There are over 42,000 liquor stores in the US! This is an industry with very specific and unique requirements and not just any POS will do. When selecting a Point of Sale for Liquor Stores everything begins with Inventory Management, from handling a large number of items, pre-loading catalogs and case management. Inventory visibility and reporting is only rivaled by speed of use and reliability of the point of sale hardware. POS equipment should be sturdy and capable of handling the high activity that’s prevalent in this segment. Tablets while small and compact do not provide the power and reliability for liquor store usage. Centralized reporting and proper cost management is also key as individuals frequently own multiple stores or are in buying groups where they may even want to share certain information about sales and inventory.

These are broad areas and the need of liquor stores are varied, however here is a list of 12 must have things, when looking at point of sale solutions for liquor stores.

Product Management

Inventory management by Cases & Bulk – Be able to purchase your inventory by the case and easily track and reorder, as you sell by the case, 6 pack or single

Preloaded inventory catalog with items and classifications – This will save time setting up your POS as you have the items already added and ready to sell.  Prices should be modifiable upon first ring up to update to your selling prices

Print barcode and shelf labels – Easily print our product labels and shelf labels (including reviews) so that customers have current pricing and adequate information to make informed buying decisions

Upload catalog and price changes from supplier to support automated ordering and PO management – Using the current pricing catalog from your supplier, automatically modify selling prices

Sales & Promotions

Flexible pricing options to allow for single, multi packs and mix and match scenarios – Inventory comes in all shapes and sizes and you need to be able to sell it (and price it) for the various ways that your customers want to make their purchases

Automated VIP and club pricing – Define the discounts for your VIP and club members and automatically apply the discount at the register

Item or transaction discounts by category or quantity – Create the discounts that work best for you with date range flexibility, quantity discounts and automatic discounts applied to categories

Management

Reorder level reporting and purchase order module – Make inventory ordering more accurate and save time with the predictive reorder and purchase order modules

Centralized reporting for multi store multi owner environments – Have the tools to manage and report for the entire enterprise or individual stores, with sales tax and pricing set by location if desired

Employee management with time and attendance, pin or password based logins – Have the tools to manage your employees with role based individual logins and clock in/out from the POS

Remote Management with alerts for monitoring key function access and use by employees – It’s key for owners and managers to know what’s going on in a store while at another location or away from the business. Your POS system should offer mobile access to key analytics and sales data as well as emailed alerts that when events you specify occur (such as cash drawer limited reached or price changes)

Ability to use the credit card processor of your choice – Dont let your POS system provider tie you in to a specific credit card processor. Make sure that you have the ability to chose the provider that you want to work with.

Making sure that your POS System can handle these functions on an easy to learn system that’s scalable as your business grows, is key to selecting the POS that’s right for your liquor store.