Liquor store owners are faced with a number of challenges that are largely unique to their retail sector. Brands all seem to blend together at some point due in part to very similar offerings. Also, specials can be very difficult to pinpoint, as product loyalty appears to govern the purchasing habits of your customers. You want to develop a better strategy for broadening your reach, but may feel constrained in some form. Point of sale systems for liquor stores can help.
Where can you turn then to expand your reach, improve your reputation, and engage your customers with pinpoint accuracy? Leaning on a technical platform is an area that liquor store owners have finally started to embrace. But what does this mean for you? Does this require you to break the budget in order to gain a quarter of a percentage point in market share?
Making the Best Decision Requires a High-Level View
Thankfully, the answer to the last question is no. Improving the backbone of how your liquor store operates will not require you to take out a second mortgage on your home. In fact, it will most likely not make much of an initial dent in your bottom line at all. This is a decision that must be made carefully, as any technology choices you make will be the foundation of your operations for some time.
Take a moment to look around your store. It’s pretty different from a bar scenario, right? What are your most obvious pain points, i.e. the things that keep you there far too late into the night. These will serve as your starting point. Any technical solution you examine must address these core issues. Additionally, a solution must provide efficiency gains even in the areas where you feel you are strong.
After doing this, your initial thoughts may be set on bringing in a variety of tools to accomplish your goals. However, there are disadvantages to considering this path. Data incompatibilities, and relying on sneakernet to accomplish the basics, such as accounting and inventory, makes this an inefficient road to travel. What is better is to seek a solution that not only addresses your key areas of concern, but provides this all in one, easy to manage solution.
Implementing Point of Sale Systems for Liquor Store Businesses
Seeking the best features that technology can offer to your liquor store gives you a decisive edge over your competition. This advantage grows when you implement a technical backbone that handles all of your business processes. Utilizing an innovative POS platform will give you the features and functionalities you need while making the implementation and support much easier than a multiple platform solution.
Undertaking this endeavor will require that POS expertise is readily available. Using a POS consultant will help in easing the transition to a new POS solution. Also, this consultant will ensure that the POS platform you select checks all of your boxes while remaining scalable so it grows as you grow.
With this in mind, there are a handful of mandatory features that must be present for you to even consider any particular POS system. Armed with this list, you will be able to screen out many solutions and a few POS consultants to leave your list of feasible options as compact as possible. This helps you to avoid paralysis by analysis situation.
Elements Possessed by Point of Sale Systems for Liquor Store Businesses
While liquor store owners may feel that POS providers rarely target them with cutting-edge features, the reality is quite different. Almost all of the standard features that modern POS solutions provide can be used with ease in most business environments, including liquor stores.
There are several POS functionalities that liquor store should be focused on in their product search. This short list will help guide you through the initial stages of your POS product selection process.
- Cloud-based transaction and inventory data management. Not only does all of your data seamlessly work with other functions in your POS system, but cloud storage presents better security and mobility options. Your data can be accessed via an app from your smartphone or tablet. This allows you to monitor your store while you are away, giving you better work/life balance.
- In-depth reporting and data analysis. You do not need to be a computer expert to run reports in a top POS solution. The reporting abilities you gain will give you valuable insights into customer preferences and behaviors. The data analysis capabilities will give you a clear picture around seasonal ordering, as well as to identify inventory trends.
- Enhancing the customer experience. Data and reports will indicate where your customer’s tastes are, and how they are evolving. This allows you to create personalized promotions, such as a “build your own sixer” promotion focusing on IPAs, or a bourbon and mixer promotion for customers with those tastes. The personalized feel serves to draw customers closer to you as your store becomes the place that understands them.
- Next-gen inventory management. Have you run out of a popular beer product, or even ice, on the Fourth of July? Predictive inventory management means having the data in place to direct you in your product ordering. Relying on the data you obtain from transactions, and merging this with barcode scanner data, will give you an accurate picture of what you need, and when you need it.
- Regulatory and license tracking. This is a big one for you. Preventing underage sales is a huge undertaking, and unfortunately some staff may be prone to accepting under the table payments from those that are underage. Any POS solution you consider must allow you to put this practice to an end, lest you run afoul of local liquor laws. Reporting will quickly show who is not conducting proper ID checks, and will allow you to correct the issue immediately thanks to advance alerting abilities. You will also gain the ability to better track any appropriate licensing that you must remain compliant with, preventing fines, late fees, or temporary shutdowns.
Keeping these in mind when you are selecting your POS solution will keep you on track in your efforts to improve the overall efficiency of your store. Blending all of these into one solution, while an ideal scenario, is also a complex process to begin. This is why it is imperative that you retain a highly capable POS consultant.
Selecting Point of Sale Systems for Liquor Store Businesses
Taking on a project to build a functional and innovative technical foundation is a hard choice to make. However as consumer technical expectations grow, it will not be long before they expect to see the effects of a highly capable technology foundation in your store. Ensuring that the right products are on the shelves at the right time, and creating personalized promotions, are key tasks that your software platform must achieve behind the scenes.
This is where the advantages of a POS consultant rise to the surface. They will act as a valued partner to learn how your business operates. From here, they will recommend the best technology path that you need to follow to transcend your industry.
When seeking expert advice about the best POS path for your liquor store, look no further than talech. We provide a top rated POS solution for liquor stores and will work diligently with you to install the perfect POS platform for your business. Contact us today to schedule a free demo to see first hand how talech is the right choice for you.
