Convenience Store POS Software
Get the best convenience store POS software for your business. Compare product reviews, pricing below. Read our buyer’s guide for more help.
Convenience Store POS Software Buyer’s Guide
What is Convenience Store POS Software?
Convenience store point of sale software helps business owners manage store operations with features like payment processing, inventory management, and reporting. Your POS solution should also have age verification functionality for alcohol, tobacco, and lottery ticket sales. Convenience stores with gas stations need to consider solutions with specialized features like integrated pump control and pay-at-the-pump functionality.
Features of Convenience Store POS Software
Payment Processing
Convenience store POS systems allow you to process payments from any method including credit, EBT, and gift cards. Businesses are strongly encouraged to have a POS solution that integrates with EMV chip card readers to reduce fraud risk. If your card reader is not EMV compliant, your business will lose money for fraudulent transactions instead of the bank or financial institution. Newer convenience store point of sale software will allow EMV transactions.
When choosing the right solution, keep in mind POS hardware requirements vendors might have. Most solutions integrate with existing hardware while a few vendors will require purchasing their hardware. POS hardware to consider to assist with collecting payments include credit card terminals and cash drawers.
Inventory Management
POS software automatically updates your inventory counts when an item is sold. When your inventory starts running low, the system will notify you to reorder more. The system can also automatically create purchase orders when inventory levels reach a certain threshold.
Some POS software vendors sell handheld barcode scanners and label printers to assist with inventory tracking and finding price information.
Customer Management
Convenience store point of sale software will assure customers are the right age for restricted purchases like alcohol, tobacco, or lottery tickets. The software will automatically prompt you to scan an ID or enter a date of birth to prevent minors from buying these items. POS software can be localized to ensure you’re meeting local and state laws for restricted item sales. The solution will automatically deny sales of restricted items by time or day of the week depending on regulation requirements.
Convenience store POS systems also integrate with loyalty programs to incentivize customers to keep coming back. Customer loyalty programs can be customized to offer free items or a discount on products with a set number of purchases. Information from the loyalty program is kept within a customer database that stores contact information, email addresses, and purchase history for targeted marketing campaigns.
Employee Management
POS systems assist with staff management. Time tracking functionality allows employees to clock in and out, ensuring they’re at work on-time and not skipping shifts. The system will also allow you to look into an employee’s performance and compare sales data with money in the cash register to prevent theft. User permissions can be set so only certain employees like store managers can void items or authorize discounts.
Reporting
Reporting functionality in convenience store POS software provides real-time sales reports to help you evaluate your revenue to make better business decisions and improve your profit margins. For example, being able to see what items are bringing in the most ROI can help you plan the store layout. You can then place top-performing products in eye-catching spots to increase impulse buys.
Gas Station POS
Convenience stores with gas stations need a point of sale solution with fuel management capabilities to monitor sales, control pump operations and automatically adjust pricing as gas prices fluctuate.
Gas station POS systems allow customers to pay at the pump with debit cards or credit cards with a card reader or opt to pay inside. A receipt printer integrated with the POS system will allow customers to get their receipt right at the pump. Customers can also pay for additional items alongside their fuel at the cash register.
POS solutions tailored to gas stations allow you to control the fuel pump from the system. When customers prepay for a certain amount of gas, the pump will automatically shut off when it reaches the preset limit. In case of emergency, the pump can be shut off remotely through the POS system. Your POS software will also automatically shut the pump off when tank gauge readings reach a certain level to prevent customers from overfilling their vehicles.
Gas prices fluctuate regularly. A POS system will make it easy to update prices for all fuel types across multiple locations. Prices can be scheduled to change at a particular time of day or day of the week.