Is your meat market surviving or thriving?
Running a profitable meat market isn’t easy. Margins are razor thin, competition is fierce, and customers’ expectations for quality service and products are rising.
Independent meat markets deserve to thrive, but that’s difficult when they still rely on basic cash registers and outdated systems.
Instead, you could use a meat market point of sale (POS) system to take your meat market to new heights. The right POS solution can make your life easier by simplifying inventory, improving the customer experience, and providing valuable insights.
That said, what features should you look out for? And what POS systems are a good fit for meat markets, butchers, carnicerias, and fishmongers?
In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about upgrading your meat market POS system, including:
- Why old-school management systems hold meat markets back
- Five essential (and four bonus) features of a meat market POS
- Top POS providers for meat markets
Let’s jump right in.
Why Do You Need a Meat Market POS System?
Let’s dive deeper into the challenges you face on a daily basis. Meat markets are unique — you can’t be bundled in with grocery stores — and face various challenges, such as:
- Products that spoil quickly if they’re not handled correctly
- Managing various cuts
- Accurately weighing and pricing cuts
- Adjusting prices to respond to market demand, supplier shortages, and supply chain disruption
- Ordering the right amount of products at the right time to ensure you have enough in stock
…and more!
That’s all before dealing with the day-to-day goals of reaching sales targets, managing employees, and providing stellar customer service.
Related Read: Boost Your Butcher Shop Sales: 4 Tips for the Best Meat Displays
Manual solutions just don’t cut it anymore. If you can’t measure weights properly, provide accurate pricing, accept modern payment types, and do it all quickly, big box providers will take your customers.
Cost of living is rising, and people are less willing to take chances. As a small business owner, you need to take every advantage you can get. A meat market POS system is a cost-effective way to stay competitive and modernize the shopping experience at your store.
5 Essential Meat Market POS Features + Benefits
While we’ve talked a bit about the drawbacks of old systems and manual inventory tracking, you’re probably wondering, “What exactly can a meat market POS system do that’s so great?”
We’re glad you asked! Here’s a breakdown of five essential features (and four nice-to-have ones) that will help you run your store better, cut costs, and find success.
Feature #1: A Great Checkout Experience
Customers love convenience. They want to get their meat products, pay a fair price, and go about their day. They don’t see what goes on behind the scenes! That’s why it’s important to have your checkout process nailed down.
The right point of sale solution helps by:
- Connecting directly to deli scales so you can accurately weigh meat, automatically price it, and print a barcode.
- Allowing you to quickly scan barcodes instead of manually entering prices or product codes at checkout.
- Providing an intuitive order screen with buttons, tabs, and templates for specialty products.
- Accepting modern payment types like credit cards, debit cards, and contactless payment, along with specific payment methods like EBT Food, EBT Cash, and gift cards.
Even on your busiest days, these small but powerful features can help get customers in and out of your meat market faster. The benefits reach beyond the customers in your store. The next time a friend mentions how slow checkout is in another store, where do you think your loyal customers will tell them to go?
Related Read: What License Is Needed To Open a Butcher Shop? (+ 6 Tools Your Store Needs)
Feature #2: Complete Inventory Control
You need to stock, break down, and sell hundreds of pounds of meat products every week. You don’t just sell slabs of meat, either. You have whole cuts, different ground meat blends, marinated meats, and more.
Tracking everything by hand is tedious, error-prone, and slows you down. A POS system lets you:
- Assign individual SKUs and attributes like grade, aging time, sell-by dates, storage temperature, and more
- Track cuts by the each and average weight so you know how many of each item you have on hand.
- Assign sell-by dates and get alerts on products with close dates
- Easily implement first in, first out (FIFO) inventory practices to reduce spoilage
- Integrate with a deli scale so you can accurately weigh and price catch-weight products
- Set automated low stock alerts based on average sales volume and supplier lead times to reorder at just the right time and avoid stockouts
- Use tare weight management so you can account for the weight of containers
- Update inventory in real time as sales are made
Instead of walking the floor to see what’s overstocked, what’s going off, and what you’re low on, a POS system with built-in inventory management will give you a comprehensive view from any device.
In short, a meat market POS system ensures you always know what’s on hand and where it is. This visibility and complete inventory control combat stockouts while reducing spoilage, which is key to preserving profits.
Feature #3: Real-Time Reporting and Analytics
If you don’t have an up-to-the-minute overview of your store, how can you make good decisions? You want complete visibility over inventory, sales, and customer preferences. A good meat market POS system makes accessing this data easy.
For example, when you know how seasonality or the holiday season affects your sales, you can plan better. Reports should let you track:
- Top-selling items over any period
- Daily, monthly, or quarterly sales reports
- Which products are trending up or losing momentum
- Peak hours and seasons
- Seasonal impacts on customer demand
- Average cart size and items that are frequently bought together
…and more.
Related Read: POS Reports 101: 5 Essential Reports to Manage Your Grocery Store
You can get as granular or as broad as you want with reports. For example, you could assess the profit margins of individual items to make strategic price adjustments (and avoid blanket price cuts or increases).
Feature #4: Full Hardware Compatibility
For meat markets, you want a POS system that’s compatible with modern hardware. Hardware plays an important role in managing your back office while keeping customers happy. Look for a POS system that integrates (or comes) with:
- Deli scales: Accurately weigh meat cuts for pricing and packaging. Scales should be durable and able to accommodate large cuts. Integrated scales allow you to sync directly with your POS.
- Barcode scanners: Quickly look up products and pricing and receive and track inventory.
- Label printers: Customers want to see what they’re buying when it comes to grades, weights, pricing, and sourcing. Your POS should let you print clear labels and, with integrated inventory management, pull those details from your database.
Other hardware you’ll need includes your POS terminal, cash register, card readers, and customer displays. If you have existing equipment, ask your POS provider if it’s supported to cut costs.
Related Read: 4 Best Commercial Deli Scales for Small Business Grocery
Feature #5: Built-In Customer Loyalty
Loyal customers are the lifeblood of a small business, figuratively and literally. Did you know that repeat customers tend to spend over 60% more than first-time customers?
Better yet, when you’re not constantly chasing new customers, you can focus more on providing excellent service to your current customers. That’s not to say you won’t need to market to new customers anymore — you can just promote your meat market with less pressure.
Modern meat market POS systems come with baked-in customer loyalty features.
Loyalty incentives include:
- Allow customers to earn points for every dollar spent and redeem them for store credits or products
- Give exclusive members-only discounts such as 10% off on sticker items or for bulk purchases
- Provide member-only access to special orders or services
- Send out invites to special customer events like free tasting or grilling demos
Another benefit of customer loyalty is that you can track purchases and buying behaviors to build customer profiles. For example, if customers tend to buy certain cuts of steaks and ground meat together, you can create a custom product bundle or send a discount for purchasing those items together.
The possibilities are only limited by your creativity!
Additional Meat Market POS Features
While the five features above are essential for running a successful butcher shop or meat market, they aren’t the only things to consider.
- Offline functionality: Store owners worry that cloud-based systems will stop working if they lose internet connection. Many modern, cloud-based POS systems continue to work offline, so you don’t miss any sales.
- Scalability: If you want to grow your business and open new locations, you need a POS system with centralized management and intuitive dashboards.
- Tech and onboarding support: If you have issues with your POS system, you need support ready to tackle them. The best POS providers offer setup assistance, user manuals, interactive tutorials, and on-demand support.
- Employee management: Your POS system should help manage employees, too. From time clock capabilities to setting user permissions and preventing theft, look for a system that your employees love to use and make employee management easy.
Top Meat Market POS Providers
Every meat market POS has different strengths and weaknesses. While we’d like to say our system is a perfect fit for everyone, that wouldn’t be true.
To help you narrow down your search, here are some top picks.
1. Markt POS: Best for independent butchers, specialty food markets, and meat markets.
Markt POS is our powerful and cost-effective solution tailored to specialty markets, including meat markets and butchers.
Standout features
- Robust inventory management: Easily add custom and standard SKUs, track items by the each, set parameters for perishable inventory, set low stock alerts, and more.
- Supports different hardware: Leverage a wide range of existing scales, touchpads, scanners, and other equipment.
- Flexible payments: Accept credit card, debit card, contactless pay, and EBT payments.
- Customer loyalty: Tailor the perfect loyalty program for your customers and business model.
Pricing
We work directly with your business to create a custom quote based on your business goals, hardware needs, and more. Use our flexible pricing tool to get started.
2. National Retail Solutions (NRS): Best for meat markets looking for a simple, no-frills POS system
NRS creates simple, all-in-one solutions for retailers and grocers to help streamline operations and process transactions.
Standout features
- Built-in inventory management: Streamline inventory with direct ordering, low stock alerts, and more.
- Cloud-based solutions: NRS stays connected to the internet to process transactions and keep your software up to date.
- Store reporting and statistics: Create reports by date range to monitor important sales activity.
- Configurable products: Create custom products to simplify tracking certain cuts or special offerings.
Pricing
NRS’ Pro plan is $54.95/mo or $34.95/mo if you use their in-house payment processor.
3. IT Retail: Best for meat markets that are attached to a grocery store or supermarket
IT Retail has over 26 years of experience creating POS systems for independent grocers and butcher shops.
Standout features
- Robust hardware: IT Retail integrates with many hardware brands and offers sturdy options for scales, scanner scales, self-checkout, and more.
- Pre-built reports: Quickly see your sales performance, bestsellers, peak hours, and more using IT Retail’s pre-configured reports.
- Customizable touchscreen: Configure the interface of your POS system to quickly access your most used functions and speed up checkout.
- Advanced inventory management: Easily track stock levels, set low-stock alerts, and manage vendors all from one system.
Pricing
IT Retail offers flexible pricing based on your unique business needs.
4. Square: Best for new businesses on a tight budget
Square is a popular choice for many businesses thanks to its user-friendly hardware and user interface.
Standout features
- Flexible scale integrations: Connect scales from a wide range of hardware providers for accurate weighing and pricing.
- Powerful 3rd-party integrations: Use Square’s app marketplace to add integrations for QuickBooks, DoorDash, and more.
- Modular system: Pay for and add functionality and integrations as you need them.
- Robust e-commerce support: Sell your products online using Square Online.
Pricing
Square offers free plans for new businesses (with limited functionality) and retail plans starting at $89/month.
The Best Meat Market POS System for Your Store
Running your meat market or carniceria is your passion. The right tools and systems tailored to overcome your unique challenges are essential to turning that passion into profits.
With fast checkouts, air-tight inventory management, robust hardware, and detailed reporting, a meat market POS system is a tool like no other. Throw in customer service help, and it’s like a Swiss army knife.
Markt POS is committed to helping meat market owners succeed. Our POS system was designed to overcome your challenges and help you thrive. See it in action today by scheduling a demo.
