Running a liquor store can be a profitable (and fun!) endeavor, but success isn’t guaranteed. While there’s a certain amount of luck involved, the bones of a popular liquor store are made up of efficient processes, effective marketing, and consistent employee training.
Whether you’re starting your liquor store journey or are simply looking for tips to boost sales or reduce costs, we’ve got you covered.
Let’s dive into seven essential steps for running a thriving liquor store.
How much time per week do you spend on writing purchase orders, invoicing, or doing cycle counts? How often do you see long lines form because cashiers are checking IDs by hand or needing to manually apply a discount at the register?
For many liquor store owners, the answer is simply “too much.” In most cases, those slowdowns aren’t due to any fault of their own, but the result of using outdated or improper tools.
Just like you need a good shaker to make a perfect margarita, the right liquor store system makes all the difference in running your store efficiently.
The cornerstone of your liquor store is a point of sale (POS) system. Far more than just processing transactions, the right point of sale can streamline every part of your business operations — from monitoring stock levels and writing purchase orders to managing customer loyalty and setting up promotions.
Using any POS system is better than managing the store with spreadsheets, but not all POS systems are built for the specifics of the liquor industry. An industry-specific POS system helps you save time through:
The right system can save you dozens of hours every week in data entry and other mundane tasks, which means you can spend that time on more important tasks like marketing and serving customers.
Related Read: 7 Crucial POS System Features Every Liquor Store Needs
One of the first (and most important) decisions you need to make about your small liquor store is what kind of bottles to sell. Put another way, what do you want your store’s reputation to be?
Do you want to be known as an expert in local craft brews, a jack of all trades, a collector of niche whiskeys, or the go-to store for wine recommendations?
Instead of stocking a little of everything and hoping for the best, think about what sets your small business apart from the competition.
The obvious place to start is your own passion and expertise. Order unique bottles and use educational signage and displays or your newsletter to capture customers’ interest. But more importantly, closely follow your customers’ preferences.
Use the reports on your POS system to see which specific brands and product categories are the most popular with your customers. You can then start to expand your stock in those areas.
Some systems, like Bottle POS, include automatic product ranking, which uses your sales data from the last 30 days to rank bottles from A to D (with A being your bestsellers, and D not selling at all). This not only helps you avoid overordering unpopular bottles, but gives you a bird’s eye view into the specific products and brands that drive profits at your store.
Your employees are the key to running your liquor store smoothly. From restocking your shelves to providing excellent service to each of your customers, they play a foundational role in your business’ success.
Labor costs aren’t cheap, but investing in your employees is an extremely effective way to stand out from nearby stores. Equally important is ensuring they have the right tools to do their jobs efficiently.
Here are some tips:
Employee management is another area where the right POS system makes a major difference. Liquor store POS systems can handle payroll, schedule daily tasks like cleaning and inventory counts, and manage employee permissions so only the right people have access to critical features.
Liquor POS system features like these save you time, keep your store secure, and ensure that everyone on your team can work efficiently.
Bringing in new customers is important — keeping them is the key to long-term success. Why? Because returning customers spend more, build your reputation through reviews and referrals, and help you define your niche.
The two keys to customer retention are having a superior collection and effective marketing.
In addition to tracking your customers’ preferences, improve your selection by following liquor industry trends and forming connections with local distilleries and breweries.
Personalized recommendations and marketing are how your store will float to the top of customers’ minds when they’re next ready to buy a bottle. The first step? Create a customer loyalty program.
In exchange for giving you their contact info, loyalty programs reward your customers with points every time they make a purchase. These points can later be redeemed for freebies like a bottle opener or other merch and discounts. Points programs are fun and incentivize customers to stick with your store, but they also allow you to tailor recommendations to your customers.
Here are a few examples of personalized communications you can send to your loyalty members:
Many POS systems let you manage a loyalty program directly from the same system you use to track inventory and ring up customers.
Plus, a loyalty program that’s integrated with your POS system gives you detailed insights into your customers’ preferences and shopping habits, so you can make informed inventory and marketing decisions.
In the liquor industry, complying with laws regulating the sale of alcohol is essential. Selling alcohol to underage customers can lead to hefty fines and penalties at worst, and permanently damage your store’s reputation at best. Don’t jeopardize your liquor store’s success!
This means you need an easy and accurate way to verify customers’ ages. Using a POS system with integrated age verification is a great way to remind cashiers to check ID and to make the process itself quicker.
Set it so all age-restricted inventory prompts the cashier for an ID check that can only be overridden by a manager. Then, ideally, use a compatible 2D barcode scanner to scan and verify the ID instantly instead of checking each ID by hand. Systems like Bottle POS log whether an ID was checked for each transaction, making it easier to comply with any legal inquiries.
In addition to checking IDs, some states require liquor stores to keep detailed inventory records (when inventory was received, quantities sold, who it was sold to, etc). An industry-specific POS solution saves all of this information automatically for quick retrieval.
When many people think of marketing, they think big TV commercials, people in corporate offices running ad campaigns, or huge sales events. But in truth, small business marketing is smaller scale and much easier.
Your liquor store marketing serves a few goals. It helps you:
That might seem daunting on the surface, but good marketing doesn’t require a dedicated advertising expert — you just need to do a few things consistently.
First, have a rotating selection of deals on popular and local products. This encourages people to pop into the store to see what’s featured and on sale. If you’ve built relationships with local brewers and distillers, consider hosting a tasting event at your store to turn your customers into experts.
Create standing displays near the front of the store that feature new arrivals and current deals, so customers get a sense for what makes you special from the minute they come through your doors.
Back up your discounts with a solid newsletter and social media posts. Don’t just tell people what you have, but why they should care. In other words, don’t be afraid to show off your personality and expertise — many liquor stores have a similar selection, and it’s often the expert recommendations and friendly atmosphere that make one store more appealing than another.
Here’s the bottom line: Regularly setting up discounts on your POS system and sending out marketing messages goes a long way toward connecting with your customers and keeping your brand top of mind.
As you run your liquor store, you’ll naturally think of questions:
“Which products sell most on the weekends?”
“When are my busiest hours?”
“What types of drinks are more popular around the holidays?”
“How do my sales this year compare to last year?”
… and many more.
The reports and analytics tools on your POS system will guide you toward the answers. Every time you receive an invoice, make a sale, or sign up a customer for your loyalty program, your POS system generates data. The reporting tools contextualize this data to give you an unbiased way to monitor your store’s performance and identify things like:
Instead of just looking at sales, this information allows you to see the specific products that are driving success and any areas that are holding your store back. These insights help you fine-tune your inventory, adjust your store layout to your customer preferences, manage staffing schedules, and, ultimately, increase your liquor store’s profitability.
Running a liquor store can be extremely rewarding, but it can also be overwhelming without the right tools.
Bottle POS was made by real liquor store owners to tackle the unique challenges of running a liquor business. We offer an affordable, easy-to-use solution that’s packed with industry-specific tools like auto receiving, automatic product ranking, ID scanner support, and other tools that save you time and money.
To learn how Bottle POS can help you run your liquor store, schedule a live, personalized demo today with one of our liquor industry experts.
Bottle POS was designed to be smart and simple. Instead of having hundreds of features that liquor store owners won't use, we concentrate on the features that really make a difference.
