Running a liquor store is a lot of work — from keeping track of how many bottles and cases are in your inventory to ensuring that customers are of legal drinking age. No matter the size of your business, using the right hardware and software can improve efficiency, and over time, sales! Learn how a full point of sale system can help your liquor store.
Why Are Liquor Store Point of Sale Systems Important?
Liquor store owners face unique challenges in their line of business. First, they have to deal with a large inventory across a number of product lines. This puts a premium on fast, efficient, and comprehensive inventory management. POS systems digitize inventory management, and some can even automatically order more product when you reach pre-set levels.
Second, alcohol regulations and compliance vary by state and even by city or county. Not only do liquor store owners have to stay current on these laws and regulations, but they need a POS system that helps them stay compliant through purchase tracking and reporting to avoid fines and penalties.
Finally, liquor stores have to be smart with managing cash flow and stay competitive through bundling, pricing, and promotion. Liquor store POS systems centralize everything from inventory and purchase reporting to employee schedules and more. This simplifies store operations and helps keep all costs and revenue front and center.
5 Features to Look for in a Liquor Store Point of Sale System
1. POS System Age Verification
One of the most important tasks for any business selling alcohol is to verify customers’ ages. If an employee makes a mistake and provides alcohol to someone who is underage, your business is at risk of fines — or even losing its license. And with fake IDs being more common than ever, you don’t want your store to take the fall for something that could be prevented with a single swipe.
Most liquor store owners who purchase our point of sale system upgrade to an ID scanner. Being able to scan and verify IDs helps businesses immediately recognize whether someone is under 21 years of age or using fake identification.
2. Mix and Match Bottle Pricing
Does your liquor store run special promotions that include bottles of different brands and sizes? A point of sale system allows business owners to apply discounts to the entire inventory, individual products, or even a couple of items specifically when they are paired together.
Customization of promotions makes it easier to apply discounts at checkout, rather than having to manually enter a code for each customer in line. The POS system automatically knows which discounts to apply to a transaction as soon as applicable items are scanned — even in mix and match scenarios.
3. Case Break Inventory Tracking
Rather than manually track alcohol by the case, bottle, or six-pack, a POS system has the capability to automatically account for case breaks. Our software’s inventory system knows to break a case into individual bottles for sale — whether it’s liquor, wine, or beer.
Additionally, the inventory system will keep track of what’s on your shelves and give you up-to-date counts. You can even set your POS to place an automatic order when a product hits a certain inventory number. For example, when you’re down to 20 bottles of your top-selling brand of whiskey, your system could be set to order five more cases. These inventory and order amounts are completely customizable — and they check another item off your to-do list.
4. Vendor Management Capabilities
Separating sales, inventory, and purchase orders is a death wish for your efficiency and effectiveness when managing your liquor store's finances.
This makes vendor management a key liquor store point of sale feature to look for. If you can track all your vendors and manage purchase orders in a single location, you'll gain time back in your day.
Another key feature is reorder thresholds. Many liquor store POS systems allow you to set minimum thresholds for your inventory. When that limit is hit, you are notified and prompted to order more product.
5. Sales Reporting and Analytics
How do you know which products are driving profitability and which are just sitting on your shelves? Sales reporting gives you detailed insight into which products are bringing in revenue for your store. Plus, sales analytics allow you to create dashboards that only show the numbers most vital to your success.
5 Liquor Store Point POS Providers to Consider
When it comes to liquor store point of sale vendors, here are five of the best you should look into (not in any particular order):
Read our review and see pricing for all of the above POS providers here.
Grow Your Liquor Store Business with the Right Point of Sale System
A point of sale system has several benefits for liquor stores, helping businesses run more efficiently and increasing sales and customer loyalty over time. If you have questions about specific features or how our point of sale system could work for your liquor store, the team at POS Nation is here to help!
There's are two ways you can learn more about our liquor store-specific point of sale system:
- Schedule a demo of our liquor store POS system with one of our product specialists.
- Use our Build and Price tool to create your own custom POS system and get a quote.
