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SignTrak conquers the ‘black hole' of POS, but can it pay for itself?

March 30, 2007

It’s clear that SignTrak captures and tracks POS data over time so that a clear picture emerges to describe what brand message sells the most beer, which type of signage appeals to the buyer’s eye, who is waging highly successful POS campaigns on their route, and a myriad of other useful data. Now we are discovering that SignTrak can not only pay for itself with cost avoidances, but may actually contribute to a net profit increase.

We talked with distributors about three possible ROI scenarios:

eliminate reworks and the associated costs of labor, travel and lost selling time,
increase selling time in the trade by submitting POS over a web-based application,
and for mobile sales teams, make ordering POS truly mobile and significantly reduce the cost of cell phone minutes.

While it’s unlikely that any one distributor could benefit from all three ROI scenarios simultaneously, we found that in most cases just one scenario can offset the monthly subscription cost.

Eliminate reworks

The real cost of reworks is not in ink and paper. It’s in man-hours and mileage. According to our distributors’ own data, when a single sales rep leaves the trade to pick-up and deliver a reworked POS, the cost can range between $40 - $60 depending on salaries and miles driven. SignTrak eliminates most reworks so, in some cases, getting it right the first time can save thousands of dollars a year. In some cases, SignTrak pays for itself in the first few months of use.

Increase selling time

On a broader scale, when a sales rep leaves the trade for an hour to pickup and re-deliver a rework or return to the office to turn in handwritten POS orders, new sales are reduced by about 30%. Keeping a sales rep in the trade just a fraction of that hour can result in additional new income of $5,000 - $30,000 per year based on annual case sales. For many distributors, this adds up to more than the cost of a SignTrak subscription.

Save cell phone cost for mobility users

For mobile users, SignTrak has an even greater impact. One distributor with 32 sales reps saved about 10,000 cell phone minutes per month switching from using the PC’s internal modem to one-price unlimited data transmission WAN cards.

Before SignTrak, the pre-sales rep had to find an RJ11C wall-plug, use a specially modified cell phone to download or had return to the office to use the PC’s dial up modem. These choices were inconvenient, required an aggregate of thousands of cell phone minutes per month, and took about three hours average drive time per month per rep (with 32 reps that meant 96 hours in the trade were lost every month). After adopting SignTrak, reps no longer needed to tether their PC’s to either a phone jack or to their cell phones.*

Using web-based SignTrak with WAN cards is a true mobile environment. POS can be ordered in real-time with the pre-sales rep standing in front of the customer. Seconds after the order is placed, it is available at the Sign Shop. Substituting WAN data transmission for cell phone minutes will save distributors hundreds of dollars per month, often more than that month’s SignTrak subscription.

Evaluate your organization's SignTrak subscription cost and ROI/Net Profit increase scenario by calling toll free at (800) 513-9194 ext 210 and let us help you eliminate your POS ‘black hole’.