StateWays is the only magazine exclusively covering the control state system within the beverage alcohol industry, with annual updates from liquor control commissions and alcohol control boards and yearly fiscal reporting from control jurisdictions
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Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (DABC), when it upgraded all of the hardware and software in the point-of-sale systems running in its 334 stores last year. Managing such a project calls for much more than hard work and a budget. (The cost of upgrading the POS system in the Virginia state stores was $12 million.) It also requires a lot of organization and planning. Rolling Out a New System T he Virginia ABC managed to roll out the new POS system in its stores in record time, according to Becky Gettings, the DABC's director of public affairs. Explained David Walker, program support man- ager for the DABC's retail operations division, "We began at the end of October, with a small roll-out, to work out any kinks in the system and to get the [roll-out] process down. Soon, we were doing 10 to 12 stores a day. We took a break during the holiday season and fin- ished up in January." None of the stores had to close during the upgrade. "The store would close at its regular time – 9 p.m., the store's staff having prepped the store by cleaning up the register and back-office areas, the installation company would arrive at 4 or 5 a.m. and the store would open that day at its regular time, 10 a.m.," said Steve Fox, the DABC's chief information officer. Why did the Virginia DABC make the change? Meeting new PCI requirements was one reason. "Security is one of the most important issues," said Fox. "PCI changes every year and is pretty rigid, with harsh penalties, including losing the ability to accept credit cards. Not being able to accept Visa or American Express or MasterCard would be devastat- ing to any business." The DABC has three full-time staff people dedicated to maintaining the security of its networks. "It's a big deal," said Fox. "For me, security is the number-one priority." And then there was the question of increased capa- bilities. The DABC wanted to be able to accept debit cards, for example, which, while standard today, were not on the radar when the old system was put into place ten years ago. The registers are now equipped with 2D scanners where before they had 1D scanners, which could only read the simplest barcodes. "This allows us better age verification using driver's licenses from Virginia and other states," said Walker. "Before, we just got the age. Now, we can access more of the information on the 2D magnetic stripe, including the birth date and the expira- tion date of the license." The new system also allows the DABC to do things in-store that it couldn't do before, such as set up sales to StateWays s www.stateways.com s September/October 2012 The new POS hardware used at the Virginia ABC. Among other things, registers now have 2D scanners. run automatically on certain dates. The DABC, for instance, ran Black Friday specials on the day after last Thanksgiving – and it was all automatic. "The POS gave discounts for purchases over a certain amount but only in that time frame," explained Fox. "The clerk didn't have to remember." And the DABC stores can now – again, automatical- ly – collect donations for the Virginia Disaster Relief Fund during times of disaster. Customers can decide to donate – by cash, credit or debit card – at the point of sale. The register will even print out a receipt they can use for tax purposes. This capability has, to date, raised $188,000 for the victims of last year's spate of tornados and severe storms. Do state store customers notice the changes? "They do notice the shiny new equipment," said Fox. "We now have 19-inch, rather than the old 14- and 15-inch, moni- tors and we have new display poles." Walker added, "Customers definitely notice the increased speed at checkout, particularly the increased speed in credit card transactions and also the speed of the receipt printing. The old dot-matrix printers printed one line at a time, while the new laser printers do the whole receipt at once." The DABC is looking ahead at other technology improvements and upgrades for the future. Said Walker, "We are looking at several things, such as adding mobile, handheld scanners to the stores to handle things such as line busting and inventory management." And the DABC has recently implemented a licensee portal to its website for licensees to place orders. At first, 12 of the DABC's larger stores tested the system, which has recently been rolled out to all the DABC stores and all its mixed-beverage licensees. 25