the third year, and about 15%-20% of the purchase price in the fourth and fifth years. Calculated based on 5 years of use, the total equipment repair and maintenance costs should be more than 0.5 times the purchase price, and imported products may be even higher. Therefore, merchants should fully consider maintenance costs when purchasing cash registers.