12 things that Liquor Stores look for in a POS System

Point of Sale Systems installed in liquor stores are an important tool to make sure operations runs smooth and seamless. Store managers have a great deal of responsibility to make sure that everything from catalog, inventory, and customer experience are handled flawlessly. As a software provider for numerous liquor stores across the country and talking to several business owners & store managers we have identified some of the most common aspects one should consider for a liquor store inventory management and point of sale system.

These 12 features are generally classified into  these functional areas.

• Catalog & Inventory management for liquor store POS
• Security & Management for liquor store POS
• Customer & Promotion management for liquor store POS
• Employee management for liquor store POS

1. Availability of a Global Catalog of Liquor Products

When a liquor store adopts a modern point of sale system, one of the challenges they have is how to load the product catalog. In some instances, the store hasn't tracked products and inventory in the past, moving from a legacy cash register or simply starting a business from a buyout. A key problem in all of the above cases is lack of product tracking through an automated system. Retailcloud’s global catalog with over 50K liquor products allows an user to adopt the system seamlessly and get up and running in no time.

2. Keeping track of accurate inventory of products

It is not an easy job to track inventory for all the products when you have a busy season and when your focus should be to sell more. Retailcloud inventory management module tracks the products across your business right from issuing purchase orders , receiving into the stores and managing inventory automatically into your location when you sell. Every business owner we have talked to has mentioned that accurate inventory tracking is one of the top 3 priorities they have with a new point of sale system.

3. Ability to sell products by case, pack or individual items

With the variety of options within the liquor catalog management, one of the common struggles that liquor store managers have is how should they enter cases and packs into the system. Can I buy by the case and sell individually and get an accurate inventory? The solution to do this effectively is to have different units of measure available allowing for accurate reporting of inventory regardless of how you sell it.

4. Cash Discounting for customers

Cash discounting has been one of the most sought out features in recent times. This allows the business owner to manage the payment processing cost more effectively in creative ways. The retailcloud system allows merchants to setup cash discounts, rebates for certain payments types and print on receipts.

5. Cost & Profit management for products

Experts who advise liquor store operations says that the best way to have a profitable liquor store is to keep track of your profit goals. To effectively keep track of the profit it is important for a store to have tools to manage the cost of inventory and thus by reporting it back to you across your business. Many cost management systems do not provide accurate cost of good sold data. I have seen systems that update all items in inventory to the current cost price wreaking havoc on managing true cost of goods. A system which effectively calculate the weighted average cost and provide you with effective profit margins and KPI is very important. Retailcloud’s cost management and nGauge analytics platform provides these insights without additional plugins or 3rd party softwares.

6. Secure access for employees

Multiple employees are very common in liquor stores and having the tools to manage their sales as well as providing security against theft and abuse of the system . Have unique log ins and password/pin entry is a key necessity. Knowing which employee is ringing up the sale as well as limiting access for non key employees are among the features needed.

7. Roles based access for staff

As a business owner one of the challenges faced is the level or access which can be provided to different employees and temporary staff. Well defined roles in the system with commonly accessed features and ability to promote or demote certain function is very handy in liquor store multi employee situations. Retailcloud POS provides unlimited users access across 10 different roles.

8. Age & ID verification on pos for liquor & tobacco purchases.

Age and ID verifications are important when you have mix and match of a variety of products. Automated prompts of Age and ID verification allows the cashiers verify the customers for the ID based on product category or scan on the Code Scanner for programmable beeps.

9. Centralized Management of sales and profit reporting

Ability to access the reports anywhere is one thing which every system should have in the 21st century. The global access to Sales and Inventory reporting anywhere anytime is key for business owners to analyze their business / profit strategies at their own time.

10. Track customers with promotions and loyalty programs

Irrespective of any type of business, one thing retailers across the globe will agree on is that they need ways to engage with their customers. One of the most common ways to do this is offering promotions and loyalty programs. Starting with simple discounts which can be announced through your weekly mailer or reward your most visited customers with loyalty programs can be useful tools to ensure that your customers think of your business first.

11. Customer sales history and Club pricing

Customer engagement strategies varies from time to time. Purchase history and customer engagement drives those strategies. Ability to see the sales history and sales analysis helps businesses to better and more effectively engage with customers. VIP Clubs or Demographic based promotions are likely to improve the customer visits.

12. Employee Attendance tracking

Most liquor store staff interacts on POS one way or other. Without additional software or subscription, the business owners can track employee time within the POS which is a very useful way to track the attendance. Attendance can be monitored remotely or overridden by supervisors as needed.

Checkout out retailcloud's Liquor Store Point of Sale Features list here to learn more