For 97% of shoppers, convenience is a top consideration when determining where to shop. This is exactly why the convenience channel remains vital in our communities: There's something about walking into a C-store and grabbing what you need quickly and easily that simply can't be replicated online.
Your C-store thrives on one thing more than anything else: foot traffic. The more people who come through your doors, the more opportunities you have to sell them products and keep them returning for more.
Nevertheless, managing and operating a convenience store is no cakewalk. It’s like juggling multiple balls in the air, including but not limited to, inventory management, strong demand fluctuations to lost sales reports. If you fumble a ball, your operations can fall apart. To succeed, you must understand your customers and your community.
But if there's anything capable of helping us with that problem, it's got to be data - the new oil that's valuable only if it's refined. By parsing data, you can see the trends, the preferences, and the patterns that will help you curate your store to meet the exact needs of your unique, local community. You could use data to know your customers and community so well that your initiatives keep them coming back, and your unique selling propositions are unique because they've been tailored like a fine suit for the one person wearing it. It's not just about selling a thing your people want and need; it's about spreading the word so that they come in.
The use of data allows you to offer consumers a shopping experience that is not only convenient but also personalized – meaning they’re more likely to choose your business over the competition and keep coming back for more.
Spreadsheets for tracking data come with multiple issues: human error, not safe, hard to find if changes have been made, data full of mistakes, expensive, and more chances of losing important information. So, adding a C-store back-office software gives true benefits to scaling multi-unit enterprise companies.
How? We will go over how having back-office software in your C-Store can benefit customers’ demand, fast and provide meaningful business insights.
Best Convenience Store Software
As we've discussed, convenience store managers face unique challenges compared to other retailers, and selecting a system that doesn’t fit your needs can spell your doom.
Here are our top convenience store software picks that align with evolving customer behavior.
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1. Xenia- Overall Best Convenience Store Software
Xenia is an all-in-one platform built to help you execute convenient operations with ease. Our software makes it easy for everyone on your team (GMS, Home officers, and crew members) to know exactly what needs to be done, when to do it, how to do it, and who should do it.
Plus, the mobile dashboard oversight and visibility into every task across every location. That means you can rest knowing that nothing fell through the cracks regardless of whether you run a single-store or multi-location franchise.
Ensuring brand compliance is one of the most important challenges for C-Store managers. Our C-Store backhouse software offers a dedicated Operation Templates feature - a hub that enables managers to build and deploy audits, inspections, workflows, and many other things, easily!
No more executing tasks and doing audits by hand, leaving a cumbersome paper trail behind you, which usually doesn’t go beyond consuming lots of time.
You can easily create tasks, assign them to any store associate, no matter their working location, and follow simultaneously ongoing processes, without wasting fuel and physically being there.
Next, by enabling real-time Reporting and Analytics, the program offers shift leads and managers powerful tools and methods, so they can dig deeper into data, identify patterns and trends, and interpret and understand the data.
How is this advantageous?
With these new insights, Managers can take direct actions, monitor a service, optimize business processes, define growth patterns, shorten the timeframes, and then implement them to make better and quicker decisions.
- Ticket Routing and Maintenance Requests
The workflow management is very detailed and flexible! You can make custom workflows using templates and checklists with ease, assign tasks and forms in seconds, and manage results with just a few clicks. Managers can choose the right task, pick the employee or location, set a due date, and bam! Those tasks will show up exactly where you want. (Which sounds good, until you forget you assigned a task to “Bob (the other one).” Ouch.)
Here’s an example: want to make sure your C-Store’s food is always safe and healthy? Create a “Food Temperature Monitoring” checklist. Just log in, assign it to one employee, and they’ll double-check the temp and give everything a quick look-over.
What makes a GM's life easier is that you can ask them to attach pictures of the thermometer readings right to the task, so you’ve got proof if there’s ever a question.
When an employee gets a task list on their Xenia app, they do it and send it back. Managers track completion progress to be sure the right people get the right things.
- Protect Your Brand and Customers
To give consumers a high-quality experience every time they walk into one of your stores, you have got to get the fundamentals right – cleaning, food preparation, and operations.
Built to assist you in improving your store’s performance in a deliberate, consistent way, this end-to-end solution will allow you to amaze consumers consistently. Not just for retail store managers, Xenia is made for anybody who has to manage more than multiple teams, locations, or tasks such as district managers, regional VPs, home inspectors, and even franchise business consultants.
Consistency across brands is essential for convenience stores and frequent checks are necessary to ensure that every detail is as it should be. Whether the audit takes place on-site or by sending in a mystery shopper, auditors can point out problems by simply snapping a photo and personally fixing things by keeping notes and assigning tasks to store managers or colleagues. Moreover, with an employee directory, you can assess the right person in no time.
But that’s not all. With Xenia’s AI-driven tool, you can create custom protocols for your store ops, get expert advice to perfect them, and have them automatically assigned to the right team or outlet.
- Real-Time Collaboration and Reports
With the responsive mobile dashboard or web portal, District Managers or Franchise Business Consultants get instant updates on demand and a bird's-eye view of what's happening across your stores— without even being there. This is important because it can save a lot of time, energy, and resources enhancing business scalability.
All the essential information you need will be available in one place - current duties, overdue assignments, what's required today, what's needed this week, the number of assignments in total, and the progress of completion. The app keeps you in the loop all day, every day.
You can make informed decisions with this report, instead of going with gut feelings. You can watch every week how your team progresses without having to go through reports or bothering them.
Automated Logs
Our automatic, in-depth task logs let you see the whole task history - who did what and when, specifically.
No sweat.
No need for manual tracking or in-person check-ins. Plus, as adjustments and updates are made, you can add a note and see the whole task history in a single sit-down - it’s about as efficient as it gets!
Here's a quick overview of this C-store back office software.
Key Features
- Dedicated Task Allotment: Create tasks and assign them to selected store teams for quicker resolution.
- Ticket routing and maintenance requests: Utilize workflows for rapidly routing tickets to the appropriate departments, allowing you to generate a wide variety of maintenance requests while keeping up a great user experience.
- Collaboration in real-time: Facilitating real-time supervision of ongoing tasks by enabling dedicated in-app chat rooms or tasks, that let store managers, retail staff, and key stakeholders keep in touch.
- Multi-Unit Checklists: Generate new checklists or use custom templates, making it simple to roll out retail OPS procedures across multiple locations, guaranteeing brand uniformity.
- AI-Powered (SOP) Builder: The integrated AI-powered tool lets GM create limitless SOPs specific to retail or any other activity that necessitates rapid attention – such as audits, inspections, key equipment maintenance, and asset management – so that your retail operations consistently operate as they should.
Pricing
- Forever Free: Up to 5 users, with unlimited basic features
- Starter: $99/mo for up to 15 users, with core features
- Premium: $199/mo for up to 15 users, with all core & advanced features
- Custom: Need something exclusive to your company?
Available for up to 5 users
Premium for $99/month for the first 20 users (with free trial period)
Available on iOS, Android and Web
2. Bindy
Next on our list of top C-Store back office software is Bindy, which claims to be the best cloud-based solution for retailers of all kinds. It’s ideal for multi-unit retailers, manufacturers, pharmacies, and even hotels and restaurants.
Specializing in inspection workflows, the software has an easy-to-use calendar that lets store operators schedule visits, checklists that can be customized for each visit, and the ability to collect digital data from countless sites. A calendar can be utilized by administrators to easily schedule visits and customize inspection checklists or forms to collect data from different sites. There is also the option to upload attachments and reference anything needed.
Furthermore, the root cause analysis module helps find underlying reasons for any issues. This proactive approach means not only resolving the issue but also finding a way to prevent it from happening again. Data visualization also lets you create clear, graphical, and informative views of collected data. It will be much easier to make an informed decision from there.
Key Features
- Maintain a detailed record of all your activities and changes for transparency and accountability.
- Easily identify and resolve any quality or product issues to prevent recurrence.
- Evaluate potential risks, analyze them, and implement controls for lessening or eliminating them.
- Effectively organize, track, and record all your tasks to ensure efficient workflow and completion.
- Schedule, perform, and report on any inspection, and ensure adherence to standards and regulatory guidelines.
- Implement systematic monitoring and control measures to ensure adherence to regulatory and brand standards.
Pricing
- Contact Vendor
3. FreshCheq
FreshCheq makes it easy to manage critical C-Store operations tasks like store checklists and food waste logs.
The software helps with audits and corrective actions and includes detailed reporting, all of which saves time and money. By increasing employee accountability and streamlining workflow, your team is always on top of their tasks.
An important aspect of FreshCheq is that it does not require any costly hardware. Any smart device or computer you own can give you access to its features and all of its handy dash reports instantly. This means you do not have to factor any new equipment into your budget to have effective, actionable dash reports at every layer of your organization. You can stay connected and informed whether you’re at the store, in the office, or on the go.
Key Features
- The Activity Dashboard gives a view of current activities and Key Performance Indicators streamed in real-time.
- Pushes immediate updates and reminders ensuring users are always aware of challenges and timelines.
- Utilizes advanced analytics, to provide deeper insights and foresight.
- Auto drafts responses to standard queries and problems, saving time and improving efficiency.
- Directs store tasks and inquiries to the right team member based on predefined rules.
Pricing
- Starting from $60
4. Korona POS
KORONA POS is a top dog in the C-Store back-office software industry, and for good reason. This POS system offers a robust feature set to support every aspect of store management.
One most prominent is its ABC analysis.
It gives you insight into which items are performing best and which are not performing as well. These insights are necessary to make intelligent decisions about inventory and sales.
Moving on, an incredibly helpful widget within KORONA POS is the sales and stock analysis. Not only does it track sales and inventory levels, but it also lets you know the exact amount of each product to order. Managers can set up point of sale to automatically reorder products and save hours of work emailing or calling suppliers. You’ll save money and time while ensuring your shelves are always full.
Key Features
- Keeps track of stock levels, orders, and product information effectively.
- Process different payment methods quickly and securely at the check-out counter.
- Builds and maintains customer loyalty programs and customer relationship information.
- Provides complete sales, inventory, and performance metric reports & analytics.
- Centralizes management of multiple store locations and franchises from one platform.
Pricing
- Contact Vendor
5. POS Nation
Designed for retailers such as liquor, wine, and beer stores, and tobacco and vape shops, POS Nation comes with all of the capabilities you need right in the box, so you don't have to stress about buying extra add-ons.
The built-in discounting and sales pricing are standout features. You can accept and create coupons and promotions and discounts are a breeze.
You can also use age verification and customizable hotkeys in the system to make checkout a streamlined process.
The age verification will keep your employees out of trouble by keeping customers under a certain age from purchasing items they aren’t allowed to. The customizable hotkeys will make it easy to look up items quickly and check customers out faster.
Key Features
- Efficiently tracks and manages product returns to streamline the returns process.
- Manages employee permissions, schedules, and performance with simple tools.
- Maximizes your retail POS system by straightforwardly managing your various retail operations.
- Intuitively integrates several business management tools for simplicity and efficiency.
Pricing
- Contact Vendor
What is C-Store Back Office Software?
CStoreBackoffice software is a cloud-based solution meant to improve operational efficiencies by speeding up the entry of data, reconciliation, and forecasting to improve merchandising, food, and fuel sales. It’s designed to help improve your margins and reduce your inventory shrink and spoilage.
Plus, the platform helps you improve pricing consistency and improve employee efficiency, maximize sales, and get rid of dead inventory.
The purpose of C-store software is to assist store managers in giving customers exactly what they're looking for - swift, professional service.
Considering that c-stores are frequently visited for their convenience, extended hours, and a multitude of goods and services, store managers can guarantee rapid checkout times, grab-n-go food, and even faster sales transactions, making a win-win situation for everyone.
What are the Key Benefits of C-Store Back Office Software?
- Optimize Price Management
Retail pricing can be a nightmare, especially for convenience stores that deal with hundreds of SKUs and multiple vendors. It's like putting together a puzzle with constantly changing pieces.
Vendor prices keep on fluctuating so it's hard to find the right spot to put the price of individual items. And dynamic pricing? It can revolutionize profitability - if you can stay on top of what's hot.
Utilizing a back-office system allows you to manage and dictate how your pricing strategy functions to increase your profit growth. C-Store back-office software breaks down all the information for you. It takes your inventory reports and your sales reports and recommends pricing changes that will bring you all the profit growth that you deserve.
And the best part? Decisions are based on real data rather than someone’s gut feeling.
- Reduce OverStocks and Out-of-Stocks
The inventory control ability of C-store software is simply amazing. Let's start at the store level – this software gives you a complete, up-to-the-minute view of your inventory so you can see exactly what is selling and what’s not. From there, you can drill down to the category level and see what’s moving and what’s not. But it’s really at the item level where things get magical – you can see exactly which items are fast sellers and which ones are gathering dust.
What are the benefits of accuracy?
By these standard levels, you'll never have a stockout or overstock. Never run out of high-selling items or pin hips on a bunch of slow-moving stinkers. And never sweat lost revenue due to inventory shrinkage - no more theft, spoilage, or expiration. It keeps your inventory and profit on track.
For instance, you could notice that your snack sales are taking a nose dive, and when you look into it, you find that you're completely out of your most popular chips and pretzels! That is a bummer because those things usually fly off the shelves.
Or you're carrying all the wrong drinks. You thought those fancy new sodas were going to be all the rage, but instead, they're just sitting there, gathering dust. Meanwhile, your customers demand some more classic colas and lemon-lime sodas. Oops!
With the use of C-store software, you can call out these hot potato items and make some changes. You can order new shipments of snacks and drinks that adults are lining up to buy, and get rid of the rest for good.
- Improved Team Accountability
When it comes to training your employees, you need C-store software that’s as nimble and on the go as you are. With cloud-based C-store software, you can train your team wherever and whenever, with just a few taps on your mobile device.
To illustrate, imagine you have a recent employee starting the next day. You would have to instruct them on how to use the system for several hours with old-fashioned programs. However, with cloud-based C-Store back-office software, you can instantly log in, and demonstrate how it works, and they are off to the races! They can ring up sales, monitor inventory levels, and even answer customer inquiries with no problem at all.
By providing your workers with the resources they need to be successful, you can enhance job contentment and decrease the turnover rate.
- A Delightful Customer Experience
Managing a convenience store is not easy. You have to keep your customers satisfied, but the number of skills and the time required to meet their expectations can be daunting. Customers love being treated like kings and that's what CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is for. It lets you make them feel like VIPs. But, traditional CRM systems suck! They are clunky and out of date. They are frustrating and infuriating.
C-Store Backoffice software solves this problem. It eliminates the time and skill required to revolutionize the way social media is used to attract and satisfy customers. By using data feeds that integrate with your customer relationship management (CRM) system, you can offer timely and personalized assistance and updates, keeping customers engaged and satisfied.
Moreover, since 93% of customers will be patient with shipping delays when a retailer’s excellent customer service is in place, it is a no-brainer!
By investing in C-Store Backoffice software, you put your customer’s needs first – and that’s the ultimate goal. Retaining customers, and bringing them back for more, is what leads to a thriving, successful retail site!
Summing it Up
Convenience stores are unlike other types of retail—and come with their unique challenges. They must handle a high volume of customers, a wide variety of products, and the need for frequent inventory restocking. It can be overwhelming trying to juggle all of these tasks without the right C-Store back office software.
When you automate your recurring tasks and easily manage inventory, you can concentrate on what means the most — giving first-rate service to your customers and staying ahead of the curve. And applying the best software you can find enables you to derive actionable insights that fuel profitability and growth.
Unify Team Operations, Maintenance and Safety Compliance with Xenia
Xenia unifies daily operations, maintenance management and quality assurance to help ensure teams and facilities are effective and efficient.
Our customers love Xenia's robust use cases including:
Operational Execution
✔️ Checklists & SOPs
Create checklists, SOPs, Inspections and Data Logs to power accountability, training and staff clarity on every task.
💪 Team Task Management
Assign work digitally to defeat pencil whipping and disorganized teams. Complete tasks, chat with teams on any device, track time, collect photos, and ensure high quality work.
📆 Recurring Tasks
Create recurring schedules for daily opening and closings, performance review meetings, inspections, cleanings and more.
📲 Chats & Announcements
Centralize team communications with in task chats, one-on-one chats, team messages and company wide announcements
📊 Team Performance Reporting
Use Xenia's analytics dashboards to view staff work reports. Filter by asset, location, category or due date and export the report in PDF or Excel
Maintenance Management
🛠️ Work Orders
Create work orders with associated team, asset, location, priority, category and due date. View live progress reports on each work order, chat with teams, and review resulting template submission, images and notes to improve operations.
🧰 Preventive Maintenance
Create a preventive maintenance calendar to ensure asset uptime is not compromised. Attach images, templates, videos and notes to every task and assign to a team or individual for completion.
📲 QR Codes
Generate and attach QR codes to equipment and facility locations to enable fast and accurate inspections and data logs.
⚙️ Work Order Requests
Receive, approve and assign work order requests from tenants, regular customers and vendors. Enable requesters to submit, track, and communicate with your team, without access to operations templates or unrelated work orders.
📁 Equipment Work History
View work history for every asset and sub asset in Xenia. Review performance data and enable corrective actions to improve your operation.
Safety Compliance & Quality Assurance
👍 Concrete Brand Standards
Put your brand standards in a clear and operational checklist to be attached to work assignments.
🔎 Smart Inspection Workflows
Xenia's operations template builder has built in conditional logic into each step. This allows you to trigger actions based on a form response such as creating a corrective action on a failed inspection step, sending a notification to management for out of range meter readings, and much more.
✨ Corrective Actions
Operationalize inspections with fast work order assignment arising from a failed inspection step. All corrective data is stored in the checklist submission for auditing and accountability.
📋 Analytics and Reports
View live dashboard summaries of tasks, employee performance, template submissions and more. Filter, organize and export compliance reports to PDF and Excel formats to simplify compliance management.
Unify End to End Retail Operations With Xenia's Digital Solutions
Streamlining chaotic retail operations, multi location procedures and daily activities isn't easy.
We get it!
Xenia unifies everything with the help of dedicated iretail execution tools to maintain a consistent quality needed for your on-site assets.
Our customers love Xenia's robust use cases including:
🛠️ Store Task Management
Create any number of tasks with associated team, asset, location, priority, category and due date. View live progress reports on each work order, chat with teams, and review resulting template submission, images and notes to improve operations.
✔️ Checklists & SOPs
Create checklists, SOPs, Inspections and Data Logs to power accountability, training and staff clarity on every task.
💪 Inspections, SOPs and Logs Within Minutes!
Take the lead on your church facility management activities by creating detailed templates with unlimited steps and diverse reponse times.
📆 Plan Ahead With Scheduled & Recurring Tasks
Create recurring schedules for daily opening and closings, performance review meetings, inspections, cleanings and more.
📲 Dedicated Mobile App
Download and install Xenia's official iOS and Android app on your smartphone to centralized your on-site facility management activities.
📲 Chats & Announcements
Centralize team communications with in task chats, one-on-one chats, team messages and company wide announcements.
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