Wireless or mobile printers have become quite popular in the business world because of the level of flexibility that they provide. More than ever before, restaurants and retail stores are using these gadgets to print out bills and receipts. This can expand outreach for point of sale systems, increase productivity, enhance the customer experience, and streamline overall sales operations. Mobile printers come in all kinds of designs and make use of various technologies to facilitate these benefits. But, with all the wireless receipt printers that are in the market, how do you go about choosing the best solution for your business? With the following tips, you can choose the right printers to integrate with your mobile POS system.
Consult with Your Staff
A general rule of thumb when it comes to improving any IT infrastructure is putting the needs of the end users in mind. If you run a retail store or restaurant, your sales team or wait staff will interact with the new hardware for the most part. Therefore, it makes sense to involve them in the buying decision. They can offer valuable input in terms of suggesting improvements for the current mode of printing receipts and bills. Involving them in this process is also a good way to understand the challenges they face with the current system. Taking this approach increases the chances of selecting mobile printers that are not only intuitive but will also fit in your business environment.
Choose the Preferred Printer Set Up
It is important to determine which type of printers will be ideal for your business setup. Generally, there are two ways for setting up mobile printers in a POS system. You can have wireless, stationary printers located at the checkout terminal or counter. On the other hand, you can choose to go for portable printers for your mobile POS. Consider these setups to determine which printer setup more closely matches your mobility needs.
Determine the Type of Printers to Buy
Cordless printers function differently depending on the technology used to manufacture them. You will find that some mobile printers are ideal for specific business environments while others would be less suitable for the same settings. Thermal printers for instance use heat sensitive papers to produce print marks. These types of printers operate at great speeds, thus making them perfect for fast-paced checkout points that process numerous transactions such as busy retail stores or restaurants. However, it would not be ideal to place the thermal printer in kitchen environments because the thermal papers are sometimes affected by extreme temperatures. Impact-printers, though a bit noisy, would be ideal for kitchen environments since they are unaffected by heat.
Since portable printers are purpose built to work with mobile platforms, most of them have wireless functionality. It is important to know whether these gadgets use Bluetooth or wireless LAN for communication so that you can choose according to the network setup of your point of sale system. Keeping these few tips in mind can help you choose the right wireless printers for your mobile POS system.
Arthur Stone, an IT enthusiast who loves to blog about intelligent business solutions, wrote this article. If you want to learn about the mobile POS system that Arthur recommends to retailers and restaurant owners, visit this site.
