From paper order pad to trade POS: a two-week changeover that does not break trading
The reason paper survives at trade counters is that it never goes down, never argues and everybody already knows it. Any changeover has to respect that — which means running both for a fortnight rather than switching on a Monday and hoping.
Before week one: three decisions
Who is your pilot? One person, ideally the one who takes the most orders, not the one who is most keen on gadgets. What is your customer naming convention? Decide now — Ltd or Limited, trading name or registered name — because inconsistency here is what makes lookups fail later. Who may discount? Write the rule down before anyone can click the button.
Week one: parallel running, low stakes
The pilot takes every order on the system and writes the paper slip as usual. Yes, it is duplicated effort; that is the point — it removes all risk from the experiment, so nobody panics and reverts. At the end of each day, compare: did every order land where it should? Did the right prices apply? Was anything slower on the system than on paper, and why?
Expect two categories of problem. Missing customers, which resolve themselves once those accounts have a processed order behind them, and product search misses, which are usually a naming or barcode data issue in your catalogue rather than a software issue.
Week two: system first, paper as backup only
The pilot stops writing slips except when the system genuinely cannot serve — which by now should be rare. Bring the second and third person on, one per day, each trained on the happy path in an hour (see training a counter assistant in a shift). Keep the pad at the counter permanently for outages.
What not to change at the same time
Do not renumber your SKUs, restructure your pricing and change your order system in the same fortnight. If tier pricing is also on your list, do that as a separate project either side of this one — trying to debug both at once means you never know which change caused what.
How you know it worked
Not by a feeling. Count: orders per hour at the counter, order-entry errors per week, and how long it takes from a customer walking in to the order existing in Linnworks. If those three are not better after a fortnight, something specific is wrong and is worth naming rather than tolerating.
Trade Order POS submits straight into Linnworks open orders, so parallel running costs you nothing but the duplicate writing. Find out more → · See also cutting order-entry errors at the counter.
Questions, or want a tool we don't have yet? Email hello@grafto.co.uk — a real person replies.