One stock pool, two very different ways of selling from it
The defining problem of a cash-and-carry that also sells online is not the till and it is not the marketplace connector. It is that both are selling the same physical pallet, at the same moment, at different speeds. A counter customer takes forty cases in ninety seconds. A marketplace listing takes one unit at a time, all day. Whichever system does not know about the other will oversell.
So the requirement is not “POS software” and it is not “inventory software with a till bolted on”. It is one stock ledger where a till sale and a marketplace order reserve from the same number.
Where the two channels collide
| Situation | Separate till and inventory | One stock pool |
|---|---|---|
| Counter sells 40 cases of a listed SKU | Marketplaces keep advertising the old figure until someone syncs, often the next day | Availability drops as the till sale is created |
| Marketplace order picked but not dispatched | Stock still looks available to the counter | Allocated, so on hand and available differ visibly |
| Trade account buys at agreed pricing | Price list lives in the till, invisible to the order book | Customer pricing and credit limit apply at the counter and in the portal |
| A promotion or deal goes live | Deal and counter race for the same stock | Ring-fence the deal quantity; the counter sees what is left |
| Month-end margin | Two sets of numbers, joined in a spreadsheet | One order book, with COGS captured at dispatch |
What good POS inventory software should cover
- Walk-in cash sale mode. Serve customers with no account, taking cash, card or bank payment at the counter.
- Existing customer mode. Trade customers see their own price lists, discounts, catalogue rules and credit context — including a credit limit that actually stops a sale when it should.
- Barcode quick-add. Scanner, camera and manual entry, fast enough for a queue.
- Controlled manual pricing. Till overrides must be visible afterwards, not buried in a receipt total.
- Two numbers on screen. On hand and available to sell. Counter staff selling against on hand while stock is allocated elsewhere is the most common oversell we see in this sector.
- Sales-order output. Counter sales should be able to enter the normal approve, pick, dispatch, invoice and payment pipeline when the goods are not going out of the door immediately.
How MaxInvent handles POS and counter sales
MaxInvent includes a POS and till workflow for walk-in cash sales and existing customer account sales. Staff start a till session, choose the customer context, browse the catalogue, scan items into the cart, adjust quantities or permitted till prices, and create a sales order. Credit limit enforcement applies to account customers at the counter.
Because the order uses the same operational system, the stock position feeds the same availability logic used for marketplaces, B2B portal orders, field reps, collections, deliveries and warehouse dispatch. Collections and marketplace fulfilment share one collection board rather than separate queues.
We do not claim hospitality or general high-street POS hardware coverage. This is a trade counter tied to inventory, customer pricing and fulfilment — not an EPOS product for a restaurant.
Where to go next
See point of sale for the workflow itself, the cash-and-carry persona page for the wider operation, and how to stop a deal overselling the counter for the promotion case specifically.