3 min read
My name is Onyi and I manage an agro shop that sells fish feed directly to farmers. When we started, we were manually recording everything in the shop. We had notebooks for everything; sales, stock, expenses, debtors, etc. It was a simple and neat method that worked. Or so we thought.
Not long after, we started noticing inconsistencies in our records; stock and sales were no longer tallying. Sometimes, the stock in the notebook will be higher than what we physically have and other times, it will be less. We didn't know if we should suspect theft or just human error.
That was not all the problem we were facing. The notebooks were beginning to pile up. Some days checking for records would take a whole day because we would have to go through bundles of booklets before we could find anything.
It was also getting expensive. We were buying notebooks and printing receipt booklets.
There was also the issue with illegible handwriting. Some days, we would have to call in the staff that took the record to explain what they have written. Sometimes, they would have forgotten and we will have to start going through the records again to see if we could figure out what was written.
It was frustrating to say the least.
We occassionally ran low on stock and will only find out really late which can be embarrassing depending on the situation. A few times, the customer would have paid and is waiting to collect their feed before we realize we don't have it in stock.
Having experienced first hand the problems with manual recording, we decided to digitize our process and introduced the COD POS app. It really simplified our business for us, it was amazing. First, there was no need to write receipts anymore. Sometimes, we don't even print the receipts because we can send it to customers on WhatsApp or as an SMS. That is already saving us money on that front.
We really loved the stock taking bit, we know what we have in real-time and at the point of speaking with the customer. If someone is asking for a particular brand and size of feed, just by looking at the app, we know if we have enough in stock to fulfil the order. We almost never run out of stock without knowing before hand. Apart from sending daily reminders, we can see our stock before we start a transaction and after we are done. COD POS is a life saver.
Errors have dropped drastically and even when they do happen, it is so easy for us to quickly detect and correct them.
Guess work is taken down to zero, we know what is working and what isn't; I know who our best customers are as I can see what they are buying and how much they are spending. That is real and important data that helps in planning customer loyalty programs. We can now easily trace missing products, everything in the shop works smoothly. Whether I am around or not, in the country or not, I know what is going on in the shop. I am happy and satisfied with COD POS.
I have often thought back and imagined life without COD POS, I wouldn't want to experience such backward, error-prone, confusing and stressful way of running a business. No one should. I encourage you to test out the app and see if it is for you. A trial will convince you.
