As a small retailer, you know that managing inventory can be a daunting task. It's easy to lose sight of what's in stock, what's selling fast, and what's collecting dust on your shelves. But what if there was a way to streamline your inventory management process and take the guesswork out of ordering?
That's where retail inventory software comes in. An advanced inventory tool can help you update your stock levels, alert you when items are running low, and provide valuable insights into your sales trends. With the right software in place, you can make informed decisions about what to order, when to order it, and how much to keep on hand.
But with all the retail inventory software solutions out there, how can you find the right fit for your business?
In this post, we’ll discuss what retail inventory software is, why you need it, and what it can do for you. Then, we’ll cover seven top software solutions you can consider for your business.
What Is Retail Inventory Software? (And Why Do You Need It?)
Any retailer knows that keeping track of inventory is critical. The best way to keep a handle on your inventory is with the right retail inventory software. But what are these software solutions, and how can they help your business?
At its core, retail inventory software is a tool that helps you track, manage, and optimize your inventory levels.
It automates various inventory-related processes, such as stock updates, purchase order creation, and supplier management. By streamlining these tasks, inventory software can save you time and reduce the risk of errors that come with manual inventory management.
Related Read: Types of POS Systems for Retail: 4 Options
Retail inventory software offers major benefits to your business. Let’s take a look at a few of these benefits more closely:
- Reporting and trend analysis: With real-time data and point of sale analytics at your fingertips, you can generate accurate reports on stock levels, sales, and demand forecasting. You can use this information to make informed decisions about purchasing, pricing, and marketing strategies.
- Low stock alerts: The right retail inventory software can automatically notify you when stock levels run low. This feature helps you reorder products fast enough to prevent stockouts and lost sales.
- Barcode scanning integrations: With the help of handheld scanners or mobile device scanners, you can quickly update inventory levels, process sales, and perform stock takes, reducing the time and effort required for manual data entry.
- Advanced analytics: By analyzing sales data, customer behavior, and inventory performance, you can gain valuable insights into your business operations. This information can help you identify trends and optimize your product mix.
Inventory software is especially critical for small retailers. Why? Because effective inventory management is vital for customer satisfaction, sales, and profitability. Smaller retailers tend to be running on slimmer margins and tighter budgets, meaning every dollar spent needs to have significant return on investment (ROI) to keep your store afloat.
By using retail inventory software, you can make data-driven decisions, optimize inventory levels, and improve overall operational efficiency. With accurate, real-time data at your disposal, you can quickly identify slow-moving items, adjust pricing and promotions, and make informed purchasing decisions to maximize profitability and minimize waste.
Now that we've explored the benefits of retail inventory software, let's take a look at the best software options on the market. For each solution, we’ll examine features, pricing, and customer reviews.
Best for: Specialty retailers
Comcash is a cloud-based POS solution that offers a range of features tailored for specialty retailers. One of our key strengths is our tool’s inventory management capabilities, though we offer a wide range of features.
Inventory Management Features:
- Mobile inventory scanner: Comcash's mobile POS system includes a modern Android handheld terminal with a 2D scanner, allowing for efficient, on-the-go inventory management.
- Real-time inventory tracking: Our software enables businesses to manage inventory in real time across multiple locations, ensuring accurate stock levels and sales data.
- Auto-restock and allocated orders: Retailers can streamline their ordering process from a central site through auto-restock and allocated orders.
- Low stock notifications: Comcash sends alerts when it's time to reorder products, helping you avoid stockouts and maintain optimal inventory levels.
Other Features and Functionality:
- Cloud POS: Comcash's cloud-based POS software optimizes the checkout process for speed and ensures uninterrupted operations even during internet outages.
- Smart POS customer display: The intelligent customer display works in tandem with the parent POS terminal, keeping the customer informed during checkout.
- Online ordering: Comcash's webstore application seamlessly integrates with the POS system, enabling retailers to offer a full omnichannel shopping experience.
- Customer management and marketing: Comcash includes integrated marketing and data analytics features to help you attract new customers.
- Retail ERP: Comcash simplifies financial and operational processes with a retail accounting system designed specifically for retailers like you.
Pricing:
Get a custom quote using our transparent build and price tool.
Review:
“We have been using Comcash as our point of sale system for the past three years and have been extremely satisfied with the performance. The cloud-based platform is fast and easy to use, and the customer support team is quick to respond and resolve any issues we have had. The system is consistently reliable and has improved the efficiency of our daily operations.” –Mike Fisch, Comcash customer
Best for: Chains and enterprise retailers
Lightspeed is a comprehensive retail platform that offers a wide range of features designed to help chains and enterprise retailers maximize efficiency and scale their businesses.
Inventory Management Features:
- Multilocation management: Lightspeed allows retailers to integrate and manage inventory, sales, and customer data across all sales channels and stores.
- Real-time inventory tracking: The software enables retailers to track inventory levels and SKUs across multiple locations in real time, ensuring accurate stock information is always available.
- Product variants: Retailers can easily create and manage product variants, such as different sizes and colors, streamlining inventory management and sales processes.
- Purchase order management: Lightspeed Retail includes built-in purchase order functionality, allowing retailers to order new stock directly from the platform and manage purchasing for multiple locations.
Related Read: Automated Inventory Management: Why It's a Critical Feature for Retailers [EXAMPLES]
Other Features and Functionality:
- E-commerce integration: The platform enables retailers to meet customers where they shop, from their own websites to social selling and online marketplaces.
- Lightspeed Payments: Lightspeed’s integrated payment solution allows retailers to speed up checkout, streamline payment reconciliation, and accept various payment methods.
- Open API: Lightspeed's API allows retailers to build highly customized workflows and capabilities to suit their specific business needs.
Pricing:
Lightspeed’s Standard package starts at $119 per month.
Review:
“We were looking for a more simple and modern POS system to use in our campus bookstore - and Lightspeed has definitely delivered on both of those things. There are less of us working in our store than ever before, so we needed something that wasn’t going to make our jobs harder.” –Lightspeed customer
Best for: Wholesale businesses
Zoho Inventory is a next-generation inventory management software designed to help businesses, particularly those in the wholesale sector, automate their inventory operations and sell more with less effort.
Inventory Management Features:
- Multi-warehouse management: Zoho Inventory allows businesses to manage stock across multiple warehouse locations, transfer items between warehouses, and generate warehouse-specific reports.
- Barcode and RFID system: The software enables accurate stock tracking using barcode and RFID technology, allowing for precise inventory control.
- Batch and serial number tracking: Businesses can track items based on batches and serial numbers, gaining granular visibility into inventory movement.
Other Features and Functionality:
- Multichannel selling: Zoho Inventory enables businesses to establish a presence across multiple digital storefronts, integrate sales channels, sync stock, handle multiple currencies, and measure channel performance.
- Order fulfillment: The software streamlines the order fulfillment process, from packing to tracking, allowing businesses to visualize item packing, integrate with shipping carriers, generate real-time rates and labels, and send tracking updates to customers.
- Collaboration tools: Zoho Inventory includes customer and vendor portals, allowing businesses to collaborate more effectively with their partners and clients.
Pricing:
Zoho’s Professional package starts at $79 per month.
Review:
“Zoho One solves a lot of operational and process issues for small business. What is probably one of the best solutions for any small business is Zoho Books and the other Zoho apps that integrate with Books, like CRM or Bigin… The automation and integration features are priceless.” –Zoho customer
Best for: Perishable inventory
IT Retail is a point of sale software designed specifically for the grocery industry, with a focus on managing perishable inventory. The company's founder, a second-generation grocer, brings a deep understanding of the unique needs and challenges faced by independent grocers.
Inventory Management Features:
- Android Inventory App: IT Retail offers a mobile app that allows users to add or change products on the fly, generate purchase orders, receive inventory, and conduct inventory counts.
- Shrinkage calculation: The POS application calculates shrinkage by analyzing items received, sold, and past inventory counts, providing valuable insights into inventory loss.
- Purchase order management: Users can create purchase orders, convert them into multiple file types (including PDF), send them to vendors, and receive against those orders to verify the accuracy of received items.
- Low stock reports: IT Retail generates low stock reports that evaluate year-to-date sales, last month, and last week's sales, helping grocers determine how much to order when restocking.
Other Features and Functionality:
- Advanced reporting: IT Retail's reporting features provide valuable insights into store performance, including product sales, shelf space optimization, and historical sales data.
- Cloud-based architecture: By eliminating the need for an in-store server, IT Retail reduces maintenance costs and enables direct syncing to the cloud.
- E-commerce integration: IT Retail’s POS system integrates with major grocery e-commerce providers, offering flexibility in selecting the best e-commerce solution for your store.
Pricing:
Get a custom quote using their online pricing tool.
Review:
“I was skeptical about it, if it would be easy to learn, but it’s a great POS System very easy to learn and understand, and the hardware is great, too. Also, [IT Retail] gave me a great training session… Also they offer more training if I ever need more help.” –IT Retail customer
Best for: Small- to mid-size retailers
POS Nation offers an all-in-one POS system designed to help small- to mid-size retailers run their stores and grow their businesses. They serve small businesses across various specialty and general retail sectors.
Inventory Management Features:
- Streamlined inventory management: POS Nation's software allows users to know what's in stock, manage purchase orders, receive reorder points to replenish low or out-of-stock inventory, and streamline inventory counts.
- Customized hotkeys: Users can set up hotkeys to quickly look up produce and other non-barcoded items, sort products for easy navigation, and reduce employee errors.
- Label and barcode printing: The system includes a built-in label tool that allows retailers to create labels and tags with one click, deciding on quantity and size, and automatically adding new items to the print queue.
- Mix and match pricing: POS Nation's software enables retailers to create and sell grouped items, making it easy to increase sales and move inventory through creative product bundles.
Other Features and Functionality:
- Financial reporting: The software comes with over 55 prebuilt reports and additional customizations, allowing retailers to view reports on virtually every aspect of their business.
- Employee management: POS Nation's system includes features such as clock in and out functionality, payroll deduction reporting, user permissions, and scheduling, streamlining employee management.
- Customer loyalty and sales history: Retailers can track buying patterns, create promos, and use the built-in loyalty program (including the ability to assign loyalty cards to individual customers) to retain current customers, win new business, and generate more repeat sales.
- Security features: The software offers tools to minimize shrinkage and theft, such as exception reports, cash drawer counts, blind counts, POS transaction recording, and integrated in-store security camera footage.
Pricing:
Get a custom quote using their online pricing tool.
Review:
“I like the POS system because it is touchscreen and fairly easy to navigate. Everything is sectioned off into categories and pages and you are able to scroll through and find what you need to find.” –POS Nation customer
Best for: E-commerce retailers
Shopify POS is a comprehensive solution designed to help e-commerce retailers streamline their operations, from order management and fulfillment to inventory management and shipping.
Inventory Management Features:
- Multi-location inventory management: Retailers can efficiently allocate inventory across up to 1,000 warehouses, fulfillment centers, and stores.
- Purchase order management: Shopify POS enables retailers to track incoming inventory, gain insights into spending, and make informed ordering decisions by creating purchase orders for suppliers directly within the platform.
- Inventory automations: With Shopify Flow, retailers can automate various inventory management tasks, such as hiding out-of-stock products on their site, receiving low-inventory notifications, and more.
Other Features and Functionality:
- Order management and fulfillment: Shopify POS provides a centralized order management system, allowing retailers to manage orders from their online store and various sales channels, such as Instagram, Google, and Amazon.
- Shipping and delivery: Shopify Shipping offers pre-negotiated rates and built-in integrations with trusted local and international carriers, enabling retailers to purchase and print shipping labels in bulk, access discounted shipping rates, and provide customers with real-time order tracking.
- Returns and refunds: Shopify POS simplifies the returns process by allowing customers to initiate returns from the online store, providing retailers with visibility into incoming returned products. The platform also offers customizable return rules, return label generation, and seamless exchange and refund management.
Pricing:
Shopify for small teams starts at $79 per month.
Review:
“I’m very pleased overall with the experience of hosting a store with Shopify. Base rates are low, and it has HIGH level of functionality. The one thing that I’d say they need to improve is credit card processing rates for international payments.” –Shopify customer
Best for: Solopreneurs
Square for Retail is an all-in-one POS system designed to simplify and streamline operations for small businesses and solopreneurs. With a wide range of features and integrations, Square for Retail offers a comprehensive solution for solopreneurs.
Inventory Management Features:
- Stock alerts and automatic purchase orders: Square for Retail sends alerts when stock levels run low and can automatically send purchase orders to vendors.
- Inventory counting and management: The platform offers a built-in counting tool and barcode scanner for updating stock counts and printing barcodes on the go. Retailers can also organize and update inventory in bulk.
- In-store pickup and shipping: Square for Retail allows retailers to offer customers the option to pick up items in person or have them delivered, streamlining the fulfillment process.
Other Features and Functionality:
- Omnichannel sales: Retailers can sell both in-store and online using a single POS system, with seamless inventory management and reporting across all channels.
- Customizable hardware: Square offers a range of POS hardware options, including Square Stand, Square Terminal, Square Reader, and Square Register, allowing retailers to build a tailored solution for their specific needs.
- Marketing and loyalty: Square for Retail integrates with Square Marketing, allowing retailers to create and manage email and text message campaigns, as well as offer loyalty programs.
Pricing:
Square Plus starts at $29 per month plus processing fees.
Review:
“I go out to farmers market and vending events every weekend and have never run into an issue when processing payments.” –Square customer
The Best Retail Inventory Software Solution for Your Business
Choosing the right retail inventory software solution for your business is crucial for your store’s success. While each of the solutions we've discussed offers unique features and benefits, it's important to remember that no single solution will be the perfect fit for every retailer.
If you're a small business owner or specialty retailer looking for a comprehensive, user-friendly inventory management system, Comcash might be the answer you've been searching for. With features like mobile inventory management, CRM and customer loyalty integrations, and advanced analytics, Comcash provides the tools you need to streamline your operations, boost your efficiency, and make data-driven decisions that drive your business forward.
Take the first step towards transforming your retail business and schedule a demo of Comcash today.