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Why Does the Coffee We Sell Over the Counter in Our Roastery Shop Never Show Up in Our Stock Figures?

Roastery shop till sales of beans and merchandise never reach the roastery's stock. We link your till to roast planning, stock and the online shop.

Updated 3 min readBy SpiderHunts Technologies

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Quick answer — TL;DR

The roastery shop runs on its own till, such as Square, so bags of beans, brewing kit and gift boxes sold over the counter are invisible to the roast plan and the online stock. We connect the till to the same product list and stock records as your web shop and roastery, so counter sales reduce stock, feed the roast plan and show up in your reports alongside online and wholesale.

Two shops that do not know about each other

The roastery has a small shop at the front. People buy a flat white, a 250 gram bag of the house blend, a V60 and some filter papers. The till is Square or a similar system, set up years ago with its own product list. The online shop is Shopify with a different product list, different names and, occasionally, different prices.

On Saturday the shop sells out of the Ethiopian. Nobody tells the roaster. On Monday a web customer orders the same coffee, the packer looks for shelf stock that is not there, and it is added to the roast plan at the last minute. Meanwhile the V60s on the website show plenty in stock, because the last few were sold over the counter.

The till was set up on its own

The shop till was chosen for taking payments quickly, which it does well. It was never connected to anything else, and its product list drifted away from the online shop over time. Nobody owns keeping the two in line.

  • The till and the web shop have separate product lists.
  • Counter sales do not reduce shared stock.
  • Pre packed bags on the shop shelf are not counted anywhere.
  • Prices are changed in one place and not the other.
  • Sales reports are split, so nobody sees the whole picture.

What the gap costs

Shared stock is oversold, both coffee and equipment, which leads to apologies to web customers. The roast plan misses the shop's demand and the shelf empties at the weekend. Prices drift between the till and the website, which looks careless when a customer notices. And the owner cannot easily answer simple questions, like how much of a coffee sells over the counter compared with online.

Joining the till to the rest of the business

  1. We line up the product lists: every coffee, size, grind option and piece of equipment gets one record, mapped to its entry in the till and in the web shop.
  2. Prices are managed in one place and pushed to both, unless you choose different shop prices for a product.
  3. Counter sales are read from the till's API through the day and reduce the shared stock of equipment and pre packed bags.
  4. Coffee sold over the counter feeds the roast plan as demand, so the shop shelf is refilled on the next roast day rather than when someone notices.
  5. Café drinks are kept separate, but coffee used behind the bar can be recorded as internal use of roasted stock.
  6. A single sales view shows shop, web, subscription and wholesale side by side.
ItemBeforeAfter
Product listTwo lists that driftOne list mapped to both
Equipment stockOversold onlineCounter sales deducted
Shop coffee shelfEmpties at weekendsRefilled from the roast plan
PricesSet twiceSet once
Sales reportsSplit by channelOne view

If your till already offers a direct Shopify integration that covers what you need, we will tell you and set that up instead of building more.

A shop that is part of the roastery

The shop becomes another sales channel that the roastery can see. The shelf is kept full from the roast plan. Web stock of kit and coffee is right, because counter sales are counted. Price changes happen once. And for the first time you can see how the shop really performs next to the other channels.

Does your shop till live on its own?

  • Your till and web shop have different product lists.
  • Equipment sold in the shop still shows in stock online.
  • The shop shelf runs out of coffee before the next roast.
  • Prices differ between the shop and the website.
  • You cannot see counter sales alongside online sales easily.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

The questions readers ask us after this guide.

Still have a question?

Ask us directly — a senior engineer will get back to you.

Ask about your project

Do we have to change our till?

Usually not. Square, Lightspeed and most modern tills have APIs we can read from. If yours does not, we will say so.

Will café drinks get mixed up with bean sales?

No. Drinks are kept separate from retail coffee and equipment, and only the stock you choose is tracked.

Can the shop have different prices from the website?

Yes. One price list can hold a shop price and a web price where you want them to differ.

What affects the cost?

How many products you sell, how far the two product lists have drifted, and whether the roast plan and stock records already exist.

Keep reading

More on Problems We Solve

Start here

Tell us where the roastery admin is slowing you down

Describe how orders reach you, what you roast on and what the shop, subscriptions and wholesale side run on today. We will tell you what we would build and what we would leave alone, and if a setting in Shopify or your roast logging software would fix it, we will say so.

  1. You tell us what you needTwo minutes on the form, or a message on WhatsApp.
  2. A senior engineer reviews itAnd comes back with questions, a realistic range and an honest view on fit.
  3. Free 30-minute scoping callWe talk through scope, options and a realistic estimate — with no obligation.
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