“I know my stores inventory”
“My suppliers reps tell me what I need to order”
“I’ve been doing purchase orders by hand for 20+ years and see no need to change that”
“It is more time consuming to automate than to do everything by hand”
“I don’t track inventory”
“I don’t trust technology to create purchase orders for me”
If the above quotes apply to you, then here are a couple of questions for you:
“What products in your store are selling below your target margin?”
“What is your sell through time for that extra case of Vodka that the supplier rep added to your last order?”
“What is the current value of your inventory right now?”
“What happens if you are out for 2 weeks, is there someone else who knows what to order?”
“How much cash is tied up in slow moving products?”
“How many cases of Coors Light did you sell before that big event in 2024?”
“How many hours would you gain back in a typical week by not having to hand write purchase orders?” A typical average is 8 hours based on face to face conversations with 100’s of liquor stores across the United States.
Modern liquor store POS systems offer easily accessible information that expands well beyond creating purchase orders. Specifically:
● Keeping the supplier honest by not selling you products that you won’t sell
● Bridge Buying/Deal Planning tools
● Low margin product reports
● Ability to create purchase orders based on par (minimum) stock levels and product movement data
● Ability to upload and download purchase orders directly with the supplier
● Dog Inventory reports for slow selling product that is collecting dust and tying up cash
● Physical Inventory counts to track shrinkage and adjust quantities on hand
● Historical data to help you plan orders based around events near your store that cause sales of certain products to increase before, during or after the event
● The ability to “human review” everything that the POS software tells you
If the above information has you thinking about at least taking a casual look at automating the ordering and inventory management process in your liquor store, then take a look at the Cloud Retailer Liquor POS software.
