The Spike Pub & Liquor Store - ABLE BC

TECH TRENDS
What’s Out There, What’s Useful - and What’s for You
by Alex van Tol
Some technologies have been around for a while
- and with good reason: they work. But others are
new, and are making waves on the pub and liquor
store scene. This issue, The Publican rounds up
several technical innovations for your appraisal.
Could they be right for your establishment
Keeping Track
Visitor analytics are a publican’s best friend. In
a nightclub setting, video cameras make fire
code compliance easy by tracking the number
of people coming in and out of your club. You’ll
also learn where the bottlenecks are happening
inside the club, so you can restructure things to
smooth traffic patterns, avoid lineups and sell
more product.
In the LRS, retail visitor analytics can help with
people counts and tracking flow throughout
the store. When combined with POS data, it’s
a powerful tool to help owners and managers
understand their conversion rates. “Then they can
understand how effective their staff are in terms of
closing the sale, or adding onto the sale,” explains
retail analytics expert Rick Benson. This raw data
helps with basket fill too. For example, if you’re
selling lots of one item and the data’s telling you
that people are also buying a second item at the
same time, you’ll have a better handle on what
products can be merchandised together. Knowing
the flow of traffic around your store as well as
your sales patterns helps you figure out how to
manage your retail floor area to avoid dead space
and maximize sales to each customer.
“We have had traffic tracking since 1990,”
says Amy Hanson, manager of the Windward
Neighbourhood Pub LRS in Nanaimo. Cameras
are a preventive measure against theft, Hanson
notes. The system also provides hourly reports
throughout the day that help to track customers
and average purchase amounts. “We can see
seasonal changes, and we can move stuff around
according to what we want to market.”
For some bars and pubs, inventory management
solutions are a valuable tool. With this approach,
an inventory management specialist is called in on
a regular basis to track unopened product and to
weigh and measure all the behind-the-bar bottles.
31 The Publican
“We take that information and match it up to the
sales report,” explains inventory management
specialist Ian Foster. So if, for example, 100 ounces
of Jack Daniel’s were poured in a given week, and
if the sales data only reports 80 ounces being
sold, the bar owner will see the discrepancy at a
glance. From there, management can coach the
staff in proper pouring - and keep an eye on the
shifts where the discrepancies tend to turn up
most often.
“We use it twice a month,” reports Todd Arbuthnot,
manager of 57 Below, Drink Lounge, The
Landing Pub, and Fox’s Reach Pub. “Without the
[inventory adjustments and usage reports] you are
guaranteed theft. With them, we can see what’s
going missing and when it’s going missing. Just
the knowledge that they’re being monitored
helps keep staff honest. We talk to the staff
[constantly], whether the reports are good or bad.”
The frequent reporting helps to keep the lines of
communication open.
Other places, such as Hillside Liquor Store, take
inventory into their own hands. “We literally go
out and count, because we have the same product
in several different places,” reveals Manager
Stacy Brennan. “We’re pretty thorough that way.”
Counting three times a week - especially in hightheft
areas - and moving merchandise around
helps to reduce loss and position products in
areas where they’re most likely to sell. L-BOSS
store controller software helps Hillside keep track
of what was sold on a given day. “So if we have a
tasting on a certain Friday, you can go back and
see how many units of that particular thing sold,”
explains Brennan. Then, when it’s time to place an
order, Brennan compiles a tendency report, which
shows everything that was sold and guides her in
her next round of orders.
Organizing Your Ordering
Web-based ordering has taken off in recent
months. With online ordering, there’s no need to
manually produce a form to be phoned, faxed, or
emailed. LRS owners can upload files from their
POS systems, or even an Excel spreadsheet or Word
document. The weekly list can be saved and simply
updated every time a new order rolls around.
Awareness of online ordering is beginning to
increase, observes Katharine Jowett, at the Liquor
Distribution Branch, who helps get wholesalers up
and running with web-based ordering. “We have
about 130 customers on board and we’re doing
about $70 million in sales on a 12-month basis,” she
reports. Part of the shift to online ordering involves
intensive training sessions, so that retailers can
familiarize themselves with the ordering system
and get hands-on experience. Orientation sessions
are followed up by eight weeks of customer service
support to make sure LRS owners are succeeding
with the system. So far, so good, boasts Jowett:
“We’ve had a 95% success rate with retailers who
have attended the orientation sessions.”
Communicating With Your Customers
With today’s advances in technology, it’s easier
than ever to bring your customers into the loop.
Digital signage helps inform people of what your
specials are, and freestanding info-pods (like
Labatt’s) are a great way to catch your customers’
eye. One new item that’s really making a splash
and turning heads is Ask Ginger, an information
kiosk that you can put pretty much anywhere in
your LRS and that helps customers understand
the products you’ve got on your shelves. Got a
question about Riesling vs. Sauvignon Blanc
Swipe the UPC over a little scanner and you’ll get
everything from product knowledge to pairings
and recipe ideas. It’s knowledge at the fingertips
of your shoppers. And it comes in handy in an
industry where staff turnover is high. “It’s great as
a staff training tool,” observes Clayton Edwards,
manager of the LRS at the Travelodge in Sidney.
“With the turnover I get it’s impossible to train
people in all the wines. It’s like your own private
sommelier.” While customers are slower than staff
to catch on to Ginger’s offerings, Edwards sees
tech-savvy Gen Y at the scanning screen quite
often. “They’re looking up shooter recipes!”
There’s no shortage of widgets, programs and
systems to choose from. Select the tools that work
best for your establishment’s particular needs,
keeping simplicity and ease of use at the top of
your mind.
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