Retail systems that join up the till, the stockroom and the website

In most cases, yes. Modern cloud POS systems offer APIs or webhooks for sales, stock and products, and we connect them to Shopify, WooCommerce or a custom store through an integration service that decides which system owns each piece of data. Older on-premise tills often only export files, in which case we schedule frequent imports and accept a short delay. Which of the two your POS offers decides how close to real time branch stock can be, so it is one of the first things we check.

The website checks stock at the chosen branch rather than the company total, and reserves the item when the order is placed. Behind that, an integration service holds per-branch quantities from the POS, subtracts a safety buffer for items that sell quickly or often go missing, and sends the order to the branch as a picking task. Staff confirm the item is ready, which triggers a message to the customer. If it cannot be found, the system offers a transfer from another branch or a refund before the customer travels.

Yes, for lines with enough clean sales history, ideally a full year so that promotions and peaks such as Ramadan, Eid or Christmas are included. A common trap is that days when an item was out of stock record zero sales rather than zero demand, so we flag those days from stock data before training. New and slow-selling lines are grouped with similar products. Each forecast is then turned into a suggested order using supplier lead times, pack sizes and minimum order quantities, and buyers approve or adjust it before a purchase order is raised.

Divide the number of transactions by the number of visitors, hour by hour and branch by branch. Transactions come from your POS. Visitor counts come from door sensors or, where cameras already cover the entrances, from computer vision that counts people crossing a line without identifying anyone. We combine both in one dashboard, so you can see where busy hours produce few sales, which often points to queues, staffing gaps or missing stock rather than weak demand.

Use the customer's mobile number as the key. At checkout the cashier enters the number, or the customer scans a QR code, and the POS attaches the sale to their profile. Points, e-receipts and offers can then be delivered by WhatsApp or SMS with their consent, and an app becomes an optional extra for regular shoppers. Customers who decline are served as normal, and the sale simply stays anonymous. It does depend on your POS allowing a customer reference on each transaction.

We quote a fixed price once discovery has shown how your POS, ERP and product data actually behave, because those systems drive most of the effort. The main drivers are how your POS and ERP expose data, since a documented API is quicker to work with than nightly file exports, the number of branches and channels to connect, how consistent your product codes and barcodes are, and whether the first phase includes dashboards, click-and-collect or forecasting. We usually suggest starting with one outcome, such as accurate branch stock on the website, piloted in a few stores. Later phases are then quoted on evidence from that pilot.

We pilot in one or two branches before going wider. The pilot runs alongside existing processes, away from peak trading, with a named contact in each store and a simple way to report problems. Staff get short, task-based training on the screens they will actually use, and stock and task apps keep working offline when the store connection drops. Once the pilot branches are stable and the issues they raised are fixed, we roll out in waves that avoid seasonal peaks such as Eid, Black Friday or Christmas.

Give every branch its own verified Google Business Profile and its own page on your website, and update both from one source. Each branch page carries the address, opening hours, holiday times, phone number and Schema markup for that location, and links to the matching listing. Changes such as new hours are made once and published everywhere, rather than edited branch by branch. Calls, direction requests and website clicks from each listing are then reported per branch, so you can see which locations local search actually serves.