How do you track your liquor store sales? More importantly, are you tracking sales data at all?
Imagine navigating a giant maze and trying to find the way forward. Sure, you might get out eventually, but you’ll make a lot of mistakes along the way. Now imagine you had a map.
That’s what sales tracking can do for your business. Instead of making decisions about stock, store layout, and discounts on a hunch, you can track their performance in real time and make informed decisions.
If that sounds complicated, you’re in luck! Most modern point of sale (POS) systems come with sales tracking tools that store owners can use to make smarter business decisions.
In this article, we cover the basics of liquor store sales tracking, why it matters, and what metrics and reports you can follow.
Liquor Store Sales Tracking: The Basics
Sales tracking involves looking at historical sales data to gain useful insights and predict trends.
Sales tracking metrics and reports can be simple or detailed depending on the data you have access to. Some examples of common retail data points include:
- Profit margin per item
- Foot traffic
- Employee sales
- Number of online sales
- Top sellers and underperformers
- Transaction volume at certain times of day
There are many other metrics to track that are liquor store specific, too, such as beer vs. wine sales or the performance of certain breweries or distilleries.
Related Read: Liquor Store Analytics and Reporting: 4 Metrics You Should Track
Why Does Liquor Store Sales Tracking Matter?
Tracking sales data has many benefits for your liquor store. It helps:
- Optimize inventory management
- Identify top-selling items
- Track overall business performance and growth
- Make better strategic decisions
- Improve store layout
- Tailor better discounts and offers
- Ensure compliance and minimize risk
Sales tracking gives you a practical way to see what’s working and what’s not and, most importantly, how to act on it.
Back in the day when sales were tracked by hand or on a spreadsheet, sales data was much harder to analyze. Now, modern point of sale (POS) systems give small and medium-sized liquor stores a simple and cost-effective way to leverage sophisticated reports and analytics to get ahead of the competition.
8 Sales Metrics and Reports for Better Liquor Store Management
If you have a liquor store POS system, you may already have access to a treasure trove of helpful sales data you can use to improve your business processes.
Here are eight liquor store sales tracking metrics and reports to boost your profitability, improve the customer experience, and drive growth.
1. Daily Sales Reports
A daily sales report will help you understand daily performance trends like:
- Peak sales periods
- Total sales revenue
- Number of transactions
- Payment method usage
..and more.
Over time, this information will help you optimize your staffing levels and inventory management.
An example: Say your daily sales report shows consistent increases in beer sales on Thursday and Friday nights. With that information, you can plan to have the most popular beers stocked in advance and enough people at the register to handle the rush.
2. Sales per Square Foot
Optimizing your store layout is vital to driving sales and upselling customers with strategically placed offers.
Sales per square foot is a key performance indicator (KPI) that measures how much revenue you generate within your physical space. In other words, it shows how efficiently you’re using your space. Here’s how to calculate it:
A high figure shows that your space is being used effectively, while a low figure might indicate the need to shake up your store layout.
An example: You see that your store has a low sales per square foot number. Diving into sales reports, you notice that sales of high-end bottles are low. On observation, you realize that the display case tucked away in the back corner isn’t getting much foot traffic. You may then decide to move your high-end bottles more front and center to drive sales.
3. Online vs. In-Person Sales
If you offer both in-person and online sales, it’s important to know the sales trends for both. What people are buying online might not match with what’s in store.
Tracking sales based on what storefront they’re using is a great way to both optimize your stock levels and tailor discounts and promotions specific to each customer base.
An example: After monitoring sales metrics for your online and in-person store, you notice that online customers tend to buy more in bulk. As a result, you use your POS system to create an exclusive tailored wine bundle and email the promotion to your online customers.
4. Discount Effectiveness
Not all sales strategies and discounts are effective. Using a POS system to set up discount codes and offers lets you track them. You can then see which discounts were popular and use that information to make more effective decisions in the future.
If you’re using discounts to sell slow-moving inventory, you can also see if sales of those items increased after the discount was offered.
An example: You set up two offers. One is a buy one get one 20% off sale on select beers. The other is a set 10% discount for cases of beer from a particular brewery. Over time, you see that the set discount is generating more sales, so you decide to rotate which breweries are discounted and abandon the other strategy.
5. Customer Conversion
Conversion rate tracks how the number of people who come into your store and actually make a purchase.
For online sales, it’s the same calculation but with the number of people who visited the website.
Tracking conversion rate in person is a little trickier. You could use a retail traffic counter or even a manual counter to get a rough idea. A good conversion rate for the average retailer is between 20 and 40%.
An example: You count your customers and sales and notice that your conversation rate is only 12%. Knowing your sales are low, you make more of an effort to greet customers and notice that many of them aren’t aware you sell certain types of liquor. You may choose to make your shelf labeling or store layout better and get more sales as a result.
6. Average Transaction Volume
Average transaction volume helps determine whether your customers are buying more high-value items or sticking to smaller purchases. You can calculate it this way:
An example: After a week, you see that while your conversion rate is low, your average transaction volume is over $300. This tells you that customers are gravitating to you as a seller of high-end items, allowing you to adjust your sales strategy accordingly.
7. Inventory Turnover Rate
Inventory turnover rate measures how often your store sells and replaces its inventory over a specific period. This is how you calculate your inventory turnover:
A high turnover rate indicates that your liquor store is selling inventory quickly, which is good because it means less money is tied up in stock. Instead of measuring your overall inventory rate, you can also measure the turnover rate for individual items to know what’s performing well and what’s not.
An example: You decide to monitor the inventory turnover rate for different types of whiskey. You find that your rye whiskey tends to stay on the shelves longer than your bourbon and scotch. As a result, you decide to expand your bourbon and scotch sections to optimize sales.
8. Sales by Category and Vendor Reports
Tracking sales by category (beer, wines, mixers, spirits, etc.) can help optimize your inventory levels, tailor marketing strategies, and discover which areas to invest more in. Put simply, this will help you understand why your customers love coming to your store.
To get more granular, you can use vendor reports to track the sales performance of products supplied by specific vendors. This can help you decide which vendors to stay in business with. It can also give you leverage to negotiate better terms and identify any reliability issues.
An example: You own a general liquor store but specialize in wine selections. After analyzing your sales by category, you find that your wine sales are high but you’re surprised to see your whiskey sales are doing great, especially bottles from a particular vendor. You may decide to work more closely with that vendor to expand your whiskey selection.
Additional Benefits of Sales Tracking With a Liquor Store POS System
While liquor store sales tracking is possible with most POS systems, a POS system specifically made for liquor stores provides a few advantages.
- Auto ranking: Liquor store POS systems like Bottle POS use AI and automation to track which products are best sellers and which are lingering on your shelves.
- Case breaking inventory: POS systems that can track individual bottles within a case give you a more accurate picture of your sales.
- E-commerce integration: A POS system that connects your in-store sales and inventory data with your online store helps you optimize inventory levels and compare sales data more easily.
Boost Your Sales and Improve Profit Margins With a Trustworthy POS Partner
For liquor store owners, mastering the art of sales tracking is not just about keeping good records — it’s about turning insights into actions that boost profitability and growth. By focusing on these key metrics and reports, store owners can not only survive but thrive in the bustling market of liquor sales.
Partnering with a liquor store POS system like Bottle POS can help. Bottle POS was built by liquor store owners for liquor store owners to help them navigate the challenges of modern retail and changing customer demands.
Bottle POS comes loaded with the liquor store sales tracking tools small businesses need to attract new business and boost sales.
To find out more, schedule your free Bottle POS demo today.
