Essay/Term paper: Computer system in the context of retail business

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Information Technology

Computer System in the Context of Retail Business


Anthony Wu 11CS2

Today, retailing businesses have to had up to date technology in order to
be successful. Accurate, efficient communication sending and receiving can
affect the business. So it is very important that to have the latest technology
such as computers and networks. Retailing on a local and global scale can also
affect how successful is the business. Locally, efficient networking that
retailing businesses had allow customers purchase goods more faster such as the
new bar-code scanners in supermarkets helps customers reduce time waiting in
order to purchase goods. Globally, such as trading, eg: a computer retailing
store may like to purchase some stock from over seas, they can make contracts by
using the Internet.
Computer systems in retail trading on a local and global scale played an
important role in today's society. Computer systems such as : the supermarket
POS system, provides efficient and accurate calculations when customers
purchasing goods. Absolut Software, provides a host of state-of-the-art
capabilities vital for increasing sales and productivity. Absolut Software will
easily reduce the number of operators and supporting hardware by 15 percent.
Absolut Software provides a training mode for novices and a high-speed mode for
the experienced.

Features: * Complete mailing list management * Promotion tracking * Catalog and
telemarketing * Importing sub-system * On-line order entry * Inventory control
(multi-site, serialized, lot number, decimal quantities, and style-color-size) *
Credit card billing * Computer-driven in-store POS with "Suspend and Hold;"
availability displayed * Wildcard search * User-definable extended search *
Unlimited text and binary (graphics) storage for key fields * A complete
financial (A/R, A/P, G/L) sub-system * E.D.I.

And the international network system which brought customers information, e-mail
address, and contract forms of customers are interested.

A retail computer system can do tasks such as:
Stock control is the control and how much stock were around the business,
and the price of the items. Eg: Such as the SMART System is a totally integrated
and interactive retail business system that includes the following modules:
Order Entry, Inventory Management, Sales Analysis, Accounts Payable, Accounts
Receivable, Monthly Lease, Financial Accounting, Payroll, and Customer Mailing.
Modules may be purchased separately if desired. An optional module for contracts
and insurance calculation and form printing, known as EZYCALC, is also available
and can be integrated into the system. The system was originally programmed for
the Retail Furniture Industry but works equally well for any big ticket retail
operation. All affected files are updated as each transaction is keyed providing
real-time information and reports also the system will handle multiple and
remote store operations.
Personnel Management is the system which kept the record of employees
and staff, also the information of their salary, holidays and absent days. The
system is designed to manage is wages and staff going right or not.
Checkout Eg: The Easy Sale Scan is a bar-code scanning point of sale
application which automatically organizes business functions from any central
computer site. Bar-code scanning minimizes keyboard data entry errors and user
frustration while providing unlimited information selection, transmission,
updating, and reporting.

Features: * Automatically calculates quantity discounts, special customer
discounts, sales tax amounts, credit limit verification, and change due. * The
Work-in-Progress feature automatically generates a current production schedule
of orders to be processed by customer or product. * The Inventory feature flags
price fluctuations or dangerously low stock quantities on site. * A built-in
expert system displays the latest trends for re-order decision support. * A
universal API provides open connectivity to any database or hardware platform.
Easy Sale Scan is currently portable to over 140 computer platforms.
Customised labels can help customers to know which region of store sales
which item and show customers new items which were out. * Hardware played by
retailing store:
Point of Sale System is designed for retail and/or wholesale businesses
that need to generate at-counter customer invoices and monitor product inventory
levels. This easy-to-use system improves employee cash handling efficiency and
accuracy by displaying all cash transaction data. It supports split tender
payments, unit of measure pricing (including metric pricing) and "look up"
features that allow the user to view product, price, and customer information
directly on the terminal. The reports generated include margin, price, inventory
valuation, minimum on hand, and daily summary. For multistore chains and
franchises, a remote store processing add-on is available. The system interfaces
with Accounts Receivable, General Ledger, and Purchase Order Management. Single
and multi-user versions are available..
The electronic funds transfer and payment processing system. The system
performs credit card sales, refunds and voids. It also performs debit card sales
and voids and has full transaction "stand-in" store-and-forward capabilities to
maintain sales activity if transmission lines go down.
The Central Computer contains all necessary information in the business
and operates as a server. It contains data such as database on items and
employees. * Retailing businesses has been effected by the introduction of
computer systems by the demand of the customers. Such as efficient and accurate
calculation when purchasing goods, convenient cash transfer ( cash registers)
and efficient of shock keeping and record keeping. * The development of
technology brought about by the needs of the retail trade:
Customised Software- as the growth of large and small retailing store
and the demand of efficient systems were increasing. So developers were starting
to increase and to produce more produces.
Bar code readers- designed to be more efficient when calculating and
reading prices off the item.
Eftpos- the Electronic funds transfer at point of sale system were also
designed to be convenient to customers who wouldn't carry a vast amount of money
around when purchasing goods.
International bar code convention- Bar codes were placed onto every
package of product. When bar code readers attached the product and it will
automatically display the product's information and calculate the price. *
Retailers have dealt with the issues of:
Privacy- not allowing people to access the database of the store and may
set password to protect it.
The nature of work- Many jobs were done by people before but they can
been taking over by more faster and powerful computers which enable jobs to be
done more efficiently and more accurate.
Copyright- laws to stop companies braking into other companies computer
systems and stealing their developing plan or secrets and trading price.
Ethics- they are issues that determine the action is right or wrong. Is
some information open to public in the retailing that anyone can access?
Business had to consider that before they take the action.
Computer Crime- Computer Crime had been increasing due to the companies
starts to join in to Internet and local area networks. Companies may set
password protecting the data. * Ways that certain issues have been effected by
the use of technology in retail establishments:
Power- Power consumption were much higher than before due to the brought
of computer system.
Control- Decreasing of control by retailing due to the freedom of users.
But retailing business had control on information that can be open in public and
which cannot. That was related to the freedom of information policies.
Equity- some jobs can be done by people who were menially ill and
companies should provide opportunity to them.
The Environment- The technology had a great effect to the environment,
such as power saving computers, less radiation computer in retailing business
and also air condition to change the temperature of the workplace.

* Similarities between the computer based systems in the context of libraries
and context of retail trade are that technology had been a great influence.
Technology had been more and more advanced as time pasts to meet the needs of
people. Both the context of Libraries and Retailing trade considered many
factors such as privacy, nature of work, copyright, ethics and computer crime as
well as power, control, equity, and the environment. * Differences between the
context of Libraries and context of Retailing trade are libraries considered the
flow of information to people such as help people to access to information they
would like to have but retailing considered only on their own information but
not others.