How to Choose a Point-of-Sale System for Your Convenience Store

A Guide To Choosing the Best POS System for Your Convenience Store

Convenience stores have straightforward goals: they want to live up to their name, ensure happy customers, and increase their level of success. For business owners, offering the necessities to customers who are traveling, commuting, or otherwise pressed for time should be a top priority. Nevertheless, convenience stores won't be able to deliver the service they're known for without a modern, robust point-of-sale business payments system.

Choosing from what seems like an endless list of POS options can be a daunting task, whether you're looking to upgrade your outdated equipment or searching for a point-of-sale solution for your new c-store. Any store, new or old, needs the appropriate POS. Your POS system is more than a payment mechanism. A good POS system can also quickly provide correct data. Which POS system is best for your store? It's not hard to find a new or updated POS system for your organization. Here are our top convenience store POS tips.

Selecting a POS system requires an informed business decision. And, the right POS has key benefits. It can provide detailed sales reports, improve your day-to-day business processes, fine-tune inventory management, contribute to your credibility with customers and customer communications, improve inventory records and inventory tracking, enhance efficient customer service and customer experience, report data on daily business activities, prevent burnout for business owners, aid comprehensive business functions and your business roadmap, help business growth, as well as guide the long-term success of the convenience store.

This article provides expert business tips on what to look for in a convenience store POS system, how to choose the right POS system, and why you should choose a POS system for your convenience store so your busy customers keep coming back.

What to Look for in a Convenience Store POS System

Optimal Customer Experience

Without a positive customer experience, the crucial business operations of a convenience store won't live up to expectations—especially to the customer. You can satisfy customers in a number of ways, namely superior customer service, but a POS system is also essential to support your customers at your convenience store. Customer satisfaction increases with faster and more accurate orders, like when self-service technology such as touch screen kiosks or fixed tablet POS are integrated.

Congestion can be kept to a minimum at the gas pump by using POS units. This reduces wait times and maximizes foot traffic to your convenience store. Ensure your POS can expedite processes with zero downtime at a traditional checkout, perhaps the most critical point in your convenience store. This will make your store truly convenient for your customers.

Ensure your convenience store POS system comes with the right business tools and supports multiple payment options, including contactless payments like Apple Pay and Google Pay, as well as payments made with EMV and credit and debit cards, in addition to providing quick service. It’s important to give your customers a choice of payment methods to increase your potential for sales.

Inventory Management Support

Owning a convenience store is a time-consuming business, and it’s easy to lose track of crucial inventory information and stock management. Even one oversight within conventional inventory control could result in under-ordering merchandise, leading to a loss of essential sales revenue and frustrated customers. With thousands of products delivered weekly, it’s essential to invest in a convenience store POS system that will streamline operations and maximize efficiency with intricate inventory management support.

With access to real time data and inventory management, your POS can help you reduce inventory costs and out-of-stock merchandise, at no extra cost. A projected stock inventory calculator provides the benefit of access to detailed estimations of the time taken to exhaust some items so you always know exactly how to find a balance between current stock and incoming stock. Additionally, a purchase order calculator can predict the amount of stock that will meet customer demand.

Scalability with Multi-store Capabilities

The POS system for your convenience store should have multi-store capabilities so your business and profits can expand along with it, regardless of how many locations you currently have or plan to open in the future. It's impossible to be everywhere at the same time when you own multiple locations. So, your POS' capabilities across multiple stores come in handy. Easily keep track of all your store locations from a single dashboard, including sales, reporting numbers and product tracking.

With all of your store management information in one place, it’s always accessible in case of an emergency, even if you're at home. To make better business decisions, having access to reporting for each convenience store location on your roster will help you compare which processes are working well and which processes need improvement.

How to choose a POS system for your convenience store

You’ll probably want a traditional set-up with a full-service POS for your convenience store. Consider countertop POS systems, which are available in various sizes and take less space than traditional cash registers.

A single terminal is sufficient for most convenience stores. If you have a larger space or deal with variable amounts of traffic, having more than one terminal can help you handle the extra load. Remember: faster service means happier customers and more sales per hour.

In choosing a POS system for your convenience store, you need to consider many things, such as:

Your Budget

When selecting a POS system for your convenience store, keep budget in mind. A typical cloud-based POS pricing model includes a base price and a per-store or per-customer cost based on the number of stores, customers, products, terminals or other factors.

Determine which tier offers the best return on your investment by examining each one in detail. You should also consider the processing fees that come along with it.

Hardware

The size and type of your convenience store will determine the type of hardware you need. If you operate a small convenience store, you may need a tablet, card reader and cash box. However, if you have a larger operation, you may need terminals, receipt printers, barcode scanners, or more.

Software

Because POS systems are only as good as their software, it's imperative that you compare all of your available options and determine which one is best for your store.

Integration

What other tools, apps and software do you use in addition to the point-of-sale system? There are a lot of services out there that have proprietary software that forces you to exclusively use their products. It's a good idea to look into POS systems that work well with a variety of third-party vendors.

PCI Compliance

The safety of electronic payments is critical. This is especially important for small businesses, as nearly 43% of all cyberattacks target them.

Any potential POS system should meet Payment Card Industry (PCI) data security standards (PCI). End-to-end encryption and data tokenization are vital features to look for in a payment processing solution.

Support

Whatever your level of technical expertise, access to customer support is critical. Look for a POS solution that offers 24/7 email, live chat, and phone support if you have problems or need assistance setting up the system.

Ease of Use

The POS system should not require a software professional to install and operate. It needs to be simple to use for the average person. You should be able to use your POS system without consulting the manual or contacting customer service every time something goes wrong.

Automation

Is the system capable of automating tasks and reducing manual input? Data from your logistics and supply chain can be used to update inventory and order information with a good POS solution.

Ease of Scaling your Business

You must continually be planning if you are a business owner. Consider your projected growth rate and use that to help determine your long-term POS requirements. Be sure to ask yourself the following questions before settling on a POS system:

• Can you easily add features to the POS system?
• What’s involved with upgrading and what’s the cost?
• Will you eventually need to switch POS systems?

Get a Trial or Demo of the POS System

With most POS vendors, you can try out the software through demos or free trials so you can examine how the entire system works, try out new features, and see what they have to offer.

Make a list of any issues you encounter, as well as the features you like and dislike. Give the supplier a heads-up so they can address your concerns.

Get References from Other Convenience Stores

Find out what POS system other convenience stores and experienced merchants use after you've reduced your options to a short list. Alternatively, you may inquire about the challenges of the POS system used by other convenience stores.

Why You Should Consider a POS system for Your Convenience Store

You should consider a POS system for your convenience store because it can help you:

• Analyze sales and give insights into your business
• Understand consumer habits and behaviors
• Capture customer data
• Track everything from inventory to employee productivity
• Simplify sales tracking and analysis
• Make you more competitive
• Lend credibility to your business

BNG Point-of-Sale are POS solutions that improve your bottom line. With a full selection of POS systems for various businesses, including convenience stores, you’ll find the right tool to grow your business with the personalized support you need. Connect with us to learn more.

Mobile Point-of-Sale (POS) Systems for Convenience Stores

Why You Need a Mobile POS System For Your Convenience Store

A point-of-sale (POS) system is the combination of software and hardware to facilitate your business operations. Hardware may include a computer, physical terminal, scanner, printer, and other devices to operate the point-of-sale software. The software tracks and organizes your store’s information—all at an affordable price.

Successful convenience stores in the industry use comprehensive convenience store management software solutions for speed of service, customer convenience, to make data-driven decisions and track their product sales mix. Convenience store POS software integrates sales data from registers into inventory management systems as part of these software key features. In a successful convenience store POS, data and analytics play an important role in business performance.

It’s good to understand what a POS system is, but it’s more important to know the benefits it brings to your business. In this article, we'll discuss how convenience store owners benefit from a mobile POS system.

The Benefits of Adding POS Software to Your Convenience Store

There are several benefits to using an advanced POS solution for a convenience store. The following are some of the reasons that convenience stores, business owners, as well as convenience store operators, should consider using a POS system:

Faster Speed of Service

Modern POS systems with advanced features for convenience stores are designed to efficiently and quickly process customer purchases, with an emphasis on "quickly." Convenience store employees are better able to serve increased numbers of customers with a POS system in place. As word-of-mouth spreads about the fast and convenient shopping experience, business owners will see increased sales and increased customer engagement.

Customer Loyalty Program Integration

For growth and business development, successful business owners understand the importance of engaging customers through digital mediums beyond their four walls for customer retention and repeat business. Well-designed convenience store management software packages allow for integration with digital application-based loyalty programs, making it easier to execute data-driven marketing initiatives and promotions, as well as track the effectiveness of such programs.

Better Inventory Management

A POS makes it easy to keep track of your store’s inventory, particularly important following a sale. It allows a convenience store merchant to manage inventory and price inventory in real-time, and know the number of products they have in stock at any given time.

When inventory is received, if the products are already in your catalog, simply scan the items (you will need to have additional hardware to scan barcodes), enter quantities and the items will be recorded in your POS software inventory. Remember to check for broken and damaged items. This saves a lot of time compared to manually tracking inventory. In the end, there will be fewer inventory errors.

Items sold are deducted directly from the inventory following each transaction. This makes it possible to keep track of the quantity of each item the store has in stock.

Quick Payments

A core POS functionality is its ability to make payments faster. The employee enters or scans the products the consumer wants to buy, and the system automatically calculates the price. An invoice can be sent by email or printed with a receipt printer.

Depending on the integrations and the terminal, customers can make debit or credit card payments. This makes it quick and easy for the customer to complete a transaction.

With a point-of-sale, customer wait time is greatly reduced, and employees are more efficient in completing transactions, which gives you a competitive edge.

Better Customer Management

By having a POS system, it’s possible to document your customers’ information in your system, such as their name, phone number, purchases, email, etc. By collecting customer data, you have a better overview of your target market, as well as customer groups (for example your new or loyal customers).

You can incentivize customers to visit your shop more frequently by sending promotions to them or building customer loyalty programs. The system can help you track each customer to offer targeted promotions. Maintaining proper customer information allows you to thoroughly understand your target customers and make better business decisions.

Better Security

The security of a convenience store's data is very important. For instance, you need to keep secure your customer database, customer contact information, customer relationship management systems, and best-performing products (or active products). Your data should only be accessible to the store’s authorized users. With a POS system, your data is more secure from intrusion, ensuring not only good customer experiences but also safety.

Most systems offer two-factor authentication for a convenience store. This reduces the risk of malicious users in your system. The administrator can also quickly grant or block access to users. If you want your data to be backed-up and protected at all times, use a cloud-based point-of-sale.

Better Organization of the Convenience Store

With a POS system, your convenience store can be more organized. As a result, your business may be more productive, which includes more fluid communication with employees, even across multiple stores.

POS systems offer many features that increase operational efficiency, including the management of your sales, inventory, customers, suppliers, etc. With these functions available within the same software, your company only has to use a single platform to perform activities.

For convenience store chains that are part of a network, all members of the network can receive the same information, resulting in fewer communication errors. By reducing these errors, the company can increase productivity, as well as profits.

A POS helps facilitate business activities and planning. By knowing your sales metrics and trends, it will be easier to set your future business goals.

Improved Business Image

Customers may have a more favorable opinion of your business if you use a POS system, compared to another that continues to operate on paper.

With a POS system, customer wait time is reduced and transactions are expedited. These benefits help your business build trust, a positive reputation and a solid level of credibility. Thanks to your business’ efficiency, customers may recommend your business to friends and family.

Regular Updates

For POS systems to function properly, they may need to be updated. These updates could include everything from bug fixes to additional or enhanced functionality.

Some suppliers guarantee that your POS software is up to date. With a cloud-based POS, it's much easier to make changes than it is to an on-site server and POS.

Some service providers offer system management to ensure the POS software functions at top performance for employees and customers. And because the supplier manages the system, companies don't have to worry about it.

Personalization of Customer Updates

A point-of-sale can help you personalize your customers’ shopping experience. With information about your customers, you can offer the products they are most interested in. This may lead to increased customer satisfaction and sales because you offer a product that matches their preferences and tastes.

BNG Point-of-Sale are POS solutions that improve your bottom line. With a full selection of POS systems for various businesses, including convenience stores, you’ll find the right tool to grow your business with the personalized support you need. Connect with us to learn more.

The Advantage of a Point-of-Sale (POS) System for a Convenience Store

Benefits of a POS System for Your Convenience Store

You can satisfy customers and make more sales with an upgraded POS. With faster speed, process payments in less time so no one gets left waiting at the register.

POS systems are similar to cash registers, but because they are computer-based, they give you access to a wealth of data about your convenience store business. Additionally, they offer plentiful features to better run your business. For example, it's possible to connect a POS terminal to a server in the backroom or another location. Or, add handheld devices that are wirelessly connected to the main system. Effectively track a variety of tasks with a POS, and customize the system if your requirements change over time.

The sophisticated and detailed sales reports generated by a POS system are its main advantage over a cash box or a cash register. For example, the software reports allow you to examine store sales in various ways and assist with inventory management—purchasing the correct number of items you need in a more timely manner. It can even assist in calculating how many items to replenish in an order for the upcoming week in consideration of a fast-approaching holiday. This may also reduce shrinkage.

Yet, these features are only part of a POS system’s capabilities. There will be a back-office system that downloads results from all of your registers and consolidates and monitors the information in various ways once your sales are processed. All of this can be integrated into your accounting and inventory software if you're willing to spend the money.

There’s a wide range of costs involved for everything from software and scanners to printers and installation to training and support. However, as your business and annual sales grow, a computerized point of sale (POS) system will not only pay for itself through increased efficiencies, but it will also become critical to simply know what’s going on in terms of customer experience, customer management, customer loyalty, knowing the best-performing products, and monitoring the general financial health of your convenience store.

Buying a point-of-sale (POS) system may seem like a hassle and an unnecessary expense, but if you look closer, you'll find clear gains.

A POS system for a convenience store is necessary to maintain a competitive edge. If you own a convenience store, you know that inventory tracking, organization, and pricing are all critical to achieving your business objectives. That's why your business needs a point-of-sale system—to effortlessly monitor customer satisfaction, customer traffic, accurate and real-time inventory tracking, quick transactions, and optimal business performance.

So, what are the benefits of a POS system for your convenience store? The following are some of the advantages that a POS system can provide to a convenience store:

Strengthen Efficiency

One of the essential features of a POS system is its ability to give management and employees insight into customer demand patterns. They are no longer required to manually track and catalog items with descriptions, or memorize prices and product names. A POS increases employee productivity and reduces communication errors while also providing inventory solutions. The POS system can display all items in the store on a screen with a thumbnail image, making it simple to select and add appropriate items to a sale.

In addition, a POS speeds transactions and customer purchases. It aids retailers in maximizing their earnings potential, as well as contributes to customer service and retention.

Point-of-sale systems minimize human error because most manual steps are now automatically and accurately performed by the system, which giving you an excellent advantage over your competitors. With a POS system, your employees also do not have to deal with hundreds of receipts.

Maintain Price Consistency

Maintaining price consistency can be a challenge within a company, particularly if your convenience store has multiple stores. A POS system presents a significant advantage with access to a digital product database. This allows management to make price changes to products and common items and automatically implementing the changes to all the c-store's branches.

Easier Tracking Staff Actions

A POS system can keep track of every action taken by employees because a team member is linked to every transaction at your company. As a result, a POS assists managers in determining which employees have poor and strong sales performance.

Accurate Reports

A point-of-sale automatically generates transaction reports. This feature allows managers a bird's-eye-view of the company's overall health. A report might show common sales trends or pinpoint areas of unnecessary spending.

Understand a Business’s Return on Investment (ROI)

A POS can help you make informed business decisions. The data collected by a POS allows you to analyze not only financial transactions, but also operational performance. For example, with a POS you are able to reveal a best-selling product among the complete array of available products, identify products with the best margins, simplify accounting operations, determine the best marketing campaign or which season of the year brings in the most sales, spot fraudulent transactions, award the best salesman on your team, avert employee shrinkage, monitor credit transactions, and much more.

Also, based on the data collected, you can optimize the sales process, ordering and marketing to improve profit margin.

Optimize the Check Out Process

A barcode scanner may expedite the checkout process. The system receives all product information in the blink of an eye. Cashiers also have automatic access to customer data at a point-of-sale, and with each transaction additional information is automatically added to a customer's sales history. A c-store can award customers with points based on transaction totals. These points can then be leveraged for future purchases. When stores run loyalty programs, customers come back time and time again.

Loyalty programs, in addition to accepting various payment options, help your stores better market to customers.

Increase Notoriety

Customers are more likely to be satisfied with your c-store business with the numerous benefits of a POS system, including faster checkout times, shorter wait times, and personalized shopping.

Customers who are pleased with their shopping experience are more likely to return and recommend your store to others. The more people who have positive experiences at your business, the more exposure it will get. A company's ability to succeed relies heavily on its customers' experiences.

Fewer errors

If you want to reduce the number of mistakes in your business operations, a POS system can help. Multiple functions of a POS system are specifically designed to reduce errors.

Scanning items, instead of manually entering items, for example, simplifies inventory management by automatically counting your items. When there is a sale or return, the system automatically adjusts inventory. This significantly reduces the likelihood of incorrectly entering inventory.

A POS also automatically generates reports for sales, accounting and inventory. You save time and effort by not creating reports from scratch.

Better Customer Management

Your customers' information can be documented in your system if you have a POS.

You could collect names, phone numbers and/or email addresses and link this information to their purchases. You gain a better understanding of your target market and customer segments by collecting customer data.

Then, you can send special offers to your customers to encourage them to come back to your c-store and build trust with your company. The system will keep track of targeted promotions and their success with customers. Effective customer information management gives you a clear picture of your target audience and helps you make more informed business decisions.

Regular Updates

For POS systems to properly function, they need to be updated. Updates could include everything from bug fixes to additional functionality.

Some suppliers guarantee that your POS software is up-to-date through cloud-based systems. With a cloud-based POS, it's much easier to make changes than it is to an on-site server and POS.

POS system management is provided by some service providers to ensure that the POS system software is functioning at peak performance.

BNG Point-of-Sale are POS solutions that improve your bottom line. With a full selection of POS systems for various businesses, including convenience stores, you’ll find the right tool to grow your business with the personalized support you need. Connect with us to learn more.

Mobile POS For Retail: How Retail Businesses Boost Sales with Mobile Devices

When you think of a point-of-sale (POS) system in retail, a cash register likely comes to mind. A similar tool not only rings up merchandise, it improves sales, service, and the way your business functions. It's called Mobile POS.

As a shopper, you’ve likely already seen Mobile POS used in stores, such as the Apple store, and how it facilitates a smooth ordering process. But, this powerful business software and hardware includes many other features to aid all business types.

This article examines how Mobile POS improves business operations.

How the Best Mobile POS System Can Help Grow Your Retail Business

What is Mobile POS? It’s a POS system consisting of smartphones, tablets, or proprietary mobile devices that do the same work as a cash register combined with a backend stock system. It’s a cloud-based system, but also works offline, and offers benefits for retail employees, managers, and owners onsite at a store and from any other location.

Let’s take a closer look at its benefits:

Smartphones and Portable Devices Lighten the Load on Your Cash Register

With multiple POS systems sharing the load, you ensure faster sales and avoid the dreaded downtime that results from a cash register failing.

Even a smartphone can be used as a POS. Mobile POS works on any iOS or Android smartphone, as well as on a tablet or proprietary POS mobile device.

Mobile POS enhances cash flow throughout the day. Like a cash register, Mobile POS contains card readers with the same payment capabilities, including swipe, chip or contactless credit card and debit card payment processing. It also honors mobile payment options, like Google Pay and Apple Pay.

In addition to chip cards and credit cards, they also process ACH payments at a lower price than credit card fees. Additionally, it logs cash payments and honors gift cards and loyalty deals which aid customer conversion. Paperless, digital receipts also speed processing.

Improved Customer Service

A Faster Checkout Process in Retail Stores

A Mobile POS revolutionizes the in-store experience. That’s right, no more long checkout lines, which the average customer hates. Instead of maintaining one or two dedicated staff members at a checkout counter, all employees can help run orders to reduce customer time in line. This translates to an efficient checkout process and creates happier customers while increasing transactions. This checkout experience also allows for face-to-face interaction for potential upselling.

For retails stores with multiple departments, mobile devices travel from department to department to accept transactions anywhere the store experiences the most customer traffic and sales.

Immediate Access to Inventory

Customers no longer wait while a sales representative disappears to check inventory. These devices offer full inventory visibility and advanced inventory management, including customized stock readings to accommodate size, colors, and alternative products. Access to inventory quickens the shopping and purchasing process.

With everything in hand and instantaneous, store employees enjoy more frequent face-to-face interactions with customers, which helps develop relationships, allows access to read customer preferences, provide alternative options, and upsell other products, such as companion products.

If your store has multiple locations, Mobile POS helps staff quickly identify out of stock items and allows them to guide shoppers to other locations where products are in stock. And as new stock arrives, these devices aid with intuitive inventory data entry, making it easy to multitask on the job.

Immediate Answers on Shipments

If a customer emails, calls, or stops in and asks for the status of an order, store employees can quickly find answers for customers with a touch of a button.

Employees Know Instantly if an Item is on Sale

A Mobile POS system can instantly check if an item is on sale and automatically applies the discount for fast pricing totals. Employees can quickly scan products and provide answers while maintaining face time with customers.

Customer Data Referencing

Mobile POS allows employees to create omnichannel customer profiles for metrics on shopping patterns. Staff can suggest products that fit a customer’s specific preferences thanks to easy access to customer history, even if a customer has an extensive shopping history..

Immediate Returns Capability

Even returns can be processed away from a traditional register. A Mobile POS streamlines every process a customer typically follows, further reducing the time customers stand in line.

Sales On the Go

The benefits to Mobile POS aren’t limited to inside brick-and-mortar stores. If your business makes sales outside your business location, these same systems do the work of an in-house cash register, allowing for a full range of payment types, stock reads, and shipping updates for added customer convenience.

Other Benefits to You as an Owner

A Mobile POS includes powerful benefits for retail business owners:

More Sales Floor Space to Display Inventory

With less need for multiple, dedicated registers, you combat limited floor space and maximize your floor space for more sales per square foot.

As a Brick-and-Mortar Retailer, You can Still Compete with E-Commerce

Online-only retailers are a serious threat to brick-and-mortar retailers, but brick-and-mortar stores have many benefits:

• Customers can try products firsthand
• Customers enjoy personalized service

Mobile POS helps you capitalize on both of these benefits. It not only streamlines the entire buying process, it improves the customer experience by giving shoppers the information they need and increases customer engagement. Staff can get to know their customers better and create customer intimacy which results in better service. With a Mobile POS, staff not only access customer reports to understand shopping trends and preferences that aid with improved selling, they leverage customer insights to create better products and services. Your employees also have more time to tell your business story and build a personal connection. Don’t underestimate the value of your staff developing bonds with customers in forming loyal customer relationships.

The Powerful Hidden Benefits of a Paperless Transaction

Collecting customer email addresses from shoppers to send electronic receipts also supports marketing and advertising efforts. Using the sales histories and preference data of customers, you can send special sales and create exclusive event invitations. A customer may also opt to link to a loyalty program for specials, freebies or discounts. All of this contribute to shoppers’ repeat business.

Improved Reporting

Sales Performance: Provides accurate reports on team member and retail location sales performance, anywhere you are, even from an online store. All data syncs on the cloud and is easily read on a smartphone, tablet or computer.

Stock and Shipping Reports: Provides real-time stock reporting so you know what arrived, what’s still in transit, and what to order next.

Tailored to your Brand and Sales Process

Mobile POS systems can be designed and formatted to seamlessly fit your sales processes and match your brand language and identity for useful and professional interaction.

BNG POS: Recommended to All of our Customers

BNG POS has extensive experience with Mobile POS and regularly provides this sale solution to retail clients. We’ve seen countless examples of how it has improved businesses. With all of the above benefits and features, it’s a cost-effective solution and available for either purchase or lease to best fit your budget. BNG POS system easily scales, making it easy to capitalize on Mobile POS through each stage of growth.

Let us show you what Mobile POS can do for your retail business. Contact us for a free consultation.