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We interviewed Camilo Ruiz, owner of Isa & Tin, a candy shop with typical desserts from Colombia. They started their business ten years ago and have succeeded with perseverance in the face of difficulties and challenges. How long ago did you start the business? We started as a family business over ten years ago and are looking for a growth option today. We currently have three stands operating, two in shopping malls and one in a supermarket that is very popular in the city. How has the workflow been during these ten years? My wife and I have independent professions, and our business emerged as an alternative income; this is not our main activity. Its growth has been organic; we have not managed campaigns or any kind of incentive for sales growth. The idea is to implement new scenarios that allow us to operate with more control and expand. How did you start using Loyverse? I saw the application in another establishment, and since we are in the process of gaining greater control of sales and inventory, I started to search for alternatives to point-of-sale systems that would allow us to have easy access and thus implement them. I saw it in an establishment, downloaded it, and started generating sales for two of our stores. To get to know it, I used it on two devices. The first few days, I loaded the sales at the end of my day to check if the reports were reliable, learn how it worked, and analyze all the Loyverse tools. At the moment, we have two stores open so we can differentiate the sales of each store. Was there any feature or tool that motivated you to stay with Loyverse? The interface is straightforward to use, and the whole issue is creating the products with their inventory. It is interesting to have the hourly sales information for each item and category. All these elements are essential to generate business information, and we also have the option to review each employee's report. Not all employees have the same capabilities, and for the owner, it is crucial to observe this and review who needs more attention to perform better. The inventory is an important part of the sales process because it is where the traceability of the business is. Loyverse seems to me to be a very comprehensive and versatile system for multiple types of business. Have the reports you mentioned changed the big picture of your business workflow? Yes, of course! Reviewing the daily sales graphs is important because we can find high and low peaks. Find the dates or days when sales were lower, and with that information, implement some strategy. This helps to review trends and to know which of our products sells the most and which sells the least. The idea is also to identify the hours with the highest customer flow. This information is relevant and important for organizing strategies and giving another boost to the business. How has it been managing two businesses with two different locations? In the free version, we opened the second store without difficulty. It is effortless to log into the account with an email and review the product catalog separately but in the same account. We did not need to make major adjustments; we just created the two points of sale to be able to differentiate the sales of each of them in their respective store and make an independent analysis because the stores operate differently in terms of the flow of people, customers, and sales. It is exciting because one can perfectly contrast the two scenarios by changing the filter in the reports. Loyverse also offers the advantage of downloading the information in Excel files, and from there, you can do other types of analysis with the Unlimited Sales History. Do you have a strategy to keep up with industry trends and changes? We want to collect information and know more about the customers, and what the customers think about the business, maybe do some research, and manage and promote social media. We know that Loyverse has the option to manage the loyalty program and the customer database; with this information, we can get to know our frequent customers. The relationship with the customer is fundamental to know if we are doing our job well, and it is essential that they feel appreciated by the company. Have you had the help of our team through the chat at any time? I have not asked any questions via chat so far. In general, the management of the tools within the application is quite friendly, allows simple configuration, and is what we all seek: an option that does not generate more difficulty but facilitates and promotes business activity. Could you summarize the impact that Loyverse had on your business? What has favored me the most is being able to see the sales reports in a friendly way every day with its graphs. Previously, I had no information on how much was sold per day, and that is vital to have all the information in a single account, analyze it, and see the changes visually. That has been so far the biggest impact not only on one business but on the two businesses. That is the main benefit I have received from the application. Would you like to share any tips for entrepreneurs just starting their business? The first tip is about the importance of persevering in the business. Keep the business going even after the first fall. Surely, there will be ideas that can be perfected, and others that cannot, but we must maintain our ability to persevere. Secondly, rely on the digital theme, social networks, applications, and all those tools that allow us to take the business to a new level. Organic growth worked very well for us, but there comes a time when we must decide and take the initiative to change the way the business should grow and the technology and tools are here to do it.

Nelson Osorio is one of the owners of OUSI, a company seeking to enter the clothing manufacturing, distribution, and sales market. Ousi has found in Loyverse the bond to continue to grow and make its way toward new goals. What makes OUSI stand out in the market? We are a resilient company eager to be recognized nationally and globally. We offer good service to our customers, who are the reason for our growth and essence. We are constantly looking for different strategies, and in this case, with Loyverse, we implemented improvements in the sales processes. We stand out for being a company with a hunger to grow and move forward with our project. We also stand out for the fact that everything we sell is our own brand; we are manufacturers. How long ago did you start the business? We have two physical stores. We have been working with the first store for two years and with the second one for one year, and we started implementing Loyverse last year for the two stores, which are located in different cities. At what point did you look for and start using Loyverse? Since we started with our first store, we saw the need to implement a system because manual sales are super time-consuming, especially since we do retail sales and wholesale. Manual invoicing is very laborious when there are many units. For this reason, we were looking for tools to facilitate this process within the store. Some systems had an expensive value, and for an entrepreneur who is starting out and has a lot of expenses, it was not possible to add an additional expense. After a few months, my partner’s wife, who owns an ice cream shop, recommended Loyverse to us. I searched the internet with YouTube videos. At first glance, it seemed very friendly for the entrepreneur, so we decided to implement it in the first store for testing; as it fits our needs in facilitating the sales process with our customers, we implemented it in the second store. Concerning the sales process, do you have any specific needs for your business? Mainly to give the customer his physical sales receipt because we use the receipt printer. Our relationship with the customer has changed because, in our business, it is advantageous to deliver this receipt; if the customer needs a refund or guarantee, he has his physical receipt to do this procedure with us. Additionally, we can use the Dashboard application to review the sales report in real time. In addition, the Back office reports per store help identify the store that sells the most, the category with the most sales, and the top-sold items. These are some of the many positive points that we find with Loyverse. When you started, how would you rate this first overall experience with Loyverse in terms of difficulty? It seemed simple to me. I am a curious person, and I like to experiment and explore. I explored the back office a lot, and if any doubt arose, I would go to the videos. You quickly become familiar with the system. We offer ladies’ garments of different types, and creating our products using inventory management tools and variants was quite simple. What was the tool that led you to choose Loyverse? In general, everything, but I would emphasize the option to give a printed invoice to the customer and customize this receipt. You can put the store logo and add general information about the store, such as address, phone, and social networks, in the header. It is also possible to review the purchase information because it is possible to add comments when adding an item, which serves as additional information for the customer. Another tool I liked was the refunds; if the customer needs a refund, we can add the terms and conditions for changes and guarantees on the receipt footer, which is also available in the free version. The customization of this receipt gives our business a big company feel. Has the information provided by Loyverse helped you make decisions within the company? Having access to a more detailed sales report has helped us save a lot of time and work. We have all the information at our fingertips. From the back office, the sales by item report gives us information on the top 5 products that are selling. From the dashboard application, we can also see the other items that have been sold. Apart from the top 5, we can see in the report sales by category how many units have been sold. All this information is essential for decision-making. Considering your growth process, how did your business management change after using Loyverse? Everywhere we look, there are positive points. First, when we made the sales, they were all done by hand. When there were too many garments, all the work was multiplied. It was also negative for the customer because the billing process was delayed, and the customer had to wait. On the other hand, discounting the garments, the general balance of sales, etc., was also manual. After Loyverse, all our work has become easier, mainly for me as owner and administrator. Before, I had to count each closing one by one. However, now all that information is available in the Loyverse reports, and I only take one day a week to review everything. Was your relationship with customers affected by the use of Loyverse? With Loyverse, our brand has grown in that aspect, and so has our relationship with our customers. Because in the type of business we run, delivering a printed receipt with so many details shows the customer the quality of our attention and service. Besides this, it generates curiosity for the customer and even other entrepreneurs because everything is handled wirelessly and gives an air of modernity to our business. How do you see the future of your company in the coming years? What are your short—and long-term goals? In the short term, initially, with the issue of the production of our garments, we want it to be faster; we are currently working on that. Our collections have been launched with very long lapses of time. Now we are bringing them out faster so that our customers find more variety whenever they come. In the medium term, we are going to improve social media marketing to improve physical sales, implementing sales through social networks and the Internet to increase our turnover. Do you have a final message for readers? The message we would like to share with all entrepreneurs is never to stop working on your venture; if you have already started, if you are there, do not give up; things do not happen overnight; to grow, it takes a lot of effort, sometimes with tears. To make a business go forward is a full-time job, and sometimes, there are moments when it seems we can no longer continue, and it appears that the time we invest is not worth it, but you must firmly believe in yourselves because every effort is rewarded.

In this insightful interview, we sit down with a dedicated Loyverse POS customer who operates a unique blend of businesses—an amalgamation of a bakery, a school, and a bustling bakery market. Over the course of the past 11 months, they have harnessed the power of Loyverse to streamline their diverse operations. Discover their journey as they share their reasons for choosing Loyverse, reflecting on the software's adaptability and scalability. How long have you been using Loyverse, and what type of business do you run? The Semilla Bread is a bakery, a school, and we have a bakery market. We have these different types of businesses and manage multiple stores on the same account in Loyverse, and we have been using the system for 11 months. What was the main reason you chose Loyverse? I was researching some POS systems, and Loyverse was the one that best suited what I needed at the time, first because I needed to start with a free software and secondly because I saw the possibility of growing along with Loyverse, using other tools such as employee management. How was your overall experience in terms of ease of use? What were the first tools you configured in your Loyverse account? Actually, the system is very user-friendly, and the information that Loyverse gives us from the help center allows us to quickly find the information about the focus you want to give to your business. In my case, the most important thing was the management of the inventory of items and how to make sales. What impact did Loyverse generate when comparing before and after implementing it in your business? Concerning sales management, the operating system is quite extensive. When I started with the business, such as in retail sales, in May and June, all sales were not handled digitally, so when we implemented Loyverse in August, we felt a significant improvement in the work environment. In relation to inventory management, what tools do you use in Loyverse? I do the inventory control of the items, the low stock notifications, and the Dashboard application has daily supervision of the sales and also review and make an inventory control with the list of items and the notifications that the Dashboard shows me, this information I use to know which items to order to my supplier. In the future, I would like to manage the Advanced Inventory because I need a tool that allows me to make purchase orders only with the items from my supplier that are in low stock. How has the information that Loyverse provides you, such as sales or receipt reports, helped you make decisions in your business? For my business, the sales summary and the sales report by category have been essential when it comes to adding more inventory to a specific category. Also, a tool that has caught my attention is the possibility of managing shifts and within Employee Management the option to enter the time when the employee clocked in at the point of sale and at what time this employee left. Finally, would you like to send a message to new entrepreneurs who may be inspired by your experience? Yes, when we start everything is new and we look for the best solution that meets our needs but that is also within our possibilities. Our business has been growing and changing hand in hand with the Loyverse tools that are improving over time so it has become necessary to use more and more resources and it has been very useful to have the support of the Loyverse team to understand and adapt our business. I can say that with Loyverse we have seen the transformation of our process since we went from making sales and writing them down on paper to a more technological system and each advance encourages us to move forward.