On the surface, it looks like your package store is ready for busy weekends and holiday seasons of customers streaming in, ready to make their purchases. But if chaos reigns behind the scenes, you’re not alone.
Without a solid grasp of your beer inventory, you might be on a rollercoaster of stockouts, overstocking, and perpetual frustration.
If you've ever battled with misplaced bottles, frustrated customers, or endless manual inventory counts, you know exactly what we're talking about The good news is that there's a solution to these woes, which comes in the form of point of sale (POS) for beer stores.
This post will walk you through the basics of these apps and how they can help your store. We’ll cover the advantages of these apps and then share our list of the top five options you should consider based on your needs.
Do You Need a POS for Beer Stores? Making Package Stores Profitable
Running a profitable package store is a balancing act. Margins can be slim, competition is fierce, and managing a large, constantly rotating stock is complicated. Investing in a robust point of sale system for beer stores and wine shops is one of the best ways to maximize your chances of success.
A POS for beer stores allows package store owners to optimize inventory management, purchasing, and merchandising. This optimization leads to reduced costs and improved efficiency and enables better, data-driven business decisions.
For starters, a good POS tracks real-time inventory across backstock and retail shelves. Owners gain visibility into what's selling and what's gathering dust. This visibility allows you to adjust your purchasing and ordering, minimizing waste and preventing stockouts of bestsellers. You can also use an advanced POS to automate reordering based on preset stock levels.
Related Read: Automated Inventory Management: Why It's a Critical Feature for Retailers [EXAMPLES]
Customer relationship management (CRM) features help you drive repeat business through customer loyalty programs and targeted promotions. A strong POS for beer stores can also handle complex and high-volume sales. Some features are case breaking, flexible payment processing, and automated age verification.
With tight margins in the package store business, every bit of efficiency and cost savings matters. A purpose-built POS system pays for itself by taking the guesswork out of running a profitable beer, wine, and spirits store.
Let’s now take a look at five top options for POS systems for beer stores.
Partender
Best for: Bars
Partender is an inventory management app designed specifically for bars, restaurants, and package stores selling beer, wine, and liquor. This mobile solution simplifies inventory tracking using advanced barcode scanning technology.
Partender allows store owners to scan and count every bottle, keg, and can in their cooler. The app catalogs each item based on distributor, brand, cost, and other attributes. Using Partender, you can gain real-time visibility into exact inventory quantities and costs.
Key features include:
- Mobile inventory
- Ideal stock par level calculation
- Consumption and waste tracking
- QuickBooks integration
Pricing: Partender’s Pro plan starts at $199 per month.
Lightspeed
Best for: Store/Restaurant Combos
Lightspeed offers an integrated POS and inventory management system designed for restaurants, retailers, and hybrid bottle shop cafes. This point of sale solution combines robust inventory features with an easy-to-use retail POS.
Lightspeed helps package stores accurately track thousands of beer, wine, and spirits while seamlessly managing front end sales. At checkout, Lightspeed handles everything from splitting cases, redeeming loyalty points, accepting various payments, and generating receipts. It provides mobile POS capability for linebusting or curbside pickup. Its inventory tools include:
- Barcode scanning capabilities
- Automatic stock adjustment during transactions
- Automated purchase order generation
- Sales metrics and trend analysis down to the SKU level
Pricing: Lightspeed’s Standard package starts at $119 per month.
Bottle POS
Best for: Individual Package and Liquor Stores
Bottle POS is a point of sale system built specifically for beer, wine, and liquor retailers. Our platform streamlines retail management and inventory for a single store or small chain of stores. Bottle POS allows package store owners to track thousands of wine, beer, and spirit SKUs in real time. Inventory can be adjusted easily as sales occur throughout the day.
You can use our solution to quickly gain insights into your highest and lowest-performing products. At the point of sale, Bottle POS enables fast and accurate checkout, including split case sales. Customers can enroll in loyalty programs, apply discounts, and pay with various tenders at the register. Some critical features of Bottle POS include:
- Age verification via scanned IDs
- Integrated customer loyalty
- Automated ranking
- Automated invoicing
- Case break inventory
- 24/7 customer support
Pricing: Find your exact price using our transparent build and price tool.
mPower Beverage
Best for: Advanced Cashiering Features
mPower Beverage offers an advanced POS and inventory management solution built for beer, wine, and liquor retailers. A core capability of mPower is robust inventory tracking. The system logs each product with photos, descriptions, pricing, and real-time quantity available. Inventory adjustments happen automatically with each sale.
Related Read: What's the Best Liquor Inventory System? 5 Best Solutions
Package stores gain insights into their highest-margin items, fastest-selling products, and dead stock to optimize purchasing and merchandising. Automated ordering based on preset par levels eliminates the guesswork of inventory and restocking. Some other critical features of mPower Beverage include:
- Detailed sales reports
- Split case pricing
- Mobile POS and checkout capabilities
- Cloud access
Pricing: mPower’s pricing starts at $1,000 upfront and $120 per month for your first register.
POS Nation
Best for: Convenience Stores and Other Retail
POS Nation offers a complete point of sale solution designed for small businesses and independent retailers across industries. Their system provides POS, inventory tracking, and reporting capabilities. POS Nation’s advanced cataloging capabilities allow package stores to track real-time quantities of all products as sales occur.
Liquor store owners can leverage the data to optimize stock levels, identify fast and slow movers, print shelf tags, and simplify ordering. Robust reporting provides sales analytics by category, brand, product, employee, and more. Some other critical features of POS Nation include:
- Customer loyalty programs
- Gift card processing
- Integration with deli scales for convenience store/liquor store combinations
- Split case pricing
Pricing: POS Nation’s pricing starts at $149 per month.
Getting the Best Results From Your POS For Beer Stores
Running a profitable package store can be challenging, but investing in the right POS system for beer stores is a solid first step in your journey. The solutions covered in this article provide robust tools tailored to beer, wine, and liquor retailers' unique needs.
Remember to watch for key features like accurate inventory tracking, purchase order automation, and sales reporting. Liquor and beer store owners should also check for age verification and case break inventory capabilities to ensure smooth transactions and seamless inventory management.
If you want to take your package store to the next level, Bottle POS might be the right solution for your store. See how our modern POS and inventory management system can help your store reduce hassle and wasted products while boosting sales margins.
Schedule a demo of Bottle POS today to see our specialized features for beer, wine, and spirits retailers and explore how you can use our solution to maximize profits and efficiency in your store.
