A POS that fits a spaza shop.

Where a spaza shop actually loses money

Ask an owner and they'll say stock and staff. The till usually shows why:

• No records. Without per-product numbers, you re-order by feel. The slow sellers quietly pile up capital on the shelves while the fast sellers run out early.
• Shrinkage. Stock that walks — supplier shortfalls, expiry, unrecorded “borrowing”. A stock count against recorded sales turns an invisible leak into a number you can act on.
• Cash-up arguments. When the drawer is short, nobody can say when or where. A till that logs every sale ends the guessing — and most shortages stop happening on their own once every sale is recorded.

What to demand from a spaza POS

Most POS systems are built for restaurants or retail chains and scaled down. A counter like yours has different priorities:

1. Speed keys for the everyday sellers. Bread, airtime, cold drinks, loose cigarettes — one tap each, not a search. In StoreStack these are letter codes: press B, press bread, done.
2. Offline that is real. Test it in the demo: router off, make a sale. Read our offline guide for the exact test.
3. Cash-ups that balance. End of day, the till states what should be in the drawer. Short or over, you know by how much.
4. Stock counts that take minutes. If counting stock is painful, it won't happen — and without counts, the reports are fiction.
5. Runs on what you own. An Android phone or tablet. No R15,000 till with a touchscreen you didn't want.

The 30-day way to know your real numbers

You don't have to trust any vendor's pitch — trust a month of your own data:

• Week 1: ring up every sale as normal. Change nothing else. You're just recording.
• Week 2: read the top-10 products report. Almost every owner finds a surprise — something that sells far more, or far less, than they believed.
• Week 3: do your first proper stock count. The gap between recorded sales and physical stock is your shrinkage, in rands.
• Week 4: re-order from the numbers, not from habit. That's the whole point.

By day 30 the subscription has usually already paid for itself in re-ordering alone.

What it costs

From R499/month including VAT, on your own phone or tablet, with the once-off install (normally R3,500) waived for the first five shops in an area. Month-to-month — a POS should earn its subscription every month or lose it. Get your exact price here, or read what a POS costs in South Africa compared across the market.