You’ve decided to take your passion for music to the next level.
Now, you’re looking for some help to get your music shop in order and generate more revenue.
Whether you’re opening a new store or expanding your current line of business, selecting the ideal point of sale (POS) system has a significant influence on your business. Beyond facilitating transactions, a POS system designed for music shops streamlines your operations, enhances customer experiences, and provides valuable insights into the performance of your music store.
In this blog, we dive into the essential factors that will guide your decision-making process, empowering you to navigate the complex choices of POS systems and ultimately secure the technological foundation that seamlessly aligns with your business goals.
Benefits of a Music Shop POS System
POS systems are designed to streamline business operations. Selecting the right POS system is crucial to your growing music shop.
A well-chosen POS system is not only the hub of every transaction for your music shop, it must also empower you and your staff with information and help you improve your customers’ experience. It’s benefits include:
- Increased sales: Boost sales with tools to track inventory, automate marketing, and optimize discounts and promotions.
- Improved customer service: Enhance your music store customer experience with tools to quickly and easily process transactions online and in store, manage work orders, and schedule music lessons.
- Reduced costs: Reduce costs by automating tasks, reducing paperwork, and integrating additional business services.
- Increased efficiency: Improve processes by streamlining your checkout process, automating communication, and accessing real-time data on your business.
- Better decision-making: Make better decisions with data on your sales, customers, and inventory.
Let’s explore the factors to consider when choosing a POS system, so you can make choices that align with your music shop goals.
Music Shop POS Features That Make A Difference
Beyond your standard POS, music stores have very specific needs. Let’s look at some of the features available from generic providers — and some designed specifically for a music shop POS.
Inventory Management
Your point of sale system is key to helping you manage your inventory more efficiently. You need an inventory management system that handles all the different violins, strings, mouthpieces, and sheet music carried by music stores. This not only saves valuable time that would be spent on manual inventory tracking, but can also reduce the frequency of out-of-stock issues.
Related Read: Managing Overstock Inventory in Your Music Store: Strategies for Success
Customer Marketing
Modern integrated POS systems help you advertise to your customers. Today, you can automate email and SMS marketing, manage lists, schedule campaigns, and send promotion reminders to your customers from your point of sale and on your website.
Vendor Integrations
Many POS systems can integrate thousands of products from dozens of vendors. These catalog product images and descriptions are built into the POS and can be added to your system almost instantly and in bulk.
School Rentals
While many music stores focus on retail sales, entrepreneurial music shop owners know how contracting with school districts and individual schools to provide rental instruments can generate reliable recurring revenue.
Instrument Repairs
Another important line of business for many music shops is repairs. Maintaining customers’ instruments can help you diversify your music shop’s product offering. If your music shop does repairs, you need a robust work order tool that is integrated into your POS.
Lessons
Lessons are a great way for your music shop to build lasting relationships with your customers. Some of the best music shop POS providers have developed partnerships with private lesson software providers to enable additional lines of revenue.
Reverb
The second-hand market is a large part of the music instrument industry. Reverb is a reliable additional sales channel for music shops. A seamless integration is a valuable feature of cloud-based music shop POS systems.
Top 5 Music Shop POS Providers
1. Shopify
Best for: Retail music stores
Shopify is an e-commerce platform that enables businesses of all sizes to create online stores and check out customers in store with their proprietary POS. User-friendly tools and a wide range of features makes Shopify easy for entrepreneurs to set up and manage their online businesses.
Key features:
- Music-specific themes offered for online stores
- Integrated filtering for easy ordering of music instrument categories
- Intuitive interface makes it accessible even for beginners
Shopify offers a variety of integrations with other tools and platforms, such as social media, marketing, and accounting software, making it a versatile and scalable solution for growing businesses.
Pricing: Shopify plans start at $29 per month, plus processing fees. For more complex businesses, contracts start at $2,300 per month.
2. Square
Best for: Mobile stores and remote locations
Square POS is a cloud-based one-size-fits-all system designed for small businesses, restaurants, and music retailers. Square POS is known for its simplicity, mobility, and ease of use.
Notable features:
- Uncomplicated system for scheduling, inventory management, and email marketing
- Simple and user-friendly design that allows for quick and efficient transactions
- Flexibility to adapt to the personality of your music store
Square POS also provides basic reporting and analytics to help businesses make informed decisions.
Pricing: Square provides a no-cost POS system with a 2.9% processing fee, plus an additional 30 cent charge per transaction. Custom plans require a quote.
3. Lightspeed
Best for: Customized reports
Lightspeed POS is a cloud-based point of sale system designed for a broad spectrum of specialty retailers. It offers a comprehensive suite of features, including inventory management, customer relationship management, and reporting tools.
Features include:
- Unified in-store and online sales channels in a single experience
- Built-in services and repair module for creating instrument work orders
- Real time insights into your sales, product, and staff performance with customizable reports
Lightspeed POS is known for its flexibility and ease of use, making it a popular choice for retailers of all sizes.
Pricing: Lightspeed plans start at $149 per month, plus processing fees. The advanced plan starts at $269, and large businesses require a quote.
4. AIMsi Tri-Tech
Best for: Specialty retailers
AIMsi Tri-Tech Retail POS is a point of sale system designed to meet the unique needs of retail businesses, including music retailers. With a focus on efficiency and ease of use, AIMsi Tri-Tech Retail POS streamlines operations to enhance customer experience.
Primary features:
- Decades of growth and feature innovation for specialty retail
- Long- and short-term instrument rentals
- Class scheduling and billing
This comprehensive system offers a wide range of features, including inventory management, customer relationship management, sales reporting, and payment processing.
Pricing: AIMsi Tri-Tech pricing is only available through custom quotes.
5. Music Shop 360
Best for: Music and instrument retailers
Music Shop 360 is a cloud-based point of sale system specifically designed for music stores. It offers a variety of features to help music stores manage their inventory, sales, and customer relationships.
Significant features:
- Management of sales, inventory, repairs, rentals, lessons, and resale — all in one system
- In-store and online inventory sync to reveal product trends
- Integrated marketing that connects with customers and boosts sales
Music Shop 360 is a comprehensive POS system that helps music stores streamline their operations and grow their business.
Pricing: Get a custom quote for your music shop POS.
Get Started With the Best Music Shop Point of Sale
The music shop retail environment is as challenging as it has ever been. But smart music shop owners know that a complete, integrated music shop POS system can set your business up for success.
These POS software solutions allow music retailers to increase sales, improve customer service, reduce costs, increase efficiency, and make better decisions.
Music Shop 360 offers an all-in-one POS cloud-based solution designed for music stores. Direct integrations with Reverb.com and My Music Staff make Music Shop 360 the ideal solution for music stores. It efficiently handles rentals with a complete online school rental system that saves time and effort when making rental contracts.
Request a demo today to learn more!