If you’re a small business owner juggling multiple stores, there are bound to be times when you’d like to be in more than one place at a time.
While that’s unfortunately not a reality, the right multi-location point of sale (POS) system is your next best option.
A multi-location POS system is a critical tool for small business owners managing more than one location. It gives you all the tools you need to keep your stores running smoothly — and to see a thorough and accurate overview of your sales, inventory, and profit across your entire business.
In this blog, we’ll review some key features of multi-location POS systems and give you a rundown of the top four options on the market.
Multi-Location POS System Features
As a small business owner with multiple stores, your needs are unique. You need a POS solution that keeps each of your locations operating efficiently and gives you a bird’s eye view of your entire business.
To make sure you’re on the right path to choosing the right multi-location POS system for your business, here are a few key features to shop for:
- Robust Inventory Management: Your POS system should make it easy to see your stock levels in each store, as well as your overall inventory across all your locations.
- Consolidated Sales Reporting: Your POS system should give you a detailed overview of your total sales and your sales in each location.
- Seamless Customer Relationship Management (CRM): This feature ensures that your customers are able to earn and redeem their loyalty program rewards regardless of which store location they visit.
- Excellent Support: This is one of the most crucial factors to evaluate. Your POS provider should provide ongoing, 24/7 support and training to help you set up the system, learn all of its features, and solve any problems if they arise.
The Best Multi-Location POS Systems for Retail
We’ve rounded up the best POS solutions for retail businesses with more than one location. In the next part of this blog, we’ll explore each of these options in detail, sharing key features, pricing, and which types of business each solution would be a good fit for.
1. RetailEdge
RetailEdge offers an affordable, straightforward POS solution for small businesses with one or more locations. Their software provides all the essentials you need to make sales and track inventory across your business, including:
- Sales reporting by each item, category, and department in your store
- CRM tools like customers’ contact information and shopping history
- The ability to transfer inventory between your locations
One of the main advantages of this option is the pricing. RetailEdge charges a one-time fee of $495 for access to the software.
A key factor to keep in mind if you’re considering RetailEdge is that this provider does not offer ongoing support and training. After purchasing the software, you’ll receive one hour of training and 90 days of technical support. If you still need help afterward, you’ll be required to purchase an additional support plan.
Overall, if you’re tech-savvy, on a budget, and looking for a straightforward POS system with the basics, then RetailEdge might be a solid choice for your business.
2. Lightspeed
Lightspeed’s focus is helping small to medium-sized businesses scale and grow. Their multi-location POS system allows you to monitor all of your locations in one convenient place, and it’s great for handling tasks like:
- Checking your inventory levels in real time
- Keeping your system settings and workflows consistent across all of your locations
- Ensuring that customers can use their loyalty points and coupons at any store
Lightspeed has several different pricing tiers, but their most popular option costs $149 monthly. It’s important to note that each tier of pricing comes with different functions, so you won’t have access to in-depth reporting features or consistent customer loyalty without paying for their most expensive service.
Lightspeed is a good option for small business owners with large budgets for POS software, or store owners looking to scale and add more POS features as they grow.
3. POS Nation
POS Nation is a trusted provider of POS solutions for retailers in all industries. Their retail POS systems are suitable for small business owners operating anything from a single location to a multichain operation. POS Nation offers a full suite of features, including:
- Robust, built-in accounting tools to ensure your business’ profitability
- Features to help you manage your team, including the ability to track employees’ hours, set pay rates, and adjust your POS permissions by role
- Loss prevention functions designed to decrease shrinkage in your store
Visit POS Nation’s website to build your custom multi-location POS solution and get an instant quote.
With its wide-ranging, powerful features, POS Nation is a great option for small business owners looking for all the bells and whistles.
4. Clover
Clover is a POS provider that specializes in flexibility. Their main draw is their simple-to-navigate stations and mobile POS devices that allow retailers to sell from anywhere. Some of Clover’s key features include:
- Bulk editing for easy updates to your inventory
- Smart filters to help you easily search all of your inventory listings
- Customizable sales reporting
Since Clover requires the use of their proprietary hardware, the pricing for their most popular package is $1,799 upfront and $39.95 monthly.
While Clover won’t be a great fit for small business owners looking for robust back office tools for inventory management and sales reporting, this solution could be a good option for retailers looking for just the basics or sellers who focus on pop-up markets.
5. Comcash
In comparison to the other options we evaluated, Comcash strikes the best balance of offering powerful business tools, while also providing the ongoing support and training small business owners need to put these tools to work.
Comcash is an all-in-one POS solution designed for small retailers. Our multi-location POS system offers business owners everything they need to scale and grow their businesses — whether they’re new to the retail scene or operate multiple locations.
Some of Comcash’s standout features include:
- Real-time inventory tracking across all your locations
- Multi-location pricing that allows you to set and adjust the pricing of each item by location
- Detailed reporting and analytics to show your sales performance, key trends, and best and least-selling items
- A robust CRM and loyalty program to build a loyal base of customers across your entire business
You can use our build and price tool for an instant custom quote!
Comcash is the most versatile option for retailers with one or more businesses, and our best-in-class training and support makes sure that you’re always getting the most from your POS system.
Streamline Your Retail Operations With Comcash
With all the tools you need to make sales, keep accurate stock records, build customer loyalty, and keep a close eye on your business’ growth, Comcash is exactly what you need to take your multi-location retail operation to the next level.
Schedule a live, personalized demo with one of our retail experts today to see Comcash in action!