Selling product in your liquor store takes more than a well-placed, enticing advertisement. Once your customers have made it into your store, there’s still a good chance that they’ll struggle to find what they’re looking for, become frustrated, and even abandon their shopping basket in the middle of an aisle!
With hundreds of different kinds of liquor on the shelf, you need a POS solution that will keep track of inventory and allow you to conduct proper ID checks. With the right software, you can even automate the creation of purchase orders, and adjust pricing to accommodate promotions and quantity discounts. The right software will also keep track of licenses and notify staff of any issues.
Before choosing a POS solution, consider the number of locations you have and your business requirements. A POS solution should enable you to expand as you grow. This means that the software must have the ability to import data from other locations, and can consolidate your inventory for comprehensive reporting. Additionally, it should be flexible enough to allow you to compare performance by location. It should also allow you to scan receiving orders for increased accuracy.
A liquor store POS solution should also make it easy to manage inventory and promotions. It should let you change prices across all locations or for specific products. Pricing changes must also be recorded in the inventory system. A good POS solution should also enable you to implement marketing strategies like rewards programs.
A liquor store POS solution should allow you to track sales and inventory in real time. It must also be fast, easy to use, and compliant with all relevant regulations. The software should be able to keep track of hundreds of SKUs and suppliers of products. Moreover, it should also have the capacity to manage customer information and reward your most valuable customers.
In order to complete the sale, you need to have systems in place that make the shopping experience as smooth and streamlined as possible. Follow these simple steps to sell more product and avoid churning customers:
- Track and analyze your product and sales data.
- Offer the best deals.
- Streamline your transactions.
- Upgrade your security.
Not all POS systems are made alike. Today, there is a POS system for nearly every industry. But a local tennis camp wouldn’t know what to do with a system made for a grocery store. For best results in improving your sales, start by choosing a POS system that is specifically built for liquor stores.
1. Track and analyze your product data.
The first step to take for improving your liquor store’s sales figures is to determine exactly what you have in stock and what you’ve been selling. If you don’t know, it’s time to find out. You might be sitting on a large stock of wine that isn’t selling or be experiencing a severe shrinkage of single bottles of beer.
A robust POS solution should be able to help with both tracking inventory and analyzing sales reports from a single dashboard—even when working across multiple stores. With the right POS tools, you can:
- Offer more products. Your store can attract a diverse base of customers with different needs and interests by offering a wide range of products. Use a POS solution that doesn’t limit the number of items you can import into the software and allows for an unlimited number of SKUs.
- Price products accurately. Don’t make your customers play an impromptu game of Supermarket Sweep. If they have to guess how much a bottle of wine costs, there’s a good chance they won’t purchase it. With barcode printing and scanning hardware, you can quickly track, price, and print out custom labels for items that are missing a traditional barcode.
- Keep products in stock. When it comes time to actually take inventory, you may find that high-traffic items are regularly out of stock. Instead of tracking inventory by hand and manually placing orders with vendors, use your POS system to set inventory minimums that automatically trigger reorders when product stock drops below a set threshold. This way, the products that your customers want will always be on your shelves.
In addition to keeping your stock and sales data automatically updated, your POS solution should also give you access to real-time, customizable reports on everything from peak business hours to most profitable products that will help you measure and assess your business’ successes and opportunities. Leverage these reports to make the best-informed decisions for your business. For example, knowing your busiest hours will help you determine the appropriate number of employees for each shift to better serve customers, prevent staff overload, and retain your employees.
2. Offer the best deals.
Consider the following two statistics:
- According to POS Nation’s guide to liquor store business plans, only 25 percent of sales come from the top 50 liquor store companies.
- Moreover, 91 percent of consumers shop with businesses that remember them and make relevant offers and suggestions.
Taken together, these stats spell great news for small liquor stores. They lay out a clear process for how to attract customers to your business with competitive discounts and an irresistible loyalty program. Consider implementing the following approaches with your POS solution to increase customer loyalty and direct them to the products you need to sell:
Customer retention is crucial for any business, and there are several strategies that can be adopted to ensure the success of customer relations. These include a consistent focus on customer care and support, a unified omnichannel approach, and brand-specific promotional efforts. Ultimately, customer retention is a measure of how well a company can convert customers into repeat customers. While most companies spend most of their time pursuing new client acquisition, customer retention is a major revenue driver for many companies.
One strategy for customer retention is to regularly solicit customer feedback. This information is invaluable to a business, as it helps identify areas for improvement. In addition, customer feedback helps a business determine what works well and what doesn't. To collect this data, companies can send questionnaires to customers via email. Once they receive the feedback, they can analyze the data and share it with different departments.
Another strategy to increase customer retention is to offer incentives to loyal customers. Creating a customer loyalty program allows customers to receive personalized offers based on the products they frequently use. The incentives will increase the customer's desire to continue purchasing from the company. Another strategy is to develop a strong online presence, with a robust website and social media pages. Failure to establish a strong online presence can lead to customer loss. Moreover, a poor online presence may result in negative reviews and a drop in customer retention. By maintaining a strong online presence, businesses can enjoy low customer acquisition costs and a boost in revenue.
The most important strategy for increasing customer retention is to focus on the customer's experience. Having happy and satisfied customers will drive more sales and loyalty. Moreover, a satisfied customer is more likely to recommend the business to others.
- Rewards program. Rewards programs can take many forms, but the basic premise is generally the same: After a certain amount of purchases, frequent buyers are rewarded for their loyalty with in-store credit or discounts. Your point of sale solution should keep track of your customers’ contact information and purchase history, and make it easy for them to track and redeem their rewards.
- Cash discounts. Credit card processing costs can quickly accumulate and be a large expense for your business. You can use your POS system to automatically give customers who pay in cash (instead of card) a percentage off their purchase. Not only will this keep credit card processing costs down, it also incentivizes customers to buy more product and return to your store in the future.
- Mix and match pricing. Customers often want to try new items, but they don’t want to be saddled with a big purchase if they end up disliking them. With mix and match deals, your customers can create a six-pack of craft beers of their choice or select three different bottles of wine for a discounted price. A liquor store-specific POS solution should have built-in features that allow you to quickly sort and label these items.
As you utilize these tools to develop a memorable loyalty program, leverage data marketing strategies to effectively tailor and send relevant deals to the right consumers in the right places at the right times.
3. Upgrade your security.
Loss prevention is one of the less glamorous aspects of running a business, but it goes hand in hand with selling more product. Inventory that is lost or stolen is inventory that you simply aren’t able to sell. Take advantage of built-in POS features to reduce inventory shrinkage:
- Exception reporting ties any discounts, voided sales, and unusual activity to specific employees. Staff can also flag returned damaged items, stolen or missing items, and transactional errors.
- Blind cash drawer counting requires employees to count their cash drawer at the beginning and end of each shift without knowing how much cash is supposed to be in the drawer. As a result, all discrepancies are tied to specific employees and can be quickly addressed.
- Choosing a trusted POS vendor will give you confidence in your system and offer support if you do face any issues. Look for vendors that have positive reviews and are trusted by other liquor stores. For example, both Catapult, Heartland, and POS Nation’s liquor store POS solution are used by thousands of liquor stores and wine shops across the U.S. When you’re considering solutions, ask: Will support representatives help install the system and train my staff? Do they offer 24/7 service? How can they help if something goes wrong?
But security doesn’t stop there. Today, 43 percent of cyber attacks are targeted at small businesses and the overwhelming majority of those businesses close within six months of the attack. Thus, you’ll also want to use a POS system to protect both your business’ and customers’ sensitive data. Your solution should follow top data security protocols, including card encryption, secure, multi-factor password standards, and the ability to assign levels of user permission.
Don’t let your POS system hold your business back. If you’re ready to jump on the POS system bandwagon, make sure the solution you choose will support each of the strategies discussed above. If you’re already using a POS system, take some time to explore your system and the features it offers for your liquor store sales, product, and employee management. Determine if it meets your liquor store’s needs. Otherwise, it may be time to choose a POS system that doesn’t hold you back!
About the Guest Author
Will Atkinson – Vice President, Customer Success
Will has been around retail POS all his life, growing up in the family business with CAP Software. He’s held roles in shipping and receiving, equipment staging, sales, marketing, product development, and partnership management. He took over the company in 2008, and recently managed the acquisition by POS Nation in 2020. He has extensive experience as both a VAR and an ISV. Away from the office, Will is a father of two and enjoys spending his hours outdoors hunting and fishing with the kids, driving race cars at the track, and traveling with the family.
