Convenience Store Software You Should Consider When Opening a Store

Opening or expanding your convenience store brand requires very careful planning before you lay your foundation and build your four walls. With the complexity of products and vendors, not to mention the need to quickly and efficiently adjust inventory to shopper’s habits. Choosing the right software infrastructure from the start will ensure your company will be successful. Three venues you must address with your technology approach are supply chain and inventory management, workforce management, and hardware to support your efforts.

Supply Chain and Inventory Tools

Effective convenience store inventory management systems address both ends of the product lifestyle. Systems should be able to organize and communicate ordering and receiving with the multitude of vendors to ensure supply lines are maintained. These supply lines, in turn, should be managed by software that handles inventory automatically down to item-level inventory levels to determine sales levels necessary to meet customer demand and to minimize SKUs that do not sell. Efficient inventory methods are the cornerstone to healthy systems elsewhere in your operation. With the insight into sales trends and buyer behaviors provided by an inventory management system, store layout and product placement can be optimized as well.

Workforce Management Systems

Without the automation of software solutions, people management is a very labor and time intensive process. Much of the challenge in managing and recording time, processing payroll, and paying employees can now be as simple as running a report and verifying the information. Integration with your sales and inventory systems also ensures scheduling levels sufficient to manage your flow of business and maintain your targeted labor costs.

Match Hardware Functionality to the Backend Systems

Depending on the business model and flow of traffic, match the registers and POS systems to meet the needs of your employees. A simple and efficient system minimizes product lost and maximizes sales data accuracy. You’ll also have to make sure your credit card processing equipment communicates with your POS system and with your back office reporting software. Ensure that your POS system can gather and track the data your back of house systems require in order to provide the useful sales data used to manage your business.

Planning Around Your Gas Station’s Specific Needs

If you plan to expand your convenience store’s product line into providing for local fuel demands, specialized software is needed to track your fuel levels, manage supply lines, communicate with your fuel suppliers, manage costs, and other associated requirements, as well as patching into your existing financial software in order to track fuel sales appropriately.

Successfully Opening Your Convenience Store  

There are a lot of bases to cover in your efforts to open your convenience store. A majority of the core systems in your store will depend on automated systems to provide you with fast and accurate retail inventory analytics and control over your onhand levels to maintain profitability standards. Rely on the experience of SuccessSystems too access a suite of tools tailored for your specific needs, and maximize your profitability before you even open for business. Contact us today to request a demo. 

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