Summer is a great time to offer drink specials to attract customers and increase sales. But in order to profit from drink specials, you’ll need to manage them effectively — and a bar POS (point of sale) system can help. Here are three steps to get the job done:
1. Tailor summer drink specials to your specific customers.
A look at your bar POS data can help you get a handle on the profile of your typical customer so you can determine which drink specials will have the greatest appeal. For example, if your bar POS data reveals a spike in beer sales following local sporting matches, it would be better to offer beer specials during that time, rather than a fruity cocktail.
By reviewing reports in your bar POS system, you will also be able to identify slow periods that could use an increase in traffic — and sales. In addition, sales data from the bar POS system will indicate which brands and varieties of wine and liquor are moving slowly and might be of greater appeal to customers if used as ingredients in summer drink specials.
2. Customize your bar POS interface to support fast service.
Make sure your bartenders and servers can easily find specials, order them, and charge for them accurately. Your bar POS system should be able to support multiple prices for every item: the “summer drink special” price and the “regular” price. Your bar POS system should also give you the capability to charge special prices during specific time periods, such as happy hour or only on certain evenings.
3. Make smart decisions with data.
Your bar POS system’s reporting feature is an invaluable tool when it comes to monitoring profitability and helping you make decisions that keep the bottom line healthy. You may be only breaking even on summer drink specials, so are they helping to bring in more customers and increase sales overall? POS reporting can give you that answer. If offering summer drink specials isn’t resulting in profits, running reports in a timely manner can allow you to end the promotion before it has negative consequences.
For example, suppose your bar area generates sales of $10,000 per week and $2,000 in inventory is used. This is a typical profit of 80 percent. Then, suppose you introduce a summer drink special that increases weekly sales to $10,800 and usage to $2,500 and your profitability decreases to 77 percent. In this case, your POS data and reports are telling you that you need to make adjustments to the deal to reverse the downswing in profits.
Offering summer drink specials can fatten your bottom line by attracting new customers who also purchase regularly priced drinks or food items. Specials, however, have to be carefully planned to ensure they will be appealing enough to increase customer traffic and will also result in an overall increase in profits.
Your bar POS system is equipped with the tools to manage summer drink specials so they have a positive impact on your business. Leverage this functionality for fast, accurate service and report monitoring to help this summertime marketing initiative pay off.
