Setting up a new grocery store business is a challenging task that requires setting up complex processes, devising pricing plans, and creating marketing strategies to attract customer attention, among other things. Having a dynamic and intuitive grocery POS software system to aid your business operations can help you optimise business processes, improve margins, manage employees, and increase security. Let’s take a look at six must-have features of grocery store management software systems:
Inventory Management
Having a fully-stocked inventory is essential to run a thriving grocery store business. In order to assist you in keeping a track of product inventory and refills and on products with approaching ‘best before’ dates, Grocery Stores POS Software system should update all sales and vendor-delivery information on a regular (preferably daily) basis. Furthermore, the system should alert you whenever a particular product is about to run out of stock and help you identify in-demand products, as per the weather, trends, and changing customer choice.
Functionality-Based Access
Since the POS system has so many end-points and data points, there has to be a functionality-based access to prevent unauthorised access to information. For instance, if there are multiple POS terminals, your cashier shouldn’t be able to view the cumulative sales, customer information, or revenue reports. Similarly, for small businesses, other than the business owner and manager, access to information regarding total cash receipts, profit margins, popular products, and other business-sensitive data should be completely curtailed.
Loyalty Program Integration
Grocery store loyalty programs have proven to increase customer retention in an industry that survives on wafer-thin margins. However, setting up a parallel loyalty system with a separate infrastructure will not only complicate business operations but also lead to an unsatisfactory customer experience. Hence, intelligent Grocery Stores POS Software systems must have loyalty program integrations to facilitate a seamless process for the business and a holistic experience for the customer.
Bookkeeping
With hundreds of products sold in thousands, it can be a statistical nightmare to keep a track of each product – its cost price, selling price, date of manufacturing, best before, and discount offered. However, modern-age POS solutions automate the process and undertake complex calculation to tell you relevant data, information, and numbers. They simplify the task of bookkeeping tremendously and allow store managers and owners to focus on driving business growth and attracting customers.
Staff Management
Grocery stores are likely to have employees in double-digits to help with product management, loading, display, billing, and customer assistance. New-age POS systems can help businesses keep a track of employee productivity by measuring the number of customers they tend to, the number of items they bill and measure the sales made by individual employees. Depending on the employee title and role, managers can develop key metrics to be measured for performance and efficiency and avoid micromanagement for their employees.
Cloud-Based Access
Having all your operations based on the cloud is not just critical – it is indispensable. Cloud-based POS systems eliminate the reliance on hardware devices and systems to store and process customer orders. In addition to providing secure data backup and security, cloud-based Grocery Stores POS Software solutions offer real-time reporting of sales and inventory. Furthermore, they allow remote management for business owners who have multiple stores or franchisees.
Loyera is an intelligent, cloud-based, and feature-rich Grocery Store POS Software system that can help your store with billing, customer management, loyalty, and e-commerce. Get in touch with us to know more about how your grocery store can benefit from Loyera.