In a Nutshell
pros
- Hands-on customer service
- Works online and offline
- Strong on inventory management
cons
- No support for hospitality businesses
- No support for high-risk businesses
Ideal For
- Handling inventory between multiple stores
- Making informed inventory decisions
- Assessing staff and inventory performance in real time
Why Go With RICS
While most POS companies offer solutions for retail, hospitality, and other industries, RICS plays to its strengths and focuses solely on retail. One of the notable things about RICS is its retail experience. Many of its employees ran their own retail businesses for many years and others worked as retail assistants before joining RICS. This enables RICS to offer retailers a level of expertise unmatched by most other POS companies. In particular, RICS offers an impressive inventory management system that helps retailers make the best decisions about which products to order, when to order them, and in which stores to place them.
What’s on Offer
RICS offers an impressive array of features, all of them catering to the needs of retailers.
Point of sale
Lets you sell in-store and online, and connects your sales floor to the stockroom.
Inventory management
Automates the buying process, helping you select the right products and place them in the right store.
Integrations
Works with 17 third-party software products, including QuickBooks, Magento, and Locally.
Reporting
Accesses real-time data and reports from anywhere at any time, with data on business performance, employee performance, and inventory investment.
Pricing
Subscription-based model in which you pay a fixed, transparent, all-inclusive monthly fee.
Customer support
In-house support team works with you through the entire on-boarding process.
Payment processing
RICS is integrated with several processing options, including Infinitech, Shift4, SlimCD, and OpenEdge, each supporting all major credit cards.
Connectivity
The software works online and offline, so you don’t have to lose sales when your internet is out.
Ease of Use
The onboarding process is easy, mainly because of the hands-on support from RICS’ customer support team. Customer support can really vary when it comes to POS systems, but with RICS, each customer is assigned a team to help in-house. That means RICS is actually there to help you set up the system, make sure it’s working, and to be on call whenever you have an issue. And best of all, all setup and on-boarding costs are incorporated into the price of your monthly subscription, with no additional fees if you suddenly need more than the normal level of support.
What’s Unique About RICS?
The most unique thing about this service is the attention to real-time inventory management. While other POS systems tend to include some inventory solutions, for RICS it’s the focus. RICS automates the inventory management process, making it of great benefit to retailers of all types and sizes, particularly retailers with multiple stores.
Among other things, RICS lets you assess inventory performance and analyze sales trends in real time, helping you identify products that are underperforming or that would sell more profitably in one of your other stores. Retailers can also use the system to review the accuracy of purchase orders received, products without purchase orders, and store transfers.
Here are some of the other ways RICS helps you manage your inventory:
- Retailers can perform partial physical inventories based on class or supplier.
- It has a “non-sellable” inventory classification that takes damaged inventory out of the on-hand numbers.
- Batch price markdowns can be date-based and expire automatically to restore items to their original prices. Retailers can also create a schedule of markdowns that automatically reduces the price of certain items over a pre-determined time period.
- Graphical display dashboards make it easier to follow KPIs. The dashboard can be accessed from any device with an internet connection.
Customer Support
RICS provides software and support to retailers across the United States and Canada. Every customer is assigned a dedicated in-house support team to help them with onboarding and to assist them with any ongoing issues. Judging by customer testimonials, RICS has many happy clients ranging from small to large retailers.
Pricing (Software and Hardware)
RICS doesn’t publish any pricing information about its software, preferring to leave the details open for negotiation with each customer. It does state that it works with a subscription model in which the customer pays a fixed monthly fee for an all-inclusive service. It promises transparent pricing, with no hidden fees for updates, support, or other services.
In terms of hardware, RICS sells about 60 complementary products including portable readers, printers, barcode scanners, cash drawers, receipt paper, and HP monitors. Its prices are similar to those you’d find anywhere else. For example, an HP monitor costs $99.00, an Epson TM-T88V printer costs $495.00, and a Datalogic Memor wireless portable reader goes for $999.00.
Contract Terms
RICS doesn’t offer much information about contract terms. We were able to ascertain that it works with a subscription-based model with fixed fees. RICS doesn’t appear to enforce lock-in contracts, which is good news if you’re looking for flexibility.
About RICS
RICS was founded by a team of retailers in Indiana in 1983, with the aim of providing POS and inventory management for retailers and by retailers. RICS’ in-house support team is comprised of people with retail experience. RICS started off working with retailers in Indiana, but has grown in recent years and now serves more than 1,900 independent retailers across North America.
Physical Address
RICS Software, Inc
129 E Market St. Suite 1100
Indianapolis, IN 46204