If you need something, choosing the lowest-price option feels easy. But you know what they say: “Buy cheap, buy twice.”
Whether you’re thinking of switching to a different provider — or just opening your liquor store — finding a reputable, affordable, and reliable POS provider should be your top priority.
Most providers talk a good game, but can they back it up? One of our customers found out the hard way that while providers promise a top-notch experience, they often underdeliver.
Here’s the inside scoop on National Retail Solutions (NRS) and why this liquor store owner is no longer their customer.
Starting With NRS: Buying the System
National Retail Solutions provides small businesses, including liquor stores, with point of sale hardware and software. While the POS is their flagship product, you can also purchase payroll, e-commerce, and payment processing add-ons.
Kevin (not his real name), one of our valued customers, used to run his liquor store with a cash register, spreadsheets, and manual reports. He knew he needed a change — late nights managing inventory, vendors, customers, and staff were becoming a chore.
He kept getting mailers for NRS, and at such a low price point (just $19.95/month), he thought it was worth a shot.
The Sales Process
Kevin submitted his information and waited for a call — someone reached out within 30 minutes. An account executive (AE) handled the process directly. We asked Kevin how the sales call went:
“It was OK. The guy didn’t ask many questions about what I needed. He just jumped straight into a demo. It was high-level stuff. It was a straightforward process, but I never felt like he cared about my concerns — he just wanted to bombard me with features. Overall, the demo was OK and I asked for a few days to think about it.”
Following the demo, Kevin received further emails, calls, and texts. He decided to go ahead with NRS — the low price was a major factor in his decision.
Setting Up the System
After choosing NRS, Kevin was looking forward to getting started. He didn’t have to wait long, either. The system was approved and delivered to his store in just under a week.
There are various pricing options, but Kevin opted for the NRS POS and NRS PAY package (hardware $699 plus tax) with the basic software plan. It comes with a one-year warranty.
Once his system arrived, setting it up was easy — almost plug and play — and ready to go in 15 minutes. You have to watch videos to set up the hardware. Assistance was available over the phone, though he didn’t need it.
Exploring the Features: The Good and Bad
Kevin knew what he was signing up for — the basic plan. At $19.95, he thought it was a steal. According to the NRS pricing page, you get what you need to run your store. From a high level:
- Three users
- Inventory management
- Customized user permissions
- Vendor management
- Daily sales summary emails
One of the features Kevin liked was the BOSS Club Coupon Rewards Program. It lets you offer discounts on major brands without eating into your profits. It’s a unique program that consolidates customers’ profiles across all NRS merchants and sends coupons that can be used at any NRS-affiliated store.
Once Kevin started using the system, he noticed a few things about some of the other features. They weren’t as easy to use as he first thought, especially coming out of a fairly smooth onboarding experience. For example, searching for items is cumbersome — you can only scan the barcode or type in the PLU. What else?
“Inventory management felt a bit basic, but it did the job. The mobile app worked well, and it was easy to pay vendors. However, the more I used it, the more I realized that the $19.95 price was too good to be true.”
What brought Kevin to this realization?
The first stumbling block was the lack of advanced inventory management features.
“I could track my products, but when I wanted to generate purchase orders, analyze my profit margins, and track turnover, I discovered I’d have to pay extra. Apparently these were advanced features not included in my plan.”
Something else that started to wear on Kevin was the constant large and dynamic NRS ads on the customer-facing display.
“The NRS ads are unattractive and distracting. Customers kept asking about them and why I was advertising NRS and NRS job openings. It was really unsightly. I asked support about taking them off and was told I’d have to pay a monthly fee of $44.95 to remove them.”
When he contacted customer support to raise these issues, he was met with a helpful and courteous technician, and didn’t have to wait on hold for long. Kevin did say that support is readily available from 7 a.m. to midnight EST — which was helpful.
However, that conversation did make Kevin realize that to get the features he needed, he was going to have to pay a lot more than he initially budgeted for.
Why Kevin Switched from NRS
According to Kevin, “Although basic features were helpful, I felt I could only run my store well with the advanced features — and every time I needed a feature, it cost more.”
What features is Kevin referencing?
- Gross profit and sales by item reports are extra.
- The employee time clock is extra.
- ID scanning is extra.
- Customer loyalty (outside of the BOSS program) is only available on a more advanced plan.
- Adding more users is extra.
Many missing features are available on an a la carte basis, meaning costs quickly add up and it can get confusing.
But what really made Kevin want to switch providers was when he got his monthly credit card statement.
“The final straw was when I received my first monthly statement. The processing fees alone drove my expenses through the roof. Each transaction was supposed to cost 2.49% plus 10 cents, with a monthly statement fee of $10. Our average ticket size is about $35, which turned out to be a 2.8% effective rate.”
Let’s do the math. Kevin’s liquor store turns over about $100,000/month, so he was paying around $2,800 in processing fees alone.
“When I was first quoted the rate, it seemed reasonable, but once I shopped around, I realized how much money I was wasting.”
For example, POS Nation offers a variety of payment processing options to fit your budget. Our best offer is an interchange plus pricing model of .10% and $.05 cents per transaction, which usually equals an overall effective rate of less than 2%. That means Kevin would save $1,000 per month just by processing his payments with POS Nation.
What could you do with an extra $1,000 a month?
Note: We also offer a dual pricing option that allows the merchant to effectively pay no processing fees by passing that 3.5% price increase to the customer for non-cash transactions.
This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. For Kevin, it didn’t make much sense to save $10 or $20 on his monthly software expense only to pay out $1,000 extra each month in processing fees.
“Ultimately, I couldn’t run my store effectively without advanced features. Add to that the fact that my credit card statement was so high — I just had to look elsewhere.”
And that’s when he found POS Nation.
Switching Your Liquor Store to POS Nation Is Easy
We’re biased, but here are just a few of the reasons switching to POS Nation makes sense.
- POS Nation offers three straightforward pricing tiers. NRS does, too, but their a la carte additional features make pricing confusing and more costly in the end.
- One of the costs Kevin didn’t account for was the $249.95 fee for importing inventory records into the NRS software. POS Nation does this for free as part of the onboarding process.
- We offer 24/7 support — you can get help whenever you need it.
- A major flaw in the NRS system is the lack of purchase order generation. It’s a critical inventory management feature. POS Nation’s software detects when a product drops below a certain inventory threshold, and automatically generates a purchase order for that item — making the restocking process effortless.
- POS Nation offers more than 55 in-depth reports to help you understand every aspect of your store’s performance, from your overall sales to the profit margins of every product you sell. This is included in every pricing tier.
These are just some of the positives you’ll experience with POS Nation.
NRS is a good option for small businesses just starting out. The low initial investment is attractive to store owners with basic POS needs. POS Nation is better for store owners who prefer simple pricing, a scalable solution, and more included features in base plans.
Schedule a demo of our all-in-one POS system today, and see why Kevin decided to make the switch.
