Small businesses can turn a big profit.
But you have to make sure that you’re maximizing your business tools. Deciding which ones are right for your business can be overwhelming — especially if you work in a specialized industry like grocery.
If you’re a small grocery store owner, you need a point of sale (POS) solution that caters to your business’ unique, industry-specific needs — from scale integrations to shrink reports.
We’ve done the research, so you can make your decision.
Check out our top five picks for the perfect POS systems for small grocery stores.
Top 5 POS Systems for Small Grocery Stores
- Polar POS
- POS Nation for Grocery
- IT Retail
- Catapult
- Markt POS
1. Polar POS
Polar POS is a grocery-specific point of sale system that supports shops from one lane to multiple locations. With solid inventory control, employee management, and marketing features, it’s a great all-around choice for small grocery store owners.
The POS integrates with Ishida, CAS, Mettler Toledo, Digi, and Bizerba scales, so you can expand and accurately price your random-weight products, like meat and produce, directly from the deli department.
The system accepts all tender types, including EBT payments, allowing you to serve a wide range of customers — and its compatibility with both Android and iOS tablets make it a perfect choice for smaller shops that may need to add lanes without the hefty price tag.
2. POS Nation for Grocery
POS Nation for Grocery is a turnkey point of sale system, with features specifically suited to grocery stores. This comprehensive solution stands out with its inventory, employee, and marketing management features.
You can easily weigh and price bulk and random-weight items with scale integrations, and the ability to produce shrink reports allows you to efficiently track inventory and loss — especially important for a business with perishable products.
POS Nation for grocery accepts all forms of payment, from EBT to Apple Pay, so you never have to turn down a paying customer — and you’ll attract many with the mix and match pricing and coupons you can create directly within this POS.
“We have used POS Nation since 2014 and are still very happy with the system and the support that we get from their tech group. We highly recommend this equipment to any small retail business as it is easily adaptable to any type of environment that you are running. Thank you POS Nation for being just exactly what we need for our 2 businesses!”
3. IT Retail
IT Retail is a point of sale solution designed by grocers, for grocers — so it comes with all the features you could possibly need to successfully run your small grocery store. It’s especially great for shops with three to five lanes.
The system integrates with both deli scales and scanner scales, so you can accurately price your random-weight items — and even convert the scanner scale into a self-checkout kiosk. Customer displays make for a more convenient customer checkout process, and sophisticated reporting, from sales to shrinkage, streamlines inventory management.
IT Retail supports many forms of payment, including debit, credit, EBT, and gift cards, making your store accessible to anyone that walks in.
“We’ve been a customer of IT Retail for nearly 15 years, we love the fact they are a small family-owned business and price themselves exceptionally well compared to some of the bigger POS companies.”
4. Catapult
Catapult is ECRS’ comprehensive POS system, with a back office that’s perfect for small grocery stores. It boasts high-quality inventory, employee, and customer relationship management features.
This system is a great option for small grocery stores and markets, as it has a multilingual interface — transaction information can be displayed in English, French, Spanish, and Russian. And if you implement a self-service kiosk, your customer will be able to toggle between languages.
ECRS has a native scale integration, which can be operated in self-service mode or attended mode, and accepts most tender types, including NFC, EMV, and EBT payments.
“The flexibility of Catapult is amazing! You get a great core set of features available in Catapult, but then there's add-ons and software switches that you can utilize to further customize your experience.”
5. Markt POS
Markt POS is an all-in-one POS solution, designed by multi-generational grocers who understand the problems faced by local market owners. The cloud-based software can be accessed from anywhere you have an internet connection, and opens up space traditionally used for physical servers.
The system’s inventory management features cater to grocery store owners, streamlining all aspects of ordering and receiving — plus, you can generate industry-appropriate reports, like shrink reports. Deli scale and scanner scale integrations make it easy to ring up fresh meat and produce.
Markt POS accepts many forms of payment, including EBT and contactless payments, so you can rest assured you’re serving as many customers as possible.
“We've grown to have 4 stores, and we're really happy with Markt POS. When we opened our third location we decided to go with Markt POS because we thought it would be better for us, and a better suit for the company.”
Get Started With a Standout POS System for Small Grocery Stores
Picking the perfect point of sale system for your small grocery store might seem like a daunting task — but it doesn’t have to be.
Think about your business’ operational priorities. Create a checklist of the features you need. Decide which one of our top picks works best for you.
Need some guidance? Use our Build and Price tool to craft your own custom quote, or schedule a demo with one of our Markt POS specialists today!
