Business Tips

Here at Sintel Systems we understand that it can be an overwhelming task deciding which Retail POS Software to use. With the ever increasing market for POS systems all across retail stores nowadays it's hard to know how to make the right choice. Sintel Systems offers all these basic features with our software for you store. Here are a few...

Sintel Systems is your one true stop for all POS solutions. We provide you your hardware, software, training, support, gift cards and even business tips for your market. Here at Sintel Systems we know POS, however often times business owners can overlook the importance of fully training their staff with POS before the first day of opening. "I've seen businesses...

Sintel Systems knows Bakery POS. And as a full retail provider of custom tailored Bakery POS, we know that it's of no question that owning a bakery means having one of the highest profit margins in the food service industry businesses out there. Baked goods are easy to supply for, but real success is determined by your unique recipes, marketing...

For today's retailers, taking care of business means mobile point of sale (MPOS). Cash registers have left the building, or are on their way out the door. "The Cash Registers Days Are Numbered," a recent article citing a Onepoll study on POS industry website PointofSale.com, states that over half of Americans believe the cash register is "outdated" and will be...

The phenomenon and randomness of the Yelp user review continues to rattle small businesses, and restaurants in particular. Restaurants account for the largest slice of the Yelp pie (with shopping a distant second and nightlife an even-more-distant third), and estimates are that more than 40% of restaurant patrons review their experiences on Yelp.  Clearly, this is a topic that needs...

As a provider of integrated merchant accounts or credit card processing services, Sintel Systems is always working to bring value to our customers. To that end, here is a summary of some recent thinking on merchant credit card fees. No Free Lunch Do you know why merchant account fees cannot be guaranteed? Or why merchant account fees seem to have...

Given the horror stories of stores nearly crushed by deal-hungry customers, small business owners may be forgiven for their wariness over the daily deal. And yet, success stories abound — so the question is: How to strike a balance and achieve a daily deal program that works for a small business and its clientele? An answer may be found in...

Charged with adding value to any transaction, point of sale (POS) resellers see new opportunities in loyalty programs stemming from mobile payments and other commerce applications. As the only full-service POS provider — from software development to franchise incubator to ongoing support — part of Sintel's commitment to our customers and industry is to share ideas and information. Whether you're...

Louis Sullivan, the great American architect, coined his famous dictum, "Form ever follows function" — although across time, the word "ever" was dropped. Although Sullivan likely never ate frozen yogurt, the spirit of his phrase lives on in frozen yogurt entrepreneurial ingenuity. Take, for example, the recent story published on the Nation's Restaurant News (NRN) website, "Fro-Yo Chain Looks to...

Given the broad awareness of certain entrepreneurs' early success in their late teens or 20s (Gates, Jobs, Ellison, Dell, Zuckerberg, Brin and Page), expectations for entrepreneurial success would seem to skew in favor of the old saw, "Youth must be served." Lately however, that outdated adage is being tested and found wanting. In an earlier Sintel blog post we referenced...

Let’s begin with: What is a gift card? According to Wikipedia.com, “A gift card is a restricted monetary equivalent or scrip that is issued by retailers or banks to be used as an alternative to a non-monetary gift. Highly popular, they rank as the second-most given gift by consumers in the United States (2006) and the most-wanted gift by women...

We're reminded of the importance of preventive maintenance and the idiom "penny wise, pound foolish" after reading "How to Save Money on Restaurant Equipment Repairs" in Nation's Restaurant News (NRN). At Sintel Systems, we're keenly aware of the importance of preventive maintenance to avoid crippling malfunctions and system breakdowns, which is what drives our dedication to ongoing customer support. We essentially...

Ever gone to or walked by a Yogen Fruz frozen yogurt shop and wondered if you could start the next frozen yogurt franchise to be like Fruz?  Sintel Systems, the major frozen yogurt POS (point of sale) partner in the the industry, has incubated POS systems for more frozen yogurt franchises than any other. It was 1986 when two young...

An article posted on ConsumerElectronicsNet.com entitled "Survey: Retailers Using Mobile POS Expected to Triple By 2018," perfectly illustrates just how quickly new technology can spread throughout the retail sector of our economy. The article points to a recent report issued by Infogroup Targeting Solutions (ITS) entitled "Breaking Through Customer Engagement Barriers with Innovative Marketing and Technologies." Results were based upon...

Too often, owners puts the focus on numbers instead of customers' needs, not realizing that if they paid attention and did everything in their power to fill those needs, the numbers would materialize. In a blog post entitled "Customer Service Plan: Superior Customer Service Requires a Strategy," Franchising.com urges owners to shift perspective, and outlines the proper steps in creating...

Gift Cards have many uses besides the usual last minute birthday gift. With the right marketing approach they can be utilized in so many more ways than one first begins to realize. Gift/Loyalty/Points Cards can become a great revenue generating marketing tool if you know how to work it. Rewards and promotions marketing helps to drive customers back to your...

Just as we happily share our vast point of sale (POS) experience and expertise with startup owners in order to help them make the best decisions from the very beginning, we at Sintel Systems are happy to share articles and commentary about the retail franchise market. Forbes.com sees five factors that make a difference to influence franchise success. We'll call...

Today's potential franchise entrepreneurs may feel cursed for being incapable of forecasting the future. Is this the right time to make a career change? Is fear keeping your future on hold? As the only full-service POS provider, from software development to our unparalleled ongoing support, we at Sintel Systems see a lot of folks looking to make a mid-life career...

They say there's a time and place for everything. And with retail customer surveys, that time and place is at the point of sale. Gartner, the information technology research company, says retailers who survey customers at the point of sale receive 40% more accurate feedback than if the data is gathered one day later. A point-of-sale survey is typically any...

Here at Sintel Systems, we specialize in being the #1 one stop solution for all of our customers’ Point of Sale (POS) needs. We understand the numerous tasks of running a business and we have formulated our business to make it easy for you to concentrate on being at the forefront of yours. Sintel Systems has integrated the most efficient...

In a recent post, "'Dexter' Malware Infects South African Restaurants, Costs Banks Millions," the tech news site ArsTechnica.com is reporting that hundreds of thousands of people have probably been affected by the fraud. The malware uploaded contents of the POS terminal's memory, including customers' payment cards' Track 1 and Track 2 data, to servers controlled by the criminals. Dexter gets...

While frozen yogurt has been exploding across the globe, there has been an ice cream war brewing in the Northern California University city of Berkeley.

Sintel Systems services a wide range of customers, from experienced franchisees which started their franchise with Sintel Systems to new ventures. Many entrepreneurs who are looking at starting a new business call the point of sale (POS) system an automated cash register or computerized cash drawer. Let's explore what a POS system is in their functions and important attributes. If...

Is "Franchise Personality" an Urban Legend? Not according to Joel Libava, The Franchise King. In a recent post on TheFranchiseKing.com blog, "Do you have the right personality for a franchise business?," Libava writes, "Not everybody is right for franchise ownership. If you happen to have the 'franchise personality,' great. You’ll get to enjoy many advantages of the business model of...

We were intrigued by a recent blog post, "Nordstrom Finds Cash Register Skimmers," on Brian Krebs' Krebs On Security (KOS) website. The KOS blog points out that most scam artists who deploy debit and credit card skimmers target ATMs, but criminals may also use the inexpensive data storage devices, typically $30 to $40, to exploit modern-day cash registers. As the...

Frozen yogurt too good to be true! News came out recently about a phony frozen yogurt shop search engine optimization (SEO) sting in New York — and with it, the term "astroturfing" is having a moment. Given the strong presence Sintel Systems has in the frozen yogurt segment of the restaurant POS marketplace, we were particularly interested in this story. Investigators...

In a previous blog we talked about how Facebook’s new Graph Search can help you find the customers that you do and do not want. Entrepreneur.com posted an interesting infographic on how to use social media to find customers. The infographic listed some pretty surprising and fascinating information: 77% of business to customer (B2C) marketers have acquired a customer through...

Last month Facebook launched Graph Search . By using information you have already given such as location data and different posts/photos that you have been tagged and compiling it all into a search engine. For retailers, Graph Search gives you the opportunity to locate the customers you do want and even the one’s you may not. Inc.com published an article...

“Being an entrepreneur is easy,” said no one ever.  An entrepreneur is a difficult job and it is especially difficult if you are new to the game. Inc.com recently published an article about “The 9 Biggest Mistakes New Entrepreneurs Make.” 1.  Going With Your Gut Rather Than Trusting  Experts Sometimes going with your gut just feels right.  But as a...

We are reminded from time to time how retail store owners are wise to keep an eye on real estate investing trends. As an example, consider this recent article in National Real Estate Investor (NREI) titled, "What Retail Estate Investors Need to Know About the Transforming Retail Supply Chain." E-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores, once competing sales channels, are now seen as each...

It is a sad fact to face, but customers are a lot less loyal then they used to be. Also, with social media consumers now hold the power in their hands. If they don’t like something about your business or their experience, they can turn to Facebook, Twitter even Yelp to quickly share their story. Because of these two major...

Have you seen a spike in the number of gluten-free takeout orders at restaurants? GrubHub reports “takeout orders containing gluten-free items grew by nearly 60 percent between April 2012 and May 2013.” While only 1 in 133 people has Celiac disease, which is triggered by hypersensitivity in the small intestine to gluten, about 28 percent of adults aged 18 and...

July 20, 2013 - Sintel Systems, a leading point of sale (POS) organization offering systems to the food truck industry, exhibited its newest POS at the 2013 Food Truck Business Expo in Los Angeles. Providing expert knowledge on the benefits of our mobile point of sale system, Sintel Systems discusses with prospective and current food truck owners the pros and...

Columnist Herb Caen once referred to the Mid Market, a neighborhood in San Francisco as “le grand pissoir.” The neighborhood is well known for its homeless inhabitants. But, it looks like it might be making a turn around. An article by the San Francisco Business Times  titled “Mid Market retail starting to catch up”, discusses the change that is coming...

Entrepreneurs should know that the best way to protect their big ideas is by filing Provisional Patent Applications (PPAs). A recent article at entrepreneur.com titled "5 Steps to Safeguard Your Product From Patent Theft" illustrates how inventors may use PPAs to build an impenetrable wall of protection around their big idea. 1. Find all the ideas similar to yours. Develop a list of...

Entrepreneur.com  brought together marketing experts to create Team Digital.  Each week, Team Digital answers your questions on social media marketing, engagement and strategies. When they were asked about social media tips for service industries, Team Digital offered some very helpful advice: Every business should be using Facebook and Twitter. If your business is primarily B2B (business to business) then you...

Mobile point-of-sale (POS) systems are helping small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the retail/grocery/liquor segments build unique and satisfying customer experiences. A recent article titled "Mobile POS Technology Heightens Overall Customer Experience" in Point of Sale News looks at how retailers are using mobile POS systems to add value and get closer to customers, with examples including line-busting, convenience, fast and efficient...

While a company’s social media presence is extremely important these days the company website is becoming popular once again.   An article on Wired.com states: “The comeback is bolstered by new interlinks that make it increasingly easy for websites to suck in and selectively repurpose some of the very social content that diminished the open web in the first place...

An article on Inc.com states “50 percent of people say they trust a company’s Facebook page more than its website”. Whether you believe this or not, there are certainly some major “Don’ts” that companies need to follow when it comes to managing their Facebook pages. Don’t be a beggar It’s annoying when your kids beg you for money, when your...

Even a strong, striving business may need to go through a growth transformation.  A growth transformation is when a business takes a step back to re-evaluate their current business models and strategies. Most companies will use a new executive management team during the transformation because they can be more objective. At the time this may seem like the worst thing...

Sintel Systems POS systems provide integrated credit card, gift card, and loyalty program processing with all our POS systems making us truly your one stop solution for all you needs. This means that you never have to deal with any third party. That is one of the advantages of selecting Sintel Systems. Our systems allow you to integrate any merchant...

What is the difference between Sintel Systems and a free point of sale POS system? Recently we received a call from a potential client located in New Jersey with the following to say: “I have decided that it’s time to get a POS (point of sale) system. I checked out your website and found it very user friendly, but I...

Here at Sintel Systems we are dedicated to providing support on hardware, software, and other services such as helping you keep your business operating at a high efficiency. One way to maintain a superior level of up time in frozen yogurt shops is to have your own Scale Calibration Tool available.  Scales need calibration every 12-18 months depending on their...