While all off-licences experienced bumper summer sales when World Cup fever took hold, in the long term smaller operators are facing increasing competition from supermarkets and wine warehouses. In response, many independent drinks retailers are diversifying into the convenience market, while others have employed advanced technology to increase efficiency throughout their operation.

One excellent example of this is Scotland’s largest independent drinks retailer, the G101 Group, which has 51 stores, based in the Glasgow area. As well as broadening its focus to include convenience goods and services, G101 has recently invested in an advanced retail management system for its retail and distribution operation.

The solution comprises Torex Visual Store EPoS and Visual Enterprise Head Office software, supplied by Scotland-based CRS Systems, which will be linked to G101’s warehouse and accounting systems. At the point of sale, the VisualPoS software runs on Epson’s touchscreen Intelligent Registers (IRs), enabling transactions to be processed faster and more accurately than with G101’s old till system.

“In the past, our staff were obliged to write down every item on a sales pad as the customer made their selection and process everything at the end,” explained Project Manager, Fred Charles. “The new terminals and bar code scanners allow each item to be processed in a fraction of the time, significantly reducing customer waiting time and virtually eliminating human error. A further bonus is that we have been able to use the tills to pay out National Lottery winnings, along with other purchases. This has had a dramatic effect on the queues in our busiest stores, particularly on Wednesday and Saturday evenings.”

Away from the point of sale, G101 are delighted with the more sophisticated sales analysis and reporting capabilities of the new system, which are proving extremely useful for monitoring promotions and for merchandise and promotional planning. “For example,” Fred Charles revealed, “we can determine more readily which products are becoming increasingly popular and also the changing tastes of our customers.”

Tighter stock control is another feature, which has quickly proved invaluable. Before, the company admits, it had little idea of any losses until a time-consuming manual stock-take had been carried out every three to four weeks. By contrast, the new system enables individual stock items to be monitored in real-time by each branch and by Head Office, increasing efficiency and minimising shrinkage.