Convenience store inventory management for thousands of fast-moving lines
A corner shop carries more SKUs than most warehouses and sells nearly all of them one unit at a time. QuickSync keeps a single count per SKU across your till and any shop you run online.
No credit card · connect one till and one shop to see it work
BEV-COLA-330 · Square · front counteron hand: 118
Square118source
Shopify118+0.5s
WooCommerce118+0.6s
Squarespace118+0.8sOne scan at the counter moves the figure everywhere else. Nobody types 118 into three systems.
Too many lines to watch by eye
At three thousand SKUs you cannot spot the wrong ones by looking. The errors are small, constant, and only visible when a customer finds them for you.
Small errors, thousands of them
A single line being four units out does not matter. Four hundred lines being four units out is a stocktake you have already lost, and no amount of care at the counter prevents it.
Deliveries land between counts
A pallet arrives on Tuesday and goes onto the shelf before anyone updates the online shop. For two days the website is selling from a figure that predates the delivery.
The same drink, two barcodes
Multipacks, promotional packaging and a relabelled supplier line all end up as separate entries for one product. Whichever entry the till rings up is the one that drops.
| Counting three thousand lines by hand | One count per SKU |
|---|---|
| A stocktake that takes a night and is stale by the weekend | Every sale corrects the figure as it is rung up |
| The website selling from last week’s numbers | The website reading the same figure as the till |
| Fast movers quietly going out of stock online | The listing follows the shelf down to zero, then stops |
| Two entries for one product, both half right | Duplicate SKUs flagged rather than silently merged |
| No record of why a figure changed | Every change carries the sale and the shop behind it |
The channels this vertical usually runs on
Sending an update to a channel is quick on all of them. Finding out that a channel changed something itself is pushed by most and checked on a timer by three. Orders divide the same way: ten hand theirs to us, six can be told to fill one, so the table asks those separately too.
| Channel | Stock | Sends us its orders | Can be sent one to fill | Tracking back | How we hear of a change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Clover | Both ways | Yes | Yes | Clover does not accept one | The moment it happens |
| Square | Both ways | Yes | Yes | Square does not accept one | The moment it happens |
 Lightspeed | Both ways | Yes | Yes | Marked shipped, no tracking number | The moment it happens |
| Shopify | Both ways | Yes | Yes | Sent to the order | The moment it happens |
| WooCommerce | Both ways | Yes | Yes | Sent to the order | The moment it happens |
| Squarespace | Both ways | Yes | No, it sends only | Sent to the order | Orders instantly, stock every two minutes |
Where this stops
A convenience store asks for two things we deliberately do not do. Better to read it here than to find out in week two.
SKUs have to be unique
We match on SKU, so two lines sharing one inside a single shop get flagged and left alone rather than merged on a guess. Giving each its own code is the fix, and it is worth doing anyway.
No supplier ordering
We keep the places you sell in agreement with each other. Reorder points, purchase orders and supplier invoices are a different product and we do not pretend to cover them.
No weighed or loose goods
Anything sold by weight at the counter has no unit count to keep in step, so it sits outside what we sync. Packaged lines are what this is for.
Four steps, and none of them a migration
Connect your till
You sign in to it the normal way and approve QuickSync on its own screen. Nothing to copy or paste, and you can withdraw it from either side whenever you like.
Connect where you sell online
The same again. One shop on its own has nothing to stay in step with, so you need at least two before anything happens.
Let it match your items
We pull both catalogues and pair them by SKU. On a three thousand line shop expect a handful that do not match, usually the relabelled ones, and those are listed for you rather than guessed at.
Watch, then switch it on
Nothing syncs until you say so. You look at the list of changes we would make, then switch it on one shop at a time.
Questions shop owners ask before connecting anything
Will it cope with a few thousand SKUs?
Yes. We hold one count per SKU rather than one per shop, so the work grows with the number of items you actually sell rather than with the number of shops you sell them in. A thousand orders a day costs the same as ten.
What happens when two products share a barcode?
We flag both and sync neither. Two lines in one shop sharing a SKU is the one case where guessing would put the wrong figure on the wrong product, so we leave them for you to separate and tell you which they are.
Which till does a convenience store usually connect?
Clover and Square are the two we see most in small shops, and Lightspeed X-Series where the shop has a larger catalogue. All three send us stock and orders as they happen.
Does QuickSync reorder from my suppliers?
No. We keep the count in step across the places you sell, which is a different job from purchasing. There are no reorder points, no purchase orders and no supplier records here, and adding a shop does not change that.
Can I hold stock back from the website?
Yes, per channel. Set a buffer on a shop and we send that shop the real figure minus the buffer, so the shelf keeps a few units that only a walk-in customer can buy.
How long does the first sync take?
Reading both catalogues and pairing them by SKU takes a few minutes on a shop this size. Nothing is written to either system during that step, so you can look at the matches before anything changes.
The combinations this usually involves
Each pair has its own page, because no two channels allow exactly the same things.
Or read about one channel on its own
What each one can and cannot do, and how quickly it does it.
Stop counting the shop twice
Connect the till and one online shop, then ring something through and watch the listing follow. Most shops know within an afternoon whether this is worth keeping.
No credit card required