So you’re planning to open a liquor store. Or maybe you recently have. You’ve researched all of the licensing requirements and paperwork that must be filled out. You’ve found and purchased a prime location in a good neighborhood, without too much competition. You’ve even made a few decisions about the inventory you’d like to stock and some employees you’d like to hire.
But have you put any thought into the type of liquor inventory software you’re going to invest in?
Customer Relationships Are Key
Liquor stores can be tricky to operate. On the plus side, they’re a fairly stable business type. Even in tough economic times, many people will still spend their hard-earned money to buy your products.
Unfortunately, the low-margin nature of the business requires that in order to make a profit and have enough cash to run your company, you need a very high volume of sales. That means you must constantly bring in new customers, while keeping the ones that already have. Without software that provides the customer information that you need, you will be working in the dark.
You need a system that keeps track of each customer’s purchases, so that you can start to understand their habits, along with what products they like and what products they don’t like. With good liquor inventory software, you will know that Robert, one of your regulars, enjoys checking out different craft beers each time he comes in. The next time he walks through the door, a friendly, “Hey, Robert, a new beer from your favorite Florida brewer just came in yesterday” could work wonders in personalizing his experience in your store.
Another one of your loyal customers, Amanda, usually purchases high-end vodkas and rums for the lavish parties she throws at her house. Since she often spends a lot of money at your store, you could send her a coupon from time to time to show her that you appreciate her business. Without simple inventory software, you wouldn’t know her purchase habits and this type of excellent customer service would not be possible.
To bring in new customers, your liquor inventory software needs to offer a referral program. This type of program provides an incentive to your loyal customers, like Robert and Amanda, to spread the word about your liquor store. When one of Robert’s or Amanda’s friends or family visits your store and makes a purchase, Robert and Amanda will receive discounts toward their future purchases. This is a great way to increase your number of customers and your number of sales.
Again, without great inventory management software, there would be no way to do this.
So Many SKUs, So Little Time
With a liquor store, you have a lot of inventory–a lot of different products with a lot of different item numbers. Not only are there many different types of liquor (rum, vodka, wine, beer, etc.), there are many different brands and qualities of each of those liquors. To keep track of them, your inventory system software must have the ability to group items into brands, departments, and product types. This keeps things organized, but more importantly, enables you to view the performance of each group.
It’s important to know how your items are performing on a brand, department, and product type level, but to run a successful company, you need to know how individual items are performing as well. Your liquor inventory software must provide you with up-to-date information on what items are selling and what items are sitting on your shelves unsold. Even better, great liquor store pos systems should suggest the items to include on your next purchase order. With this information, you can make confident and informed stocking decisions about all of your inventory.
Liquor inventory software should also make it easy to find the information for a particular item at any time. You should be able to simply scan the item, and all of its details appear instantly. This includes the item’s categories, pricing information, min/max levels, current stock levels at all branches, transaction history, and any serial number information.
A Faster Sale
Checking the IDs of customers during a sale is a necessary part of the liquor store business. But it does slow things down. To make up for it, the rest of the transaction process should be as quick as possible. Collect a few details about the customer, scan the barcode the product, and collect payment–from a mobile device or desktop workstation. That’s it. With great liquor store pos software, you’ll have few long lines and few disgruntled customers.
As you can see, operating a liquor store without an inventory management system is a really bad idea. You’ll struggle to make smart decisions about your inventory and it will be a constant challenge to bring in new customers, while keeping the ones you have. You’ve made great choices up to this point, so make another one buy investing in high-quality liquor inventory software.