Most shoppers don’t show up to your supermarket, wander your aisles, and fill their carts with random items. Instead, they made a plan before setting foot in your store, creating a detailed list of everything they need to stock their refrigerators and pantries for the week.
This thorough, organized process is exactly how you should approach your search for a supermarket point of sale (POS) system. Instead of hoping that a provider will offer the right features, you need to determine your must-haves and shop with them in mind.
To help you make your list, we’ve put together this list of nine essential checkout, inventory management, and marketing features to look for in a supermarket POS system.
Speedy Checkout Features
Your supermarket POS system should process payments quickly and securely, ensure each transaction is reflected in your inventory and sales records, and keep your checkout lines moving.
Here are three features that can help you accomplish these goals.
1. Customizable Touchscreen and Hotkeys
During the checkout process, every second counts. That’s why we recommend investing in a supermarket POS system with a customizable interface.
Putting your cashiers’ most-used functions at their fingertips will help them easily navigate the software and ring up customers’ items quickly and accurately.
You can also set up hotkeys, which let your cashiers ring up popular items with the touch of just a few buttons. For example, if scanning the tiny barcode on unit-priced items like bananas often slows down the checkout process, you can create a hotkey so that your cashiers simply have to enter the quantity.
2. Flexible Payment Options
Choosing a supermarket POS system compatible with various payment types can speed up the checkout process, increase customer satisfaction, and even protect your store from fraud.
Along with standard cash and card payments, we recommend accepting contactless payments and EBT.
Since contactless and tap-to-pay technologies are tokenized, they’re more secure for you and your customers. Plus, your customers won’t have to rummage around in their wallets, which saves time at the checkout counter.
Accepting EBT payments can also expand your reach and increase your revenue, which is a win-win for you and your community.
3. Scale Integration
Scale integration is a must-have if you frequently sell meat, cheese, or bulk items like granola or rice by weight.
Rather than manually calculating an item’s price and weight, you can place it on the scale, enter the item type, and let your POS system do the rest. It will record the items’ weight, subtract it from your stock records, calculate the price, and print a custom barcode label.
Your deli and butcher departments, cashiers, and customers will all appreciate the streamlined, stress-free process.
Grocery Inventory Management Features
Inventory management is one of your toughest responsibilities as a grocer, but there’s good news: your POS system can help.
Here are three features you need to keep your shelves and coolers perfectly stocked.
4. Real-Time Inventory Monitoring
Your supermarket POS system should constantly monitor your store’s inventory levels, letting you see exactly what you have in stock from anywhere, at any time.
This real-time overview will help prevent stockouts before they impact your bottom line, keeping your sales and customer satisfaction high.
5. Automated Purchase Orders and Receiving
Automation is a game changer when it comes to grocery inventory management.
Your supermarket POS system should detect when an item’s inventory drops below a certain threshold and automatically generate a purchase order to replace it.
You can also use your POS system to automate the receiving process. When new stock arrives, you can update your inventory levels in seconds rather than manually adding each item, saving you time and making the restocking process effortless.
6. Advanced Reporting and Analytics
Your supermarket POS system is a goldmine of inventory data, so you need one with powerful reporting and analytics capabilities.
Your supermarket POS system should reveal your overall sales trends, calculate inventory turnover rates, and reveal how each of your products performs.
For example, your software might reveal that fresh fruit sales trend up during the spring and summer months, but drop in the fall and winter. With these insights, you can prevent stockouts and spoilage by adjusting to seasonal changes in fruit demand.
Grocery Store Marketing Features
The right supermarket POS system can also be a powerful marketing tool, helping you bring new customers through your door and keep them coming back.
Here are three sales-boosting features to look for.
7. Customer Loyalty
Loyalty programs are a go-to marketing strategy for grocers — and for good reason. They allow shoppers to save while encouraging them to spend, which increases your revenue and customer satisfaction.
Your supermarket POS system should make launching a customer loyalty program a breeze. You can customize your program’s structure, enroll and manage members, apply rewards at checkout, and get insights into your most valuable customers’ shopping habits and preferences.
8. Promotions
Promotions are a critical ingredient for grocery marketing success, so make sure your supermarket POS system is up to the task.
Your POS software should let you schedule discounts to apply automatically at checkout — saving your cashiers time and ensuring that customers always get the best deal.
9. Email and SMS Integrations
Want to stay at the top of your customers’ minds? Then you need an email and SMS marketing strategy.
This approach lets you stay in direct contact with your customers, keeping them up to date when seasonal products hit the shelves or new promotions launch.
Managing email and SMS messages might sound intimidating, but all you need is a POS system with marketing integrations. From there, you can sync your customer loyalty and purchase history data with your marketing platform to send personalized messages and offers.
4 Supermarket POS Systems To Check Out
Now that you know what to look for in a supermarket POS system, you’re ready to start evaluating providers.
We know this can be overwhelming, so we’ve decided to start you on the right path with our curated list of POS solutions for supermarkets.
POS Nation
First on our list of the best supermarket POS systems is POS Nation.
This powerful software includes all the features you need to manage and market your grocery store, including perishable inventory tracking, advanced sales reporting, built-in customer loyalty, flexible integrations, and more.
POS Nation is also well-known for their industry-leading support team, which is available 24/7 at no additional cost.
Use POS Nation’s build and price tool to get an instant quote for your supermarket POS system.
Clover
Clover is a POS provider catering to retail, restaurant, and service businesses. While they don’t offer a grocery-specific solution, we’ve included them on our list because of their sleek hardware and user-friendly interface.
Clover is a solid option if you’re looking for a simple, no-frills solution to process sales transactions and handle basic inventory tracking.
Clover offers various pricing options from $13 to $225/month, so head to their website to see which option fits your needs and budget.
Square
Square is a popular POS solution among retailers in all industries. Like Clover, they offer well-designed but simple hardware and software.
We’ve included Square on our list of the best supermarket POS systems because of their unique e-commerce offerings. Square makes it easy to build your online grocery store and accept online or phone orders for pickup and delivery.
Square’s most popular pricing plan starts at $89 per month.
IT Retail
Our final (and favorite) supermarket POS provider is IT Retail.
Designed by and for small businesses in the grocery industry, we offer powerful, feature-rich software that works well for specialty food stores or larger supermarkets.
Along with standard grocery POS features, you can trust us to provide self-checkout options, reliable technology for weight-based sales, and flexible e-commerce options to simplify your day-to-day operations and help you grow.
Plus, our dedicated support team is available during onboarding and beyond to train you and your team, answer questions, solve problems, and help you make the most of our software.
Use our pricing tool to get a custom quote for your supermarket POS system.
Upgrade to the Best Supermarket POS System
Supermarket success requires a POS system with efficient checkout tools, powerful inventory management features, and sales-boosting marketing integrations.
If you’re searching for a solution that checks all these boxes and more, look no further than IT Retail. Along with our comprehensive suite of features designed for grocery stores, we offer 24/7 support at no additional cost to keep your supermarket running smoothly.
Start your IT Retail journey today by scheduling your personalized demo.
