6 Best Grocery Store POS Systems To Boost Sales In 2023

We love Lightspeed because it is one of the best retail POS systems, especially when it comes to inventory management and sales reporting, which is great for specialty stores that carry a lot of items and for co-ops that require easy-to-easy reports for members to go over. This POS system also has a great loyalty program, eCommerce store builder, and customer account manager.

With Lightspeed Subscriptions, grocery store owners can start a subscription box for specialized meal prep items or hidden gem snacks. Co-ops can also use the subscription manager to charge a recurring monthly fee until new members have reached their investment total if they opt out of a one-time payment.

We also like that Lightspeed offers third-party apps to give you functions such as employee scheduling, appointment bookings, and taking customer feedback.

Additional registers cost $59/register/month.

Lightspeed is heavily focused on retail and offers these excellent retail inventory management features:

• Item bundling and automated breakdowns
• Inventory matrices
• Stock transfer across locations
• Pricing rules based on location and customer segment
• Purchase ordering from a vendor catalog
• Master purchase orders, so you can order for multiple locations from a single vendor
• Custom reorder points and low-stock alerts

Pricing rules allow you to create special prices for co-op members and give discounts for specialty store shoppers who sign up for a monthly membership account. Lightspeed’s vendor catalog manager makes it easy for other businesses to request space on your shelves and easy for you to feature certain vendors on an eCommerce site.

Lightspeed Subscriptions allows co-op owners to create fixed subscriptions so that customers can pay their membership fee incrementally.

Specialty stores can also use Lightspeed Subscriptions to create rolling monthly subscriptions for specialty items (e.g., “wine of the month”) or even allow people to buy fixed subscriptions for certain months or as a gift for someone else (such as a month-long weekly Valentines chocolate box delivery for a loved one).

Lightspeed also has excellent customer management tools, including the ability to create a B2B customer experience on your grocery store’s website. You can create custom prices and minimum order requirements for different customer segments, then force customers to sign up before they can place a wholesale order. If you only want to work with certain businesses, you can mark all signups as “approval required” and approve accounts as you see fit.

You may source your hardware yourself, as Lightspeed lists compatible hardware, or purchase your hardware through Lightspeed (you’ll have to ask for a quote first, though). Lightspeed register kits range from roughly $500 to $1,000.

Lightspeed software runs on iOS devices, which Lightspeed does not sell.

Note: Lightspeed Retail now requires all new qualified merchants in the US and Canada to use Lightspeed Payments, Lightspeed’s payment processor. If you currently use a card reader from a third-party payment processor, you can’t use it anymore. Since you can’t use any existing payment terminals (card readers) with Lightspeed Payments, Lightspeed is currently running a free terminal replacement promotion for eligible merchants that includes two free Lightspeed POS terminals (card readers) per qualified merchant.

Eligible merchants include business owners that process a minimum of $100/day in credit card payments, as measured by a monthly average. Apple products are not included in this promotion, so you’ll still need to source an iPad to take sales.

Lightspeed has its own in-house payment processor, Lightspeed Payments. Business owners in the US and Canada are required to use this payment processor.

With Lightspeed Payments, you’ll pay a processing fee of 2.6% plus $0.10 for tap, chip, and swipe payments. For online orders, you’ll pay a fee of 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction. This is on par with other POS providers that include integrated payment processing, such as Square and Clover.

Note: Lightspeed will buy out payment processing contracts, paying off merchants’ early cancellation fees if you process a minimum of $25,000 in card sales and then submit documentation of your previous payment processing contract that states your early termination fee within six months of meeting this minimum processing amount.

It’s important to note that the “paying off” comes in the form of discounted payment processing fees, not a chunk of cash that goes towards your termination fees when you decide to switch to Lightspeed Payments.

Lightspeed’s annual plans are more cost-effective than monthly ones. However, Lightspeed does charge early termination fees if you cancel your plan, so start with a monthly plan before committing to Lightspeed for the long run.

If you purchase POS hardware from Lightspeed, you must verify that you have received your items within five business days of receiving them. If you do not, the equipment is not covered under Lightspeed’s 30-day warranty (14 days for Apple products).

We love that Square has such a low barrier to entry when it comes to selling both in-person and online. Square offers one of the best free POS systems with a completely free in-person sales app, free online store builder, and the ability to use an unlimited number of devices as POS systems.

Square’s affordable mobile POS app and Bluetooth-compatible card reader make Square an excellent option for small business owners who sell at farmers’ markets, events, and pop-up shops. The countertop POS is also highly affordable and efficient for small grocers with a physical location.

There’s no better option for grocery store owners with a small budget than Square.

With each plan, you are allowed to have an unlimited number of registers, which is not true for many other grocery POS providers.

Square is unique because all of its best features are free for all users. These free features include:

• Unlimited free POS system licenses and unlimited users
• Free online store builder that customers can use to order groceries for curbside pickup, local delivery, and/or shipping
• Free Square online checkout link generator that allows you to take payments over text, email, or QR code
• Free social media marketing channel integrations

Mobile sellers can use Square online checkout links as a way for customers to pre-order items when they’re running low. For example, if you sell your store’s baked goods at a community event and start running low, customers can pre-order items that they really like for pickup or delivery using a QR code (which you can easily print on paper for free).

Square grocery store POS system QR code generator.

Square also supports CBD sales, gift card sales, sales by weight, and EBT/WIC transactions (through a Totilpay integration).

Farmers with a storefront or who sell a CSA/farm share can integrate Square with Local Food Marketplace, a farm production and logistics software. With these two, you can sell recurring produce subscriptions online and upsell customers when they come to pick up their orders.

Paid Square plans offer more inventory management features, such as automated purchase ordering, inventory counts, and multilocation stock management, at a highly competitive price point.

On a paid plan, you can schedule item updates, which is great for creating and advertising weekly specials. You can also create time-sensitive and recurring sales, such as a weekly discount on produce items.

• Related: Read our guide to accepting EBT payments if you’re not sure how to become an EBT-authorized merchant.

Grocery store owners need a way to accept mobile payments and may also need a barcode scanner, printer, weight scale, and cash register.

The Square contactless credit card reader starts at $49. The Square scale is $500, and if you buy a scanner new from Square, you’ll pay around $150, depending on the model. A Square register kit costs $1,329.

Read our Square POS hardware guide to decide what equipment you’ll need and how to get the best deals.

• In-Person Payments: 2.5%-2.6% plus $0.20 per card-present transaction (dependent on subscription plan)
• Online Payments: 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction (online orders placed for pickup or local delivery)
• Card-On-File/Manual Keyed-In Cards: 3.5% plus $0.15 per transaction

Square is one of the most transparent POS system providers and payment processors out there. Contracts are month-to-month, and you may cancel at any time.

Hardware purchased through Square is under warranty. If you break your hardware within that warranty period, you may order a free replacement, but you must send your broken hardware back within 14 days of receiving your new equipment.

This warranty even extends to products that aren’t purchased through Square.

We love that Clover is a POS system that’s as easy to use as any smartphone, with a simple user interface and inventory management. Businesses with high employee turnover can quickly get employees trained and restrict user permissions so that they don’t touch anything they shouldn’t.

Clover is also straightforward when it comes to POS setup. This system has lots of POS hardware, software plans, and merchant services provider options. Small to mid-size grocery stores can choose only the hardware and software features they need and get custom payment processing rates that may be lower than other payment processing providers, such as Square.

Clover offers a huge app market that will give your POS system the specific grocery store POS features you need to run your business. This includes a free EBT payments app, lottery payments/payouts app, and barcode management app.

Built-in Clover features include an online ordering platform, loyalty program, and payments via card, mobile wallet, check, cash, and gift card.

Clover offers several different software subscription plans, but grocery store owners should opt for the $44.95/month-$54.90/month Clover Register plan to get all the POS functionalities they need.

Note: The above prices are on Clover software you purchase on Clover.com when you pay for your hardware upfront. If you lease your Clover hardware, your monthly plan will be much higher. Your monthly pricing may differ if you sign up with a third-party hardware provider.

Read our Clover pricing guide to understand more about how Clover POS software, hardware, and payment processing services affect your monthly billing.

Clover’s most unique feature is its large app market filled with retail and grocery-specific apps. Grocery store owners will want to get Clover apps for EBT payments, ID verification to sell regulated items, employee scheduling and time clocks, cash tracking, and more advanced inventory management.

You may also consider a self-checkout app, tobacco rebate program app, weight-based sale app, and variable barcode sales app.

Clover grocery store POS system free EBT payment app.

Clover also offers a free built-in loyalty program that essentially works as your custom-branded mobile app without the price tag that comes with creating and maintaining one.

Within your Clover dashboard, you can decide how customers earn loyalty points. You can run a special sale where customers get extra points for specific items, which is great when you have too much stock or want to drum up more business. You can also choose whether customers redeem points as a percentage discount, dollar discount, or on specific items/item types.

It’s also possible to announce sales to subscribed loyalty customers, which is a great way to draw customers back into the store or your online store.

Customers who order groceries from your app can set up their order preferences, easily reorder items from previous purchases, and set up a linked payment method, so they can autopay at checkout. Customers get reminders about redeeming loyalty points on their app and at the register.

Clover grocery store POS loyalty points redemption at checkout.

You may purchase Clover hardware directly from the POS provider or a reseller. Devices purchased from Clover range from $49 (Clover Go card reader) to $1,799 (Clover Station Duo).

Additional POS device software subscriptions cost an extra $9.95/device/month if your devices are all in one location.

However, if, for example, you place two Clover Station Duos with a $44.95/month Register software plan in two locations, you’ll pay $44.95/month for each device. If you had both registers in one location, you’d only pay $44.95/month for the first register’s software and $9.95/month for the second register’s software.

Read our guide on the best Clover resellers to decide where (and how) to get a good deal on Clover hardware.

Clover hardware and merchant services are connected, which means that you also have to sign a merchant agreement with whatever Clover reseller you get your Clover hardware from. That merchant agreement will have unique payment processing fees.

If you stick with Clover for your hardware, you are stuck using Fiserv for payment processing and will pay the following fees:

• Card-Present Transactions: 2.3%-2.6% + $0.10 per transaction
• Card-Not-Present Transactions: 3.5% + $0.10 per transaction

Card-not-present transactions include manually keyed-in card transactions, phone orders, online orders, invoice payments, and every form of payment except for cash, check, or swipe/tap/chip card payment.

Fiserv does not have the best reputation as a merchant service provider, and Clover seems to only offer 36-month and 48-month contracts with hefty early termination fees and poor customer service. Take these things into consideration before dedicating yourself to getting your hardware and merchant services from Clover.

Also, make sure to avoid Clover scams when purchasing your hardware, or your business could suffer financially (and your sanity may suffer as you switch to a new merchant services provider).

We love that Revel offers customizable features of both retail and restaurant POS systems wrapped up in one POS subscription. Revel is worth the price tag for full-service grocery stores. Other less expensive POS systems require you to pick either retail or restaurant software, whereas Revel blends features from both industries into one master dashboard.

On the grocery side, Revel offers a detailed inventory management system, employee management tools, and an in-depth cashier user interface setup. You can customize your store’s receipts, include an eCommerce website, and even sell grocery item subscriptions or wholesale to businesses such as restaurants or offices.

On the café side, Revel has ingredient-level item management, combos and meal deals, and online menus. Your café customers and employees will appreciate the self-serve kiosks and online ordering system that allow them to get out of the store faster. Your kitchen staff will appreciate Revel’s kitchen display systems, which help them manage orders from several ordering sources and ensure orders are correct every time.

This pricing applies if you sign up for a three-year contract and a minimum of two terminals. If you want to know about other pricing terms, you must contact a Revel Systems representative for a quote.

There is also a one-time $674 implementation fee, which includes software and hardware consultations, training, and payment setup for merchants.

Revel’s most unique function is its foodservice capabilities, which include the ability to:

• Create menus with forced and optional modifiers, plus timed special combos and meal deals to draw in customers
• Track raw ingredients, remove items when ingredients become unavailable, and generate food cost reports, which all help you control costs in the long run
• Add self-serve kiosks, which is excellent when you’re short-staffed at the register or customers only want to order food
• Use digital kitchen display systems to manage orders from different sources (in-store, online, third-party ordering platform, drive-through window, etc.)
• Integrate digital menu boards that show your current menu and will automatically update based on your Revel menu changes

Revel grocery store POS system branded self-serve kiosk.

Revel has just about every cashier function you could need, including EBT sales (via third-party integration), offline payments mode, age verification requirements so that you can legally sell tobacco and alcohol, plus sales by weight. You can set a till alert to know when it’s time for a safe drop, create manager refund approval requirements, and employee performance reports to monitor your employees’ activity at the register.

Revel is also one of the best inventory management POS systems because of its fast purchase ordering, receiving, and stock monitoring capabilities, which helps larger grocery stores and supermarkets manage a lot of moving stock at once.

Managers can easily generate purchase orders with preferred vendor settings, while stockers can mark orders as partially or fully received. They can also use Revel’s barcode generator/scanner phone app to scan in items and perform manual stock takes.

You’ll get reports on all inventory activity and item discrepancies, and you can tag the reason behind discrepancies (theft, returns, damages, etc.). This, in addition to perishable inventory management, will really help grocers cut down on lost profits.

Revel grocery POS system partial purchase order receiving.

Last, we have to say that Revel allows you to sell just about anything, from ready-to-cook meal subscriptions to bulk orders to regulated substances.

Note: Revel can technically handle fuel sales and wet stock management, but if you want to focus primarily on selling gas, read our post on the best gas station POS systems.

Revel Systems sells iPads, iPad stands, and self-serve kiosks. Revel is compatible with several payment devices, barcode scanners, cash drawers, printers, and scales.

Revel proprietary hardware is quote-based. You may source compatible hardware on your own, but you must get permission from Revel in writing to do this. The company does this to ensure that you’re purchasing Revel-compatible hardware.

Revel has its own in-house payment processor, Revel Advantage. You will have to get a custom quote for your payment processing rate.

You can also call for a free payment processing rate review, and the company may meet or beat your current payment processing rates.

You can use other third-party payment processors, such as Moneris and Adyen, but Revel will charge an additional fee if you decide against Revel Advantage.

To get the best deal, you must sign up for a three-year contract, sign on for at least two terminals, and use Revel Advantage, the company’s in-house payment processor. You are billed annually.

If you terminate your Revel subscription early, you’ll pay double the amount remaining on the contract or $15,000, whichever is higher.

Translation: Really consider whether Revel is right for your business before committing. Make good use of your product demo, ask Revel representatives lots of questions, and shop around for the best hardware and payment processing deals before signing any contracts.

We appreciate that POS Nation understands that many grocery stores don’t just sell food. Grocery stores may offer a range of products and services, including selling regulated substances. With integrated ID verification scanners, regulated inventory tracking, and reporting on tobacco, alcohol, and lottery sales, POS Nation has all the functionality you need to offer a wide variety of age-restricted items.

This POS provider recognizes the potentially high turnover rates and shrinkage associated with grocery stores and has built loss-prevention measures into the software.

POS Nation also ranks highly on our list of best POS systems for convenience stores because of the software’s regulated substance sales and employee management functions.

• Flex Monthly: $149/month/POS system; pay monthly for your POS hardware and software
• Freedom: $999/POS system; one-time fee for POS register kit bundle and pay monthly for POS software

POS Nation offers these regulated sales-specific features:

• Forced ID scanning and manual age entry
• Tobacco inventory tracking (by cases, case breaks, individual packs)
• Alcohol inventory tracking (by cases, individual items, groupings, and case breaks)
• Lottery ticket purchases, payouts, and reports from registers with no need for a separate lottery sales machine
• Vape kitting

POS Nation cigarette item specifications in the admin dashboard.

Grocery stores that sell regulated items are often more susceptible to theft, which is why POS Nation includes loss prevention tools, such as forced cash drawer counts, blind till balancing, and item shrinkage monitoring to tell whether employees are just making mistakes or stealing from your business.

POS Nation also uniquely offers perishable inventory management, automated purchase order generation based on inventory thresholds, and inventory movement reports, so you’ll have an ideal number of items on the shelf. These features are often a paid add-on with other grocery store POS systems.

The Flex Monthly plan includes the hardware price in your monthly subscription. If you cancel your subscription, you return the hardware.

When you sign up, you’ll receive a convenience store POS bundle, which includes a touch PC, receipt printer, cash drawer, scanner, and a chip card reader. Extra bundles cost $999 each.

You can get a free online quote for your entire hardware setup on POS Nation’s website. All you have to do is choose your subscription plan, add any extras, such as a label printer scale (a great feature for delis) or customer display screens, and enter your email/phone number.

POS Nation advertises a payment processing rate between 2% and 2.5% (dependent on your sales volumes).

You must contact a representative for a quote and to open a merchant account.

You can’t return a one-time purchase, so start on the month-to-month subscription before dedicating yourself to POS Nation for the entirety of your career.

We love that IT Retail is designed specifically for fast-paced, multidepartment supermarkets. This POS is highly customizable and intuitive, especially if you have experience as a cashier, a cash office manager, or have worked inventory.

IT Retail takes into account every facet of running a large grocery store, from how quickly you need to get customers checked out to weeding out any underlying issues, such as theft, excessive shrinkage, and plain old scanning mistakes.

Decision-makers can also use data from IT Retail to guide their decisions on what products to sell, who to promote, and what marketing efforts are worth pursuing.

IT Retail advertises three base plans:

• Flex Monthly: $199/month/POS system; pay monthly for your POS hardware and software
• Freedom Standard: $1,499/POS system; pay a one-time fee for basic POS hardware and pay monthly for POS software
• Freedom Premium: $1,999/POS system; pay a one-time fee for larger POS hardware with a dual customer-facing display and pay monthly for POS software

IT Retail asks all grocery store business owners to request a quote, so you’ll most likely end up paying a custom amount depending on what kind of POS hardware you need, how many checkout lanes you plan on having, whether you want to offer online ordering or self-checkout lanes, etc.

IT Retail is a self-contained software designed specifically for larger grocery stores with lots of products, sections, and employees.

Larger grocery stores tend to have several departments and certain rules or inventory needs associated with those departments. IT Retail makes it easy to manage all your departments and the properties of products within those departments.

For example, any item from a beer and wine section will require ID verification at checkout. You can specify this requirement in the department editor in your IT Retail admin dashboard.

You can also create custom product templates for item types, which is great for employees receiving new products and cashiers entering new products at checkout.

IT Retail’s employee management and theft prevention features include:

• Transaction monitor automatically flags suspicious transactions, and you can see who completed those transactions
• Manager approval is required for price overrides
• Till status manager and rules such as a required cash drop over a certain amount of money
• Custom employee roles with permissions such as “require manager override for voids over a certain amount of money”
• Employee reports that tell you everything from how fast cashiers ring out orders to how many voids and returns they make
• Custom shrinkage reports with employees associated with that department or product receiving to monitor instances of mistakes or theft

IT Retail is an EBT and eWIC-certified POS system, so you don’t have to pay for an app or third-party integration to take these common grocery store payment types as you do with most other POS systems on this list. You can also accept checks and flag certain customers as “do not accept checks” if their checks bounce.

IT Retail sells strong, “rugged” hardware that is made to last, especially in busy multilane supermarkets. You can contact the company for a quote on registers, card readers, self-checkout stations, scanners, customer display screens, and receipt printers.

Registers have a built-in scale to make checkout fast and easy.

IT Retail provides an in-house payment processing solution with fixed-rate and interchange-plus pricing models. The company advertises that it can offer lower rates than competitors, so get a few quotes before approaching IT Retail about payment processing.

IT Retail does not provide much information about subscription plans and merchant service agreements on its website. Make sure to read the fine print on your contract before signing up for IT Retail.