5 Best Convenience Store POS Systems

POS Nation scored 4.87 out of 5. It maxed out every category except ease of use, losing points there because it charges for customer support. Overall, however, it’s an excellent and affordable system.

You can customize hotkeys for products or functions.

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You can include lotto payout buttons directly in your POS Nation payment screen to speed service.

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POS Nation digitizes your cash drawer counts, ensuring accuracy and creating a searchable record of cash drawer counts.

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You can use your POS Nation POS tablet as a mobile device to perform inventory counts or process sales on the floor.

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• Flexible Payment Processing: POS Nation partners with multiple payment processors and accepts EBT. The bundled plans require POS Nation payment processing, however. It’s the most flexible on our list.
• Cash Discounting: Offering discounts for cash can save you money spent on merchant fees for credit card processing. On this list, only POS Nation offers a built-in cash discounting module. Though with other systems, you could build a workaround using their general discounting functions.
• Lottery and Fuel Support: POS Nation accepts payments at the gas pump and supports lottery and Lotto ticket sales. LS Forecourt and NCR also have both these features; KORONA has some lottery sales and payout functions.
• Liquor Management Features: Along with KORONA and IT Retail, POS Nation offers great features for selling alcohol—ID scan, alcohol-regulation-specific reports, and product variants.
• Free Web Store: Customers are increasingly interested in ordering ahead or online to pick up; offering this feature can increase your local traffic. POS Nation offers a free web store

In our evaluation, KORONA scored 4.68 out of 5. It earned perfect scores for back-office tools and ease of use but lost points for not having integrated fuel management.

Otherwise, it’s a highly versatile system, not only in its many c-store features but also in that you can choose your payment processor and may even be able to use the hardware you already own; a KORONA representative can tell you if your equipment is compatible.

It also has a theft prevention module and robust inventory tracking tools that corner store owners will love.

KORONA’s POS screens are fully customizable with high-contrast buttons to speed transactions.

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KORONA’s cashier report is one of the most detailed available.

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• Anti-theft Features: Granular employee permissions and detailed reporting are the cornerstones of KORONA’s anti-theft features. You can set the system to restrict any actions while the cash drawer is open and eliminate the ability to pop the cash drawer using a “no sale” function, for example. KORONA includes the option to require cashiers to blind drop their cash drawers at the end of their shift.
• Sales History: Not only does KORONA track sales history, but it automatically takes the sales history and promotional sales into account when determining when a product needs to be reordered. Other apps like IT Retail can do comparisons in reports, but you need to set the parameters manually.
• Customizability: Like POS Nation, KORONA has a lot of customizability, from the size of the buttons to the layout of the register. It also lets you customize workflows. You can set up quick keys and group hierarchies. It has 100 customizable reports, which is more than POS Nation.
• Excellent Customer Service: Real-world users rate Korona highly. The system earns a 4.69 averaged over multiple review sites. Only POS Nation did better with 4.78 out of 5. Excellent customer service is a common theme. KORONA has 24/7 free customer support.

LS scored highly for its features, earning a 4.67 out of 5 in our convenience store POS evaluation. Plus, LS offers 24/7 customer support.

It mainly lost points in the pricing category. Pricing isn’t readily available—you have to get a custom quote, though minimum rates start at $99 per month with an annual contract.

LS Forecourt is an easy-to-use software that handles all the needs of a convenience store/gas station. (Source: LS Retail)

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LS Retail had excellent inventory and reporting tools, including wet inventory control. (Source: LS Retail)

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• Central Pump Control: Cashiers can authorize, pause, stop, and lock/unlock pumps. You can log drive-aways and refund money if a customer doesn’t use their full prepay.
• Fuel Inventory Control: Get automatic readings of tank gauges and manually add data that is not automated, such as tank dip readings or delivery notes. LS Forecourt can automatically replenish wet stock based on sales history and stock levels.
• Full Food Service: Fuel your customers as well. LS Forecourt includes food service tools for managing the kitchen, creating meal deals, and tracking food to the ingredient level.
• Sales Analytics and Inventory: Use LS Forecourt’s sales history and forecasting tools to predict optimum stock levels throughout the year. LS Retail says it can decrease stock-outs by up to 85%.
• Loyalty Management: You can set up in-store, online, and mobile loyalty schemes and offers with a click of a button.

NCR earned a 4.34 out of 5 on our scoring criteria. It earned points for its fuel management tools, self-checkout options, and range of supported payment processors. It lost some ground when it came to price. Like IT Retail, NCR POS requires a custom quote to determine your overall cost. It also uses a reseller system to sell its POS. Price and contract terms can vary by reseller, so it is hard to tell if you’re getting the best deal.

If transparent pricing is a must for you, check out POS Nation or KORONA instead.

NCR’s OPTIC secure payment terminal affixes to fuel pumps and gives you a dynamic touch screen to speed transactions and showcase promotions.

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NCR’s screen includes speed buttons for pumps and food service items.

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• Tamper-evident Pay-at-the-Pump: NCR’s OPTIC payment terminal processes payments at the fuel pump. It syncs with your loyalty program and features a dynamic touch screen to display discounts and promotions. The OPTIC terminal is tamper-evident with a real-time remote tamper alert and supports E2EE data encryption to secure customer payment information. The terminals are weatherproof and waterproof to withstand the harshest weather and come in two different sizes—12” and 5”—to fit most major pumps.
• FastLane SelfServ Checkout: Like IT Retail, NCR supports multiple self-checkout configurations. You can choose self-checkout stands with small or large footprints to fit any type of convenience store layout.
• AI- supported Theft Detection: NCR’s SmartAssist module combines smart cameras with artificial intelligence to detect intentionally missed scans at self-checkout kiosks and other types of consumer fraud. It can alert you before the customer has completed their transaction and left the store, decreasing shrinkage due to theft at the checkout counter. NCR is currently the only option on this list with such an advanced anti-theft solution.
• Online ordering: Like IT Retail, NCR offers mobile shopper solutions and integration to online stores so your customers can order ahead or at the pump.

It has solid scores in every category of our c-store POS evaluation, earning it a 4.32 out of 5 overall. IT Retail scored well for its anti-theft features, strong inventory tools, and extensive checkout options. Lack of fuel monitoring is a downside, though. This system is also pretty pricey; the hardware starts at $2,000 per lane, and the software prices went up since our last review. However, the system operates on a lot of popular third-party hardware—like Epson receipt printers—so you may be able to reuse some of your existing hardware.

IT Retail’s terminals are rugged to stand up to high-volume use.

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IT Retail’s self-checkout stands come in compact sizes for small convenience store spaces.

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An integration with Future Proof supports line-free check-out and advance-ordering tools via customer smartphones.

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• Grocery-strength Inventory: IT Retail has a lot of special functions for produce and other types of food items. For example, it has shrink inventory for tracking food used in-store or that expires and bottle deposit functions. It is our best grocery POS system (POS Nation is also on the list).
• Dynamic Ecommerce Integrations: Like POS Nation, IT Retail can provide an online store, plus, it integrates with several grocery-related ecommerce solutions such as Mercato, Freshop, My Cloud Grocer, and Instacart. You can get discounts on some of these. (KORONA integrates with WooCommerce only.)
• Line-free Checkout and Order Ahead: IT Retail has partnered with FutureProof to provide special apps that let customers order ahead and check out through their mobile devices. No other software on our list offers this. Even more, you can get the line-free mobile checkout program free. It also has a self-checkout register if you prefer.

A convenience store POS system is a POS system that can handle the ring-ups of the average c-store. This usually means food and non-food products, fuel sales, restricted products like alcohol and tobacco, and sometimes even self-service stations or snack bars.

The best POS systems for convenience stores offer a combination of retail, food sales, and fuel. They are easy to use and have strong security features, plus they offer strong inventory tools including expiration date tracking and wet inventory for gas or diesel.

Our evaluation determined that POS Nation is the best POS System for most convenience stores—though stores that sell gas will be better served by NCR Silver or LS Forecourt.

Convenience store POS systems can be pricey compared to other types of POS. Expect to spend at least $60-$150 per month per terminal. You will also need to pay upfront for hardware and budget for credit card processing fees which average 2%-3% of your sales.