Running on empty, plagued by inaccurate stock counts, and drowning in spreadsheets? As a wine merchant, managing your precious inventory can sometimes feel like balancing a champagne glass tower on a teeter-totter.
Imagine, instead, a scenario where you can minimize the risk of running out of stock, predict customer demand, and centralize product information no matter how many locations or sales channels you expand to. When you implement cloud-based inventory management software, you can live this dream.
This post covers five top options for cloud-based inventory management software for wine shops. For each, we’ll talk through features and pricing, giving you all the information you need to make the right choice for your store.
Do You Need Cloud-Based Inventory Management Software?
Before we explore our list of the best cloud-based inventory management solutions for wine shops, let’s answer a critical question: What is cloud-based inventory management software?
These solutions deliver stock control and analytics tools through secure internet servers rather than complex systems installed locally. This online software model offers clear advantages for today's wine shops and liquor stores.
Related Read: Cloud vs. Server POS System: 14 Pros and Cons To Consider
Key benefits include:
- Real-Time Accessibility and Updates: Cloud-based software allows you to access critical inventory data like supply levels, transfer statuses, and customer preferences from any internet-connected device at any time.
- Automation and Scalability: Cloud platforms easily scale to accommodate business growth across unlimited products, locations, or sales channels. Many solutions also have robust automation tools and capabilities to automate tedious manual processes.
- Data Security and Encryption: Leading cloud-based platforms leverage enterprise-grade security protections for your store’s point of sale (POS) data.
However, you must consider that not all cloud-based inventory management software is created equal. When you explore available solutions, you should ensure the software you pick has the features you need for your store.
Some features wine shops should be on the lookout for in their inventory management software include:
- Case break inventory management
- Batch expiry management
- Automated reordering
- Advanced reporting and analytics
- CRM and loyalty programs
With the right cloud-based platform, wine shops can focus on customer relationships rather than inventory hassles. Keeping this in mind, let’s examine our list of the top five cloud-based inventory management software solutions we recommend for wine shops in the current market.
1. Innovint
Best for: Wineries
Innovint offers an end-to-end winery management platform to connect and streamline operations across the vineyard, production, inventory, and compliance teams.
Top features include:
- Vineyard Tracking: Wineries can use Innovint to record seasonal viticulture metrics like maturity sampling, yield projections, and more to inform harvest and grape contracting.
- Wine Production: Innovint allows store owners to create digital work orders and track fermentation details, blending, additions, and activities for each wine lot.
- Inventory Control: Use this tool to gain real-time visibility into case goods and bulk wine inventory levels and movements.
- Automated Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) Reporting: Innovint’s system generates required federal reports and ensures full compliance across winemaking processes.
- Accessibility: Your teams can use Innovint to access relevant information from any device through desktop and mobile apps.
Innovint connects vineyards to cellars to sales channels as an end-to-end platform, providing true visibility into costs and profitability. The centralized database eliminates relying on disjointed spreadsheets and whiteboards. Wineries of all sizes can digitally transform operations for efficiency, quality, and scalability.
Pricing: Innovint’s pricing is available only by contacting sales.
2. Bottle POS
Best for: Independent liquor, beer, and wine shops
Bottle POS offers an all-in-one point of sale and cloud-based inventory management solution for alcohol retailers.
Key Bottle POS features for liquor, beer, and wine shops include:
- Automated Ranking: Bottle POS’ software automatically grades products as A, B, C or D sellers to optimize merchandising and purchasing.
- Inventory Control: Bottle POS offers a centralized database of over 20,000 SKUs that makes updating new and existing products simple. The solution also automates purchase orders and invoice processing to simplify inventory management.
- Age Verification: Use Bottle POS’ compliance features like scanning identification and birthdate capture to prevent illegal sales.
- Dual Pricing: Our solution allows cash/credit pricing to reduce card processing fees.
- Loyalty Programs: We offer a built-in rewards system that tracks customer purchase history and contact info to encourage repeat business.
- E-Commerce: Bottle POS offers an integration with a customizable online liquor store to facilitate web sales and pickup/delivery.
Bottle POS suits independent retailers looking for an integrated platform to modernize POS transactions, gain inventory insights, and reduce labor needs — all designed explicitly around liquor and wine store operations.
Pricing: Get a custom quote for your ideal solution using our transparent build and price tool.
3. Epos Now
Best for: Bars and restaurants
Epos Now provides a cloud-based point of sale and management platform tailored for hospitality businesses like bars, restaurants, cafes, and pubs.
Key features include:
- Ordering and Table Management: Epos Now digitizes orders from tables, bars, and kitchens and syncs orders between devices.
- Stock Control: You can use Epos Now for real-time visibility into ingredient and liquor inventory across locations.
- Staff Management: Epos Now offers tools for managing employee hours, roles, locations, and shift scheduling.
- Reporting and Analytics: Gain insights into sales, revenue, menu/category popularity, customer data, and other KPIs with Epos Now’s reporting.
- Omnichannel Processing: This tool facilitates online ordering, delivery integrations and contactless in-venue payments for maximum revenue channels.
Epos Now suits bars, restaurants, and food-and-drink-focused merchants needing integrated management of transactions, inventory workflows, and staff, alongside analytics to increase efficiency and profitability.
Pricing: Epos Now’s solution starts at $249 upfront, plus variable monthly fees based on your business needs.
4. POS Nation
Best for: Small retailers
POS Nation provides a customizable cloud-based POS system to streamline operations for small retail and liquor stores. POS Nation also offers solutions ideal for hardware stores, lawn and garden centers, and convenience stores.
Top features include:
- Inventory Management: POS Nation offers tools for centralized inventory tracking, reordering, distribution across locations, and reporting.
- Loss Prevention: This solution provides employee access controls and pairs with security cameras to help minimize retail theft and shrinkage.
- Loyalty Programs: You can use POS Nation to create customized rewards programs to encourage repeat business and gain customer purchase data.
- Omnichannel Sales: POS Nation unifies in-store and online sales channels for unified revenue tracking and inventory allocation between shelves and web orders.
With tailored capabilities and pricing for smaller operations, POS Nation simplifies critical workflows to help independent stores enhance their customers’ shopping experience. Small retailers in multiple verticals may find POS Nation a strong solution.
Pricing: Get a custom quote online with POS Nation’s pricing tool.
5. Lightspeed
Best for: Enterprise wine shops
Lightspeed offers an integrated cloud-based point of sale and inventory management platform for larger-scale alcohol retailers. Their solution offers robust features that can benefit enterprises, but may be overwhelming for smaller retailers.
Key features include:
- Robust Inventory Tools: Lightspeed’s advanced functionality allows for tracking stock across high SKU counts and multiple locations, with capabilities like mass updates and low stock alerts.
- Age Verification: Lightspeed prompts cashiers to scan IDs and captures customer birthdates at checkout to prevent illegal sales.
- Omnichannel Sales: Lightspeed’s unified solution facilitates in-store, online, delivery, and mobile checkout.
- Custom Reporting: You can use Lightspeed to gain real-time visibility into sales, inventory, employees, and other KPIs with flexible reporting parameters to uncover data-backed opportunities.
- Integrated Payments: This tool enables secure acceptance of all major card types at clear rates directly within the software.
With enterprise-grade capabilities that scale, Lightspeed might be the best solution for fast-growing alcohol retailers managing complex, distributed operations and selling across diverse channels.
Pricing: Lightspeed’s Standard package starts at $119 per month.
The Best Cloud-Based Inventory Management Software for Your Shop
When it comes to managing wine shop inventory, you want a solution that goes beyond basic spreadsheets and manual processes. The cloud-based options covered in this article aim to deliver more automation, insights, and scalability to various wine- and alcohol-based retailers. If you’re an independent wine retailer and want a purpose-built system designed for small businesses like yours, Bottle POS may be your answer.
Bottle POS offers an integrated point of sale and inventory management platform for wine and liquor stores. You get all the features you need for seamless inventory control, including case break management, batch tracking, expiration date monitoring, automated reorders based on par levels, and CRM.
Our robust, all-in-one system handles everything from age verification compliance to checkout processing across registers and mobile devices. Bottle POS scales up or out as your business grows to accommodate unlimited products, locations, and transactions — all while reducing operational overhead.
Ready to transform how you manage your wine and spirits inventory? Schedule a demo today to see Bottle POS in action.
