Are you opening a new smoke shop, or ready to step up your established business?
You need the right business tools to help you achieve success — and that starts with a solid point of sale (POS) system specifically made for your unique (and tightly-regulated) industry.
Here’s our breakdown of the six best features (and their benefits!) of a smoke shop POS system.
Impressive Inventory Management
Smoke shops carry a large amount of inventory, and it’s important to keep track of every product. A point of sale system made specifically for your industry allows you to customize the hotkeys in your system to reflect your unique items — but impressive smoke shop inventory management doesn’t stop there.
Look for a smoke shop POS that automatically ranks your inventory by tracking which products are selling, and which are not. These systems rank items on an A-B-C-D scale and color-codes them based on sales patterns. Use this information to avoid overstock and dead stock — and to boost your bottom line.
Case Breaking
When running a smoke shop, many of the products you stock are sold by the case or carton. And often, you need to break those units into individual packs (think: cigarettes) or singles (think: cigars).
A solid smoke shop POS includes a case breaking feature, which allows you to break these cases into individual packs for sale straight from your point of sale system — eliminating hours of painstaking manual labor. Designed for your industry, a smoke shop POS handles the unique needs of your business.
Age Verification
Federal law dictates that smoke shops can’t sell tobacco products to customers under 21 years of age (although some states still require that you only be 18) — which means you need a reliable way to check your buyers’ ages.
A point of sale system created specifically for smoke shops includes an integrated age verification feature that immediately flags age-restricted items. Either manually enter your customer’s date of birth, or use a specialized scanner to scan any government-issued ID (like a driver’s license) to easily verify the customer’s age. The POS will also be able to detect whether or not the ID is counterfeit. With this feature, you protect your buyers and your business.
Label Creation and Printing
When a lot of your inventory requires case breaking, it can be difficult and time-consuming to individually label and price each item. Think of cigars: The case has a barcode, but individual cigars don’t. You’re responsible for labeling each individual product.
A smoke shop POS system allows you to directly create and print custom labels, so you can easily track your inventory — and save tons of time. You can also customize the size of your labels to fit securely to your products, which is important when selling unusually shaped items like cigars.
Smoke Shop Sales Reporting
Understanding your sales patterns is key to making smart business decisions that can ultimately increase your profits. A point of sale system made for smoke shops generates a wide variety of reports to let you know how your stock is selling.
It’ll also track shrinkage, allowing you to identify the cause of lost and wasted stock — from employee theft to damaged products — so you can accurately keep track of inventory to inform future purchasing decisions.
Customer Loyalty Programs
The best customer is a repeat customer. In fact, customer retention is one of the best ways to boost your bottom line. Look for a smoke shop POS system that includes an integrated points- based customer loyalty program that assigns points to specific dollar amounts spent. Buyers can redeem these points for discounts, like a 10 percent discount for every 1,000 points earned.
These types of programs encourage buyers to return to your shop, so you can build relationships with them and establish a solid customer base. And a POS with integrated marketing features like SMS and email marketing helps you maintain these relationships.
Get Started With the Best Smoke Shop POS System in the Business
Running a successful smoke shop involves a lot of moving pieces, and you need the right business tools to help you set up a seamless operation.
The best place to get started? A point of sale system intentionally designed for your specialized industry.
To get started with the smartest smoke shop POS system on the market, contact one of our Cigars POS specialists to schedule a demo. Or use our build and price tool to create your own custom quote.
