Do you run a wine or liquor store and you need a reliable POS system? If YES, here are 10 best POS system for liquor stores and their cost.
Liquor stores are more renowned for the quality of liquor they carry. These businesses also give their customers a varying range of brands and alcohol to choose from. Howbeit, even the best liquor stores are only as good as the fast service they offer.
For a liquor store to be termed successful, it must maintain a high turnover rate during peak customer periods. Liquor store owners, managers, and merchants more or less depend on a reliable, secure point – of – sale (POS) system to help them provide exceptional service to their customers. POS systems help them run their business with precision and efficiency.
Note that a POS system’s primary function is to aid a business organize financial transactions with a customer in an efficient manner. The system is also expected to provide a direct line to completing a purchase in as few steps as possible.
From a consumer standpoint, the key component to any POS product is the quality of customer service. When liquor store owners contact customer service, representatives should be standing by to assist the owner with their needs.
For a POS System to be ideal for a liquor store, it should posses no ambiguity in the cost of equipment, add – ons, startup fees, or monthly rates.
The pricing structure should be transparent, easy to understand, and logical. A liquor store owner should first determine their needs and what is most vital for their business before shopping for POS products.
That will help them narrow their search for the right POS System. It is also important that Liquor store managers train new employees on how to use POS equipment and software. Therefore, the interface and touch screen must be easy to navigate at all levels.
Best POS System for Liquor Stores
A liquor POS system helps store owners manage their liquor inventory, market to their best customers, and even sell liquor online. If you’re looking for a POS system, read on to learn about the top choices on the market.
1. Heartland
Heartland Payment Systems was established in 1997. The headquarters are in New Jersey. Heartland processes more than 11 million transactions for over 300,000 businesses and schools daily. Heartland POS systems help liquor store owners manage their menus, inventory, schedules, pricing, and staff work flow.
Heartland is known for rebounding with the most secure credit card processing system in the industry since the 2015 data breach. Heartland has integrated EMV, end – to – end encryption, and tokenization to shield customer’s information from criminal activity.
2. Harbortouch
Harbortouch has been offering POS services for liquor stores and other businesses for 20 years. Note that they offer two feature – packed options for businesses: the Echo and the Elite platforms. Each platform comes with different packages, hardware, and software.
The POS systems are built utilizing advanced automated technology that integrates with systems that liquor store owners are already using. The module – based software offers a rich user experience (UX) platform that is easy to learn and set up.
3. Korona CLOUD POS
With plans beginning at $49/month, KORONA is a budget – priced cloud – based system that runs on Mac, PC, Linux computers, and Windows tablets. KORONA is meant to fit the needs of most small to mid – sized businesses, including liquor stores.
Also note that KORONA offers a handful of functions that are tailor – made for liquor stores. Some features liquor store owners will appreciate include age verification reminders, theft prevention features, automatic reordering, and overstock alerts. KORONA also has the capability to handle millions of products.
4. Lightspeed Retail
Lightspeed Retail, pricing for which ranges from $69 to $229/month (billed annually, with Lightspeed Payments), remains one of the more advanced iPads and desktop retail POS systems around. If you have the budget for it, it’s highly likely Lightspeed has all the features your liquor store will need to succeed.
Lightspeed has a unique and strong inventory system that integrates your in – store and online sales. All stocks can be ordered directly through the POS, and you can create a single purchase order for multiple vendors.
5. Cashierlive
CashierLive is a 100% cloud – based POS and inventory management SaaS that was launched in 2008. Currently Cashier Live overseas more than 1000 business accounts globally. Merchants can handle transactions and manage employees, customers, and inventory from a single software interface accessible.
Cashierlive track also provides a free iPhone/iPad app, which can scan barcodes, take payments, manage inventory, and track customers. The mobile POS system requires an active Internet connection and comes with full integration of Cashier Live functions.
6. Square for Retail
This system works on either the iPad or Square Register. It boasts of many useful features for liquor stores, including customer profiles, local delivery, and curb side pickup options as well as management tools for inventory, employees, customers, and vendors.
Square for Retail also comes with a free Square Online Store, which liquor store owners can use to sell alcohol online. Also depending on the laws in your area, you can provide local delivery or curb side pickup, so customers can place orders online and receive them that same day. However, Square doesn’t have an age verification or ID scanning feature, so you’ll have to remember to check IDs manually.
7. Talech
Talech is another competitively – priced cloud POS that can be customized to meet the needs of any type of business. Talech offers liquor store owners a lot of options, including three plans ranging from $29 to $99/month, depending on which features you want.
Note that you also have a choice of payment processors that includes Vantiv, Elavon, Bank of America Merchant Services, and others as well as multiple hardware setup choices, including Android, iPad registers, and the option of Point smart terminals or standard payment terminals. Another important feature about talech is its customer management.
This POS can upload customer information and then create custom marketing campaigns. The POS also comes with BOGO discounts, barcode label printing, inventory alerts, online ordering, and external integrations (QuickBooks, Shopify, Xero, and more), depending on which plan you pick.
8. Shopkeep
The multi – feature system ShopKeep provides liquor store owners with practical tools such as marketing, inventory, staff, and payments to adequately run their retail business. The large touch screen is easy to navigate. Users can easily add and remove scanned items from the shopping car. You can run ShopKeep on an iPad, Clover hardware, such as the Clover Mini, and Android hardware, such as the Sunmi T2 Lite.
ShopKeep has many useful features for liquor stores, including sales restrictions that allow businesses to regulate the sale of specific items based on customer age or purchase quantity. For alcoholic beverage sales, cashiers can scan a customer’s ID with a supported 2D scanner or enter their DOB manually.
9. ACCEO Smart Vendor
ACCEO Smart Vendor is a retail point of sale (POS) and inventory management system that helps small and midsize retailers to manage stocks and process customers’ orders. It also serves a variety of single and multi – locations retailers like sporting goods stores, fashion and garment stores, natural health food stores, garden centres, gift and jewellery shops, grocery and Liquor Stores and more.
Products can be added to the customer’s shopping cart at the POS station using barcode scanners and hot keys. The inventory management module allows users to set up low – stock alerts and prompt reordering reminders. The solution keeps track of customer purchase history and interests which helps to identify and report preferred products and brands as well as their purchase frequency.
10. Acme POS
Acme Point of Sale by Total BusinessWare is an on – premise POS solution that helps businesses across various industries including grocery stores and supermarkets, Liquor Stores, sporting goods shops and pet supply stores to manage POS, transactions and inventories.
Acme Point of Sale comprises of modules like customer history, accounting and inventory and touch screen support. They also provide a variety of hardware – that includes credit card scanners, barcode scanners, registers and electronic scales which integrate with the solution. The hardware components can be purchased separately via solution’s website.
5 Things to Look Out For in a Liquor Store POS System
If you are contemplating what specific features your liquor store point of sale system should have, below are top 5 features to consider.
a. Inventory Management
Have it in mind that even a small liquor store will have thousands of individual products — if not more — and keeping track of every bottle or item on hand can be daunting.
A good POS system will more or less help with inventory control, allowing you to document and track how much you have in stock at any given time and account for losses due to theft. Also note that a good POS solution can even prompt you to reorder when supplies are getting low. An inventory matrix is also useful for sorting different flavours and bottle quantities.
b. Employee Management
Even though you would want to believe your employees will be honest every time they walk through the door and don their multicoloured aprons (or whatever your store uniform ends up being), it is not always the case. However, most POS systems come equipped with security features, including the ability to assign unique pins or swipe – able cards to employees.
Note that with this feature, you can track individual employees’ voided transactions, refunds, exchanges, comps, or any other questionable actions. Also note that you can always designate permissions for your employees, only allowing them to perform certain functions within the system.
c. Customer Management
When clients buy drinks or liquors, it is always important to record the date of sale, the clients name and address, what and how much they bought, and the serial number of any full cases of distilled spirits. In short, you will require a strong CRM system to track your customers and their purchases.
Coupled with compliance, good customer management is also important for driving sales and mining information that can be used for marketing and promotions.
d. Reporting
In the United States, you are expected to track and report all of the alcoholic beverages that arrive at your store, along with where they came from.
A POS with good reporting capabilities can help you make sure you comply with local and state laws and also be useful at tax time. In terms of taxes, some alcohol might be taxed at different rates, so your POS should also be able to calculate and accommodate those rules and generate a report showing what items sold at which tax rates.
e. Age Verification Tools
Typically, with the drinking age set at twenty – one, you will always need to remember to verify a person’s age before you can sell them any of your fine wares.
Indeed blood tests are expensive and only accurate within nine years of the person’s actual age, so you’re probably going to want a POS system that either prompts your cashier to check the customer’s ID before completing the transaction or has a feature that allows cashiers to scan the customer’s ID or enter their DOB manually.
Also note that some systems, such as Lightspeed, even save the customer’s age verification status to their customer profile.
Conclusion
Managing a profitable liquor store can be a daunting proposition. Aside obtaining and maintaining your liquor license, you will also need liquor liability insurance. There are many instances of theft in the industry, making security of the utmost importance.
But, fortunately, a good point of sale system can alleviate a lot of that stress. POS systems do more than just help clerks receive payment. Purchasing the right POS products will improve a store’s internal digital processes and organizational infrastructure as well. Therefore, liquor store owners need to identify products that meet their specific business needs.