Most liquor shops have a vast selection of beers, wines, and spirits. Altogether, inventory on hand for just a single location can exceed a million dollars. Multi-location or franchised operations can, of course, far exceed this. With such a vast stock and so much at stake, it’s critical that liquor store owners find a robust inventory management system. Your run-of-the-mill retail solution will simply not cut it.
Additionally, a liquorPOS cash register must have several other features to make it a success for any business. So if you’re looking to open a new store or trying to improve your operation, find out what you need to get out of your liquor point of sale system.
Table of Contents
- In-Depth Liquor Store Inventory Management Features
- Detailed Product and Sales Reports
- Wine Shop and Liquor Store Promotions and Discounts
- Point-Based Rewards System and CRM
- Fast Checkout Speed
- Intuitive Display for Employees and Customers
- Website and Delivery Integrations
- Liquor Store Theft Prevention
1. In-Depth Liquor Store Inventory Management Features
By the case tracking, min and max levels, reordering based on sales and by min/max levels, multi-location, scanners, real-time updates
Again, inventory tracking and management should be a high priority for any liquor store owner. It’s critical to know exactly what’s on hand at all times and to understand what changes need to be made to better optimize your inventory.
Overstock and Understock Notifications
Get alerted whenever a certain product has too much or too little in stock. Holding too much upsets your cash flow and takes up space in your stock room or on your shelves. Too little leaves customers frustrated and loses your business sales.
Automatic Reordering
Set up automated vendor relations through your POS. Your liquor point of sale can communicate with your suppliers automatically, places new orders whenever your stock hits preset counts. With thousands of products to handle, a little help with ordering goes a long way.
Case Tracking
Most ordering done in liquor stores is by the case, so you want to have a point of sale that can distinguish between cases and individual counts. Inventory by the case makes receiving and counting much more simple, too.
Scalability
If you want to grow your liquor business, your point of sale must be able to expand with you. Be sure that your liquorPOS can easily import data for new locations and consolidate inventory for broad reporting. That way you can compare performance based on location but also get a big picture of your business as a whole.
Handheld Scanners
Scanning in your receiving orders will make your life so much easier. It makes the process go by much faster and ensures greater accuracy so that you don’t ever miss any mistakes from your suppliers.
Real-Time Inventory Updates
With a liquor store cloud POS, all sales, comps, broken bottles, new orders, etc. are recorded immediately in your back end reporting. This means that you can log in at any time from any location and see exactly how business is going.
Together, these inventory management features will make any liquor store more successful. This leaves business owners with more time and a steady cash flow, and, therefore, much more room to grow.
2. Detailed Product and Sales Reports
Efficient inventory management is one thing. You need to be able to access the information and automate certain aspects of the process. But once that’s all done, you’ll also need to be able to actually use the information to improve business operations.
This is where point of sale reporting comes in. Your liquor store software can give you actionable advice for future ordering, pricing and promotions. Analyzing important key performance indicators, such as year-over-year sales and seasonal trends, is critical to growing your business.
Additionally, KORONA’s reporting and analytics come with ABC product analysis. This software actually breaks down your entire inventory individually so that you can see where your studs and duds are in the store.
3. Wine Shop and Liquor Store Promotions and Discounts
Promotions and discounts are a big part of liquor store pricing strategy. Most liquor businesses have at least a handful of products on sale at any given time. And during holidays, many have storewide sales.
A liquor shop point of sale must make this easy. You should be able to set promotions that apply to all stores or just one. And each pricing change must be accurately recorded in your inventory system so that sales and reporting match.
Don’t let your POS software hold you back from such an important marketing strategy. It should work with you to make it better, rather than make you work around it.
4. Point-Based Rewards System and CRM
Most wine shops, liquor stores, or beer stops have some sort of rewards program. It’s an easy way to engage your customers and reward your most loyal shoppers.
For most stores, a simple point loyalty system is all you need. This comes built into KORONA’s liquor software. Your cashiers just have to enter a prompt, such as a phone number, email address, or shopper number, into the point of sale and any sales will automatically be recorded into the system. Once a customer qualifies for a discount, free item, or other prize, the POS can deduct the amount from a sale or inventory, keeping all data accurate.
For those that need a more robust loyalty program, KORONA integrates with bLoyal. This is a popular solution for wine clubs and other membership programs. bLoyal can assist businesses with shipping, email marketing, eCommerce ordering, and other in-depth loyalty features.
5. Fast Checkout Speed
Liquor stores certainly have rushes and busy seasons. And you need to be prepared. You can’t afford to lose customers the day before Thanksgiving because your lines were too long.
Prepare your store for the busiest times beforehand. Part of this, of course, is making sure your store is properly staffed. But you also need a fast and reliable cash register. Each transaction should give the customer the flexibility of paying with an EMV card or mobile payment, and the transaction should be processed quickly. Remember, even a difference of 5-10 seconds can make a huge difference over the course of a busy day.
Adding mobile POS stations can give you another key advantage over long lines. mPOS tablets add even more flexibility to the checkout process and can be opened in the spur of the moment. Staff members can also use tablets to check out shoppers on the retail floor if need be.
6. Intuitive Display for Employees and Customers
Speaking of speed, cashiers need a user-friendly display and navigation to check out customers quickly. KORONA’s interface is fully customizable, allowing each business to create menus and pages with intuitive design, making new employee training a breeze.
On the other side of the counter, liquor store shoppers can also appreciate the convenience of a customer facing display. All items being rung up appear on a separate screen facing the shopper. When payment is collected, this too is completed entirely by the customer.
Such features add to the checkout experience at a liquor store, allowing you to keep lines short and make the experience more convenient.
7. Website and Delivery Integrations
A liquor store point of sale must also be able to integrate with modern shopping channels.
Many wine shops, for instance, have a website with an eCommerce store. For sales and inventory purposes, it’s critical that any online shop be connected to your brick and mortar location(s). Therefore, you need a POS system that integrates with various eCommerce platforms. That way, it’s just treated like another location – any item that is sold is deducted from inventory and the amount sold is added to revenue. It also makes it easy to run promotions at both types of shops.
Additionally, consumers’ expectations for modern conveniences have led many stores to begin offering delivery services. There are, of course, more laws and regulations around alcohol than other industries, so it’s important that your store can integrate with a reliable delivery service. For local delivery services, KORONA integrates with Bottlecapps, a mobile delivery app. For stores that deliver across state lines, the liquor store software integrates with bLoyal, a full CRM service built exclusively for wineries and liquor stores, and clubs.
8. Liquor Store Theft Prevention
Unfortunately, theft is a major problem for many liquor stores. And it happens from both customers and employees.
On the customer end of things, there are several best practices to prevent theft that all stores should follow. A robust inventory management system will help you easily identify discrepancies so that you can quickly address any problems.
For protection against employee theft, your point of sale must be your primary defense. Loss prevention software with customizable employee permissions is the most important place to start. You can set specific allowances for each employee:
- Receipt voids – You will rarely need to void a receipt, so this action can be restricted from all employees aside from managers.
- Item voids – Some employees will make a cash sale and then void the entire receipt instead of finalizing the tender. KORONA prevents this ability and forces managerial allowance or records a void receipt.
- Cash drawer closing – Other thieves keep the cash drawer slightly ajar at all times so that they have access for any transaction. KORONA requires employees to fully shut the drawer before performing another action on the POS.
- No charge tenders – Another trick used to open the cash drawer, you can take this ability away from employees if it becomes a problem.
- Price edits – Adding discounts, special pricing, or other edits can only be done by certain employees with access. This prevents friendly discounts.
- Blind balance – All cash drops at the end of the shift must be done blindly. Employees don’t have access to the cash tendered for the day, so consistent discrepancies in drawer counts serve as a clear red flag for misconduct.
- Employee reports – Detailed shift reports for each staff member allow you to identify voids, comps, discounts, and other specific actions so that you see concerning behavior.
Get the Best Liquor Store POS Cash Register
To learn more about what makes KORONA such a popular solution for liquor stores, try it out for yourself! We offer unlimited free trials with no binding agreements. You can play around with the software yourself or set up a full demonstration with one of our product specialists. They’ll cater the demo to your store’s needs so you can see how it will improve your store. Check us out below!
