When customers stop by your market, they expect the best — whether that means a juicy farm-fresh steak or a delicious fresh-caught fish.
So, why should you settle for anything less than the best when shopping for a point of sale (POS) system?
In this blog, we’ll share everything you need to know to find the perfect meat and fish market POS, including the seven top features you need and our four favorite providers.
Want to skip straight to our recommendations?
- National Retail Solutions (NRS)
- Toast
- GrazeCart
- Markt POS
Why Your Market’s POS System Matters
Running your market without a POS system is like expecting a butcher to work without a knife. This powerful tool is responsible for processing sales transactions, ensuring the right quantities of fresh meat and seafood and shaping your customers’ overall experience when they visit your store.
In short, the right POS system is an essential ingredient for steady sales, happy customers, and high profits.
Now, let’s look at the seven features of a meat and fish market POS system that can help you accomplish these goals.
1. Perishable Inventory Management
Effective inventory management is critical for any grocery store’s profitability — but even more so for meat and fish markets.
Almost all of your inventory is perishable, so it’s susceptible to costly spoilage. Meat and fish are also sold by the pound, which means that you’re more likely to make mistakes when calculating and adjusting your stock levels.
Luckily, a POS system designed for perishable, weight-based inventory management can help. This tool monitors your inventory changes in real time, ensuring you always have access to an accurate, up-to-date overview of what’s in your meat and fish cases.
For example, when a customer purchases two pounds of Italian sausage at the checkout counter, your POS system will automatically deduct this quantity from your inventory records. It can even send you alerts when your stock levels drop below a certain threshold.
You can use this data to make quick but informed decisions about how much meat or fish to purchase from your local farm or fisher to avoid waste and prevent stockouts. Some systems also allow you to create purchase orders right in the software, saving you time and making it easier to maintain the perfect balance of inventory.
2. Deli Scale and Label Printer Integration
Mastering the art of weight-based inventory management is essential for meat and fish market success — which is why your POS system should seamlessly integrate with a deli scale and label printer.
Let’s look at how these tools fit into your market’s day-to-day operations:
- A customer approaches the meat or seafood counter to place an order.
- Your butcher or fishmonger prepares their order and sets it on an integrated deli scale, selecting the product time.
- Your scale weighs the product, then automatically calculates its exact price and generates a barcode.
- A label printer prints a barcode label that includes the product information, price per pound, package and expiration date, exact calculated price, and any other key information.
- When it’s time to check out, all your cashier has to do is scan the barcode, and your POS system automatically adjusts your inventory records to reflect the sale down to the last ounce.
This process eliminates tedious manual calculations and reduces the risk of pricing errors. No time or effort is wasted figuring out how much to charge, manually entering data and printing a barcode label, or making sure your stock counts are up to date — allowing your team to serve customers quickly and accurately.
POS systems aren’t a one-size-fits-all tool, especially for unique businesses like meat and fish markets.
That’s why we recommend looking for an easily customizable solution.
You should be able to adjust your system’s touchscreen layout to put your team’s most-used features right at their fingertips. You should also be able to create keyboard shortcuts to make ringing up your most popular items quicker and easier.
These customizations eliminate frustrations for your cashiers, empowering them to provide stellar and speedy customer service even on complicated transactions.
4. A Built-In Customer Loyalty Program
There are plenty of fish in the sea, but it takes the right bait to reel them in. In other words, you need a loyalty program to lure in valuable customers to your market.
A loyalty program encourages shoppers to rely on your market for all their meat or seafood needs. Along with helping you secure repeat business, it encourages customers to spend more money at your market for the opportunity to earn points and redeem special discounts and exclusive perks.
Managing a loyalty program might seem like a lot of work, but the right meat and fish market POS system makes it effortless. You can easily sign customers up, keep detailed records of their purchase histories, and redeem their rewards at checkout.
5. Flexible Promotion Options
Want to delight customers and boost sales? Offer discounts they can’t turn down.
Your POS system should make it a breeze to set up discounts based on product type, weight, quantity, or promotional date. For example, you can schedule a promotion like 20% off tilapia on Tuesdays for customers who purchase more than one pound.
Your POS system should also apply these discounts automatically at the checkout counter, eliminating a step for your cashiers, preventing confusion, and ensuring your customers are always charged the right price.
6. In-Depth Reporting and Analytics
As a small business owner, you have to make tough decisions about your prices, product selection, and open hours.
The right meat and fish market POS system gives you the data you need to make these calls confidently. Your system should include an in-depth yet user-friendly reporting and analytics suite, giving you insights into your customers’ shopping habits, bestselling products, sales trends, peak sales times, profit margins, and more.
For example, let’s say your sales reports reveal an uptick in sales of organic chicken and grassfed beef. In this case, you might order larger quantities of these products to meet your customers’ growing demand.
7. E-Commerce Capability
The online grocery market is booming, and a POS system with e-commerce integration can help you take advantage of this trend, expand your customer base, and make more sales.
Look for a POS system that connects seamlessly with popular e-commerce platforms like Instacart or Fresh Express. These tools allow you to create an online storefront for your meat or seafood market and fulfill online orders.
Your POS system should sync your sales and inventory data across your online and in-store operations, ensuring a consistent, high-quality experience for your customers regardless of how they shop with you.
Meat and Fish Market POS: The 4 Best Solutions
Now that you’re a POS system expert, let’s look at four of our favorite options for meat and fish markets.
National Retail Solutions: A Basic Option
National Retail Solutions (NRS) provides simple, all-in-one POS solutions for retailers in all industries. While their software isn’t designed specifically for grocery stores or specialty markets, we’ve included it because it might appeal to business owners looking for an affordable, no-frills way to process sales transactions and track basic inventory.
Here are some of NRS’ best features:
- Coupon club program: Enroll in NRS’ BOSS Club program to offer discounts at all NRS-affiliated stores and attract customers at no additional cost.
- Mobile app: Use NRS’ mobile app to monitor your market’s inventory and sales from anywhere, at any time.
- Comprehensive pricebook: Add new products quickly and easily, organize your meat or seafood selection into categories, and adjust prices.
Software subscriptions for NRS range from $19.99 to $49.99/month, but you might need to pay additional fees to unlock advanced features like vendor management and in-depth sales reporting.
Toast: An Option for Market-Restaurant Hybrids
Do you sell ready-to-eat meals alongside fresh meat and seafood? Toast might be a good fit for your business. This provider specializes in restaurant and retail POS systems.
Here’s what we like about Toast:
- Integrated food service: Add quick-service meals to your market’s offerings without having to invest in additional POS software and hardware.
- Flexible hardware options: Invest in hardware that works perfectly for your market’s space and size — whether it’s a handheld tablet or full-size checkout counter setup.
- E-commerce: Accept and fulfill online orders for meat and seafood, giving customers multiple ways to shop.
Toast’s most popular pricing plan starts at $69/month.
GrazeCart: An Option for Online-Focused Farmers
Do you specialize in farm-fresh meats? GrazeCart might be the right meat market POS system for you. This solution is specifically designed to help you track and sell perishable products like meat by weight online and in store.
Here’s what to know about GrazeCart:
- Website builder: Create a custom website for your farm or meat market and list products for sale.
- Order management: Offer different prices for customers in different areas to cover the additional cost of perishable shipping and insulation.
- Subscription boxes: Offer recurring deliveries of your customers’ favorite meat and seafood products.
Head to GrazeCart’s website to explore their pricing options.
Markt POS: An Option Designed for Specialty Markets
Our final (and favorite) option for meat and fish markets is Markt POS. Our all-in-one POS solution is uniquely designed to help specialty markets manage perishable inventory, sell by weight, build a loyal customer base, and achieve profitability.
Here are Markt POS’ best features:
- Seamless scale integration: Make the ordering and checkout processes a breeze with a commercial deli scale and label printer.
- Built-in customer loyalty program: Earn repeat business and increase your average basket size by allowing customers to earn rewards with every purchase.
- 24/7 support: Enjoy ongoing training and support from our meat and seafood industry experts at no additional cost.
We offer pricing options to meet every market’s needs and budget, so check out our build and price tool.
Slice Into Success With Markt POS — The Complete Meat and Fish Market POS System
Your meat and fish market POS system should include everything from powerful inventory management to sales-boosting marketing features. All this might sound like a tall order, but Markt POS checks all the right boxes.
Our POS solution is designed specifically with your needs in mind, so you can feel confident about having all the features you need to launch, manage, and grow your business.
See Markt POS in action by scheduling your personalized demo today!
