Black Friday Exposes Weaknesses in the Point-of-Sale System

Black Friday exposes weaknesses in the point-of-sale system that might go unnoticed on a typical sales day. The most common problems relate to updating promotional prices, inaccurate inventory levels, insufficient checkout capacity, and profitability tracking. By checking these in advance, you’ll have time to fix any issues before the busiest day of the season.

The Confirma Jeemly point-of-sale system combines point-of-sale functions, product management, inventory management, and reporting into a single solution that helps retail businesses manage their sales more efficiently than ever before.

Four POS System Challenges to Keep in Mind Before Black Friday

Weaknesses in a POS system typically become apparent on Black Friday in four areas: promotions, inventory, checkout, and reporting. If any of the situations below sound familiar, it may be time to consider switching to a new POS system.

1. Managing campaigns creates extra work

During Black Friday, hundreds of products may be on sale at various stores and through various sales channels. Once the promotion begins, prices may need to be adjusted on short notice.

If every price change has to be updated separately in the POS system, the online store, and the shelf labels, even a small change creates extra work. Inconsistent prices across different channels can also lead to customer complaints and manual price adjustments at the register.

✅ Solution: Centralized campaign management reduces manual work and helps ensure consistent pricing across all sales channels. For example, in Confirma Jeemly— a retail system that combines point-of-sale and enterprise resource planning functions—products, prices, and campaigns are managed centrally. This ensures that changes are automatically propagated to all point-of-sale terminals and, if necessary, to the online store and electronic price tags.

2. Inventory cannot keep up with demand

During a busy campaign day, inaccurate inventory levels can cause unnecessary administrative work, slow down customer service, and lead to lost sales opportunities. The situation becomes even more complicated if the same products are sold in multiple stores and online, and inventory data isn’t updated quickly enough.

For example, a popular jacket may still appear in the system as available, even though the size the customer is looking for is already out of stock at the store. In this case, staff must check availability separately at the warehouse or other locations, and the customer must wait for a response.

✅ Solution: When point-of-sale and inventory management work together, product availability remains better under control even on the busiest sales days. Jeemly keeps sales and inventory data up to date and makes it easier to track product availability across different stores. The system can also be integrated with the Confirma Flowvy online store, which utilizes Jeemly’s real-time product and inventory data.

3. Cash reserves are insufficient to handle a sudden spike in demand

During Black Friday, more customers than usual come to the store, and lines at the registers tend to grow quickly. Even if there are enough staff members, sales can be slowed down by a lack of checkout lanes. Long lines can negatively impact the customer experience and, in the worst case, cause a customer to abandon their purchase.

However, increasing checkout capacity for just a few busy sales days can be challenging. Purchasing new fixed checkout stations incurs costs, even if the additional capacity is needed only during peak seasons.

✅ Solution: A flexible point-of-sale partner allows you to add sales locations as demand dictates, without the need for permanent hardware purchases. For example, the handy Jeemly Move mobile POS combines POS functions and a payment terminal in a single pocket-sized device, and works both as a standalone POS and as part of the broader Jeemly ecosystem. Our POS solutions are available on a flexible rental basis for exactly as long as you need them—even if it’s just for a weekend.

4. High sales figures mask low profit margins

Sales figures following Black Friday look promising. Revenue has increased and a large number of products have been sold, but the campaign’s actual profitability remains unclear.

Two products may have generated the same amount of sales, even though their gross profit margins differ significantly. A heavily discounted product may increase sales volume but leave the company with only a small profit margin. If reports focus solely on sales revenue in euros or unit quantities, these differences can easily go unnoticed. Without more detailed information, it is difficult to assess which promotional products were truly profitable and what kinds of discounts should be offered in future campaigns.

✅ Solution: Tracking product-specific sales and gross margins helps assess the true profitability of campaigns and plan future promotions. Jeemly provides tools for sales reporting and profitability tracking. For more detailed analysis, Confirma’s Business Intelligence solution provides additional reporting on, for example, sales, gross margins, and inventory turnover at the register, store, and chain levels.

Is your point-of-sale system ready for the next sales season?

Many weaknesses in a point-of-sale system can be identified even before the next peak sales season. These six checks will help you assess how well your current system meets the demands of the busiest sales days.

1. Test changing a promotional price. Change the promotional price of a single product and check whether the change is reflected in all the relevant checkout pages.
2. Compare prices across different sales channels. Select five promotional items and verify that their prices match at the register, in the online store, and on the shelf labels.
3. Check the accuracy of your inventory balances. Compare the inventory balances recorded in the system for your ten best-selling products with the actual inventory quantities. Also take into account different sizes and product variations.
4. Evaluate how product availability is tracked. Check how easily your staff can identify products with low inventory levels. Also determine whether sales from different sales channels are reflected in the inventory data.
5. Assess your cash flow capacity. Determine whether your business needs additional checkout lanes during peak season. Find out if your partner can accommodate this flexibly.
6. Review sales and profit margins. Go over the most popular discounted items from the previous Black Friday. Compare their sales figures and profit margins, and estimate how much manual work the reporting will require.

If performing the above checks requires repeatedly entering data, using separate Excel spreadsheets, or making manual corrections, you have identified specific areas for improvement that you should address in a timely manner before the next sales season.