Jun
11
2015
June 11th, 2015 by Mike Spence

Do you discount for certain customers or groups of customers?  It can be an effective tool for promotions when used correctly.  I thought I’d cover some of the ways that SP-1 by SelbySoft can help you manage and track your discounts.

First, SP-1 actually has two methods of promotions.  Discounts and Coupons.  The difference is that a discount is a percentage or dollar amount off a specific item (0r group of items) and that a coupon allows you to specify a set price for an item (or group of items).  For example:  You might create a 10% discount on pastries for senior citizens or a $1.00 off a large pizza.  A coupon might be a 2 topping large pizza for $12.99 or $3.00 for a coffee & muffin.

Once you know which method you are looking at, you have a number of other options:

  • What time of day and / or day of week the promotion is good for?
  • Which menu groups and specialty items are included?
  • Will this discount or coupon allow people to combine offers?
  • Can you get full rewards points when using this coupon or discount?
  • When does it expire?
  • Is there a security level required?

More questions?  Give us a call!

Posted in Marketing, POS Features Tagged with: , ,

Sep
29
2014
September 29th, 2014 by Mike Spence
If you are like a lot of our customers, you probably offer some special discounts for specific groups.  We often see school, senior citizen, fire, church, police or local business discounts offered by our customers.  SP-1 by SelbySoft has a way to make utilizing those discounts easier.
You can add a specific discount to a customers user profile. Once the discount is added, it will automatically be applied to the ticket.  For example, in the picture below, David automatically gets 10% off for being a member of the fire department.

 

Posted in Order Entry, POS Features Tagged with:

Aug
21
2012
August 21st, 2012 by Mike Spence

SP-1 is a pretty powerful program.  One of the things that makes it so powerful is the flexibility on the little things.  I thought it would be beneficial to cover the different ways you can setup a discount in SP-1.

This blog was inspired by a conversation with Mark at Blackstone Pizza in Iron Mountain MI.   Mark had some questions on how to manage discounts with his employees.

First, remember that you can have unlimited  discounts in SP-1.  Each discount can be setup to only discount a specific item at a specific time and a specific day!  So, you can actually setup a discount that would give 10% off sandwiches on Tuesdays between 2pm and 4pm.  That discount would only work at that time.

I’ve included a screen shot of a discount that we use in our demonstrations:

All discounts in SP-1 are a dollar or percentage off an item or items.  Let’s cover some of these fields and see how they work.

Discount: This is the discount name that is used.  This is how the discount is identified on reports and on the order screen when it is used.

Price/Table: Enter a price ($10.00) or price table in this field.  If you use a price table, you can limit the discount to certain times of the day or even days of the week.  There are three ways this works:

1)  Percentage discount – the  amount entered here is a percent.

2)  If you are setting this up as a dollar amount discount then this will be the amount that the discount is for.

3) If this is left blank, then it is a manual discount.  Manual discounts require the employee to enter the amount to be discounted.   Usually not something that you want to leave without a security level.

Expire:  This discount will no longer be available 30 days after this date.

Dollar Amount: Select this to have a dollar amount discount.   If you had entered $10.00 into the Price/Table field, then this would be a $10 off discount.

Percentage:  If this is selected, SP-1 will use this as a percentage discount.  If you had entered $10.00 into the Price/Table field, then this would be a 10% discount.

Line Item:  Line item is a special percentage that will only apply to one specific item on the ticket.  This is a great way to discount a specific item in the case of a mistake.

Max.Disc.Amount: With this, you can enter the MAXIMUM amount an employee can discount!  In the example above, you can enter any discount amount up to 10%.   It’s a great way to limit what employees can discount.

Reward Pts.%:  Setting this to zero means that any items that are discounted are excluded from the rewards!  This stops “double dipping” for those of you doing buy 10 get 1 free programs.

Cust.Reward:  Select this if this is a reward discount.  Reward discounts are used with the free gift and loyalty system included with SP-1.

Misc.Charge.:  Can you discount a miscellaneous charge.

Gift Card:  Can you discount a gift card sale.  This is very powerful as it allows you to be able to discount gift or pre-paid cards that customers purchase.

Security Level:  Yes, you can password protect discounts.  This is important so employees don’t use discounts they are not supposed to use.

Comp: This will allow you to setup a specific discount that is used to ‘comp’ a customer.  This discount option affects your server and delivery close outs as well.

Dine In / Carry-Out / Pick-Up / Delivery:  These switches set the discount to be order type specific.  If you want a carry out only discount, this is how you would do it!

Menu Items:  This is where you specify, exactly, what items are allowed in this discount.

Don’t hesitate to tell us how you use your discounts or if you have any comments!

 

 

 

Posted in Employees, Order Entry, POS Features Tagged with:

Jul
21
2011
July 21st, 2011 by Mike Spence
Promotions can be a great way to look at increasing your business and your bottom line.  Let me correct myself there. . . Effective, trackable promotions can be a great way.
There are all kinds of ways to intice people to try your product.  WIth SP-1, we look at ways to track your promotions and help you decide if they are working.  
Facebook & Foursquare.   These social media tools make it very easy to promote product to your customers.  If you want to take it a step further, use the built in places and deals to allow for specials that take advantage of geolocation features in cell phones (I.E. check-in specials).
Gift Cards.   I know that people think we beat a dead horse with this topic but it is because it is such a great way to increase revenue and cash flow.  Gift cards can be sold at a slightly reduced price to encourage customers to pre-pay.  This is a simple and effective way to increase your cash flow.
Bundles.  If you are looking to discount items, try creating a bundle.   The concept is that you take a high profit item and pair it with a different item.   Pairing items together for a single price can help introduce low-selling items to a broader customer base.



Timed pricing.  A “happy hour” special can be a really great way to encourage customers to order outside of your busy times.  Creating promotional pricing on certain items and offering them only between 2 and 4pm can help direct some of your traffic to those hours when you are slow.

Tracking.  This is, in some ways, the most important part of what you are doing.  You have to track what is and is not working in order to know how effective these are.  If a promotion is not working, stop doing it!  SP-1 will allow you to really evaluate the number of times these promotions are used over a time frame. This will allow you to make better decisions about how you create better promotions in the future.



Contact us at:

SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged with: ,

Feb
03
2011
February 3rd, 2011 by ssadmin
Automatic discounts for customers





Here is a neat feature that we have in SP-1.  A lot of our customers offer a discount for seniors, fire, church, police, teachers etc.  One of the benefits of having a POS is to make life easier for your staff and for a more convenient order process for your customers.


If you offer any of these customer specific discounts, you can assign them to the customer profile.  In the example below, David gets the “Fire Dept” discount of 10% whenever he orders.  




If the customer comes in, your clerk can simply swipe the gift card and the discount is automatically added to the ticket.   If it’s a phone order, then simply enter the phone number and the discount will be added to the ticket.



Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged with: , ,

Nov
11
2010
November 11th, 2010 by ssadmin
Coupons and Discounts

I thought I’d take some time and share some ideas on coupons and discounts.  Most of these are ideas that have been shared with us by our current customers over the years.
Reward Programs:
Our SP-1 software has a number of ways to handle reward systems for your store.  A couple of the ways are here.
Buy 10 get 1 free
Spend a $1.00 get a point  – This is great as it allows you to incorporate other items as well:
  • 50 Points gets a free drink or 50% off food
  • 100 points gets a free lunch (small size items only)
  • 250 lunch for two
Gift Card Programs
We have heard many different promotions with gift cards – some of these are designed to help boost gift card sales as well as other products.  Note that the values vary from store to store!
Buy a $25 card for $20
Buy a $25 card and get a $5 card free
Buy a $25 card and get a drink / app free (immediate gratification)
Buy a $50 (or $100) and get $5 – $10 extra and a 10% discount for the next 3-6 months.
Load money and get a 10% discount for one month
Discounts
Owner discount – track how much YOU give away or comp!
Waste discount – track what is dropped etc
Mis-made discount – track what was made incorrectly
Re-make – a discount to show that you re-made an item to a customers specification
10% off for senior, police, fire, military etc
Bring a friend discount – If 2 people order, get 10% off
Coupons
Beat the clock special – Item is charged by the time. . . $5.00 at 5pm, $5.25 at 5:15, $5.50 at 5:30 etc
Buy X get X 1/2 off – This is a great way to introduce new product to your customers.
Buy Combo’s are great for  providing quick ordering as well.
These are just a few of the different promotional ideas ran past us.  Hope they help!

Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Marketing, Order Entry, Uncategorized Tagged with: , ,

Dec
08
2009
December 8th, 2009 by ssadmin

Coupons and Discounts – sounds easy, but do you know the difference and why having both makes SP-1 more powerful?

First let’s talk about the differences between the two:

Discounts: A discount in SP-1 is a dollar or percent off a ticket or item. The advantage is that it is a little more generic. For example, you could have a $1.00 off the ticket, 10% off a ticket or 15% discount off one line item on the ticket. All of these discounts are able to be set by the menu group, group size or specialty. The great thing with a discount is that it is very flexible and allows for multiple controls. Discounts can be security coded so they are only available when authorized.

Some sample discounts are: employee, fire department, senior citizen etc. You can also use these to track problems and mistakes. For example, setup a mismade order, dropped item, returned item, comped etc. This is a great way to track what is happening in the store.

Lastly, don’t forget that you can assign a discount to a customers delivery file or to their gift and reward card!

C0upons: Coupons operate a little differently. A coupon is more specific than the discounts. For instance, you can bundle items with coupons. If you offer a large pizza with two toppings, breadsticks and a 2 liter of soda for a specific price a coupon is the way to go. You can even set the price so each item is accounted for in the reporting. Another example is to have a coupon that sets the specific modifiers allowed. So, you might have a 16oz Latte with two extra flavor shots allowed. The coupon would only then work on that size etc.

Remember that all coupons and discounts can be day and time specific!

Contact us at:

Mike Spence
SelbySoft
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371

Posted in Marketing, Order Entry, Uncategorized Tagged with: , ,