How to Increase Liquor Store Sales in the New Year
A new year is full of opportunity — and that includes new business.
As a liquor store owner, you know that there’s always a market for your product. But how do you make sure you’re reaching new customers and consistently boosting profits all year long?
Check out these five fresh ways to learn how to increase liquor store sales in the new year.
1. Expand Your Liquor Store Inventory
The fastest way to increase your liquor store’s sales is to expand your product offering — but how you do so depends on your customers’ shopping behavior. You’re not going to sell items that no one wants to buy.
Increasing inventory looks different depending on the size of your store. If you have a large physical space, take advantage of any extra room to stock additional shelves with more products. Or, if you’re short on space, simply reduce low-selling stock and increase your top-sellers — you’ll get the most bang for your buck.
Smart point of sale (POS) systems designed specifically for liquor stores will do the hard work for you. For example, Bottle POS comes with an auto ranking feature baked in, which automatically assigns a grade to each item to indicate how well it’s selling.
You can see how your inventory matches up to avoid deadstock, and increase your best-selling products — which is sure to help you increase liquor store sales.
2. Establish an E-Commerce Website
Brick-and-mortar liquor stores are perfect for routine Tuesday night tequila pickups and last-minute celebratory champagne gifts — but they only have so much capacity.
If you want to start scaling your business and boosting profits — without hiring extra help or spending a ton of resources — try setting up an e-commerce website. Your ability to sell products will no longer be confined to city limits or store hours, and if your POS solution is easily integrated with an e-commerce platform, your webstore can be up and running in no time.
Moving your liquor store online will help you reach new customers you may not have been accessible to before. If you give your customers more options, they’ll be sure to bring their business to your business.
3. Step Up Your Social Media Presence
The more people that know about your business, the more you can increase liquor sales — so you need to get your name in front of potential customers. Setting up social media accounts is one of the simplest (and most cost-effective) ways to build your brand, and it only takes a few simple clicks.
Consider which platforms your customers are most likely to be on, and set up shop there. For older customers, you might try Facebook, while younger customers might be more active on Instagram.
You can also use your social media presence to engage and build relationships with existing customers, encouraging more interaction and inspiring customer loyalty. Whether your followers are long-time customers or fresh faces, social media is a great place to run gift card giveaways, raffles, and other promotions — and it makes it easy to direct them to your new webstore.
4. Attract Buyers With In-Store Events and Promotions
You may be stepping up your business’ game online, but it’s still important to get customers through the doors of your physical location — 40 percent of consumers shop in person at least once a week, and 60 percent said they prefer to shop in-store because they can get their items immediately. Plus, it’s a great way to cultivate relationships and personalize the experience that many customers value when shopping at small businesses.
Attract attention with in-store events. Try a “Whiskey Wednesday” tasting, or a wine and cheese pairing night — and offer discounts on these products.
Promote desirable deals that are only available in-store. Consider a BOGO promotion, where a customer receives a significant discount on their second bottle, or a free gift with purchase (think bourbon glasses or wine openers) with any transaction over a certain amount — they might be convinced to spend more.
5. Kick Off a Customer Loyalty Program
Encouraging customer loyalty is one of your best bets when it comes to increasing sales — a five percent increase in customer retention can boost revenue by up to 95 percent.
Set up a customer loyalty program, and send exclusive deals via text message or email marketing — and remember to create a points-based system to reward buyers for each purchase.
Solid POS systems will assign a certain number of points to each dollar, that your customers can then redeem for a discount on future purchases. Not only will you encourage repeat business, but you’ll be able to track their buying behavior — so you know how to smartly stock and expand your inventory to ensure the highest profits. Plus, you can use this knowledge to maximize your marketing efforts and send deals catered to your customers’ tastes.
Learn How to Increase Liquor Sales With a POS System in the New Year
Every business owner is after the same thing: consistently increasing sales. And the start of a new year is the best time to amp up your business efforts, so you can have your most successful year yet.
To make sure you’re giving your customers top-shelf service — and boosting profits — you need a top-of-the-line point of sale solution designed for the liquor industry. Bottle POS is designed by liquor store owners, for liquor store owners, so you can have complete confidence that it will meet every need.
Get started today, and schedule a demo with one of our Bottle POS specialists!
