Retail Case Study: Smoke Shop Marketing (Smokers Choice Q&A)

This Q&A with Smokers Choice explores how to use smoke shop marketing tools to increase sales. It originally appeared in 2021 but has been updated with new insights.

Smokers Choice is the 6th largest tobacco outlet chain in the U.S., with more than 60 stores across Pennsylvania and New York.

The tobacco shop chain – which is owned by the same parent company as FTx POS – offers a case study in leveraging technology to power growth in the competitive tobacco business. Smokers Choice uses FTx POS and its first-party integrations (including digital signage, loyalty, upselling software, and inventory tools) to expand their smoke shop marketing efforts and drive revenue growth.

For example, using a tool like FTx Digitial Signage for smoke shop marketing, Smokers Choice has built a sales-driving in-store digital advertising program. Similarly, using the built-in inventory features in FTx POS, the company was able to catch and stop employee theft, a significant problem at the time.

This Q&A covers a lot of ground. You’ll learn how and why FTx POS was founded, how Smokers Choice is a testing ground for FTx POS features, and the exact tobacco outlet software and marketing tools FTx POS uses for growth. The following is a conversation with Doug Nolan and Darren Schwartz, owners of Smokers Choice and FTx POS.

Using FTx POS for Smoke Shop Marketing

FTx POS is an all-in-one POS system. In addition to its advanced tobacco POS features, the platform includes a retail suite of software integrations, as well as integrated smoke shop credit card processing.

Smokers Choice leverages the power of these marketing tools to grow their smoke shop business. For example, using Uplift (a feature that adds up-selling prompts to the cashier-facing touchscreen), the company has gamified upselling.

And Smokers Choice uses FTx Digital Signage, a complete digital signage management platform, to introduce offers and promote products in-store.

Here’s how Smokers Choice has used these smoke shop advertising and marketing tools to increase sales in the tobacco business:

Q. How Has Uplift Helped You Grow Business?

A. Uplift is kind of the crown jewel of our POS system, or at least that’s what our cashiers think. For anyone who’s unfamiliar, FTx Uplift is a software add-on that you can use to add pop-up sales scripts to the cashier-facing POS screens as soon as sales items are scanned.

So, let’s say a cashier scans a pack of chewing gum that’s a sales item. A script will pop up on the cashier-facing POS screen, and all the cashier has to do is read the script to the customer to make them aware that if they buy another pack of gum, it’ll be half off, for example.

You, as the retailer, are the one who writes these scripts, which means that any scanned item can upsell or cross-sell additional items.

Q. How Does Smokers Choice Use This Feature?

A. At Smokers Choice, we’ve turned Uplift into a cashiers’ game! The store clerk can “win” or “lose” an Uplift, by either succeeding or failing to upsell at the register.

Since most clerks always want to WIN, the program has created friendly competition among the store teams. Our cashiers are rewarded for their sales with SPIFs so that they “win” just as much as our business does every time they upsell. When they complete an upsell, a big Green WIN button flashes on the screen, which adds to the fun. Uplift has boosted sales and employee morale at Smokers Choice and our other retail businesses.

Learn More. See our guide to increasing sales with cashier upselling incentives in Uplift.

Q. How Do You Use Digital Signage as a Marketing Tool in Your Tobacco Shops?

A. Since installing digital signage at our vape and tobacco locations, we’ve seen a resulting spike in sales. Our digital signs aren’t merely “window dressing.” They’re effective sales tools that introduce our customers to products they wouldn’t otherwise know about or buy.

Having this kind of advertising tool frees our sales staff up so that they don’t have to push cold sales and can instead focus on working with customers who are ready to buy.

For Smokers Choice and our other retail businesses, FTx Digital Signage has ultimately paid for itself, maybe a thousand times over. That’s not hyperbole.

Q. How Do You Manage Your In-Store Ads? Do You Change Ad Creative Often?

A. We swap out our in-store digital content as soon as our current promotions end. Thanks to the cloud-based dashboard, we can schedule our digital content far in advance, so there are no gaps in promotions that appear on the screens. I don’t believe any of our content has gone longer than 90 days.

We’ve actually saved a ton of money when we switched from printed in-store signs to FTx Digital Signage. Plus, we don’t even spend money on content creation because a fair amount of our content is either given to us by manufacturers to upload, or we create it ourselves using FTx AdPo.

Q. How Do You Use AdPro to Create In-Store Tobacco Advertising?

A. AdPro is an amazing tool, especially for non-graphic designers. Frankly, Photoshop isn’t intuitive. If it was, you wouldn’t need to go to school to learn how to use it.

AdPro, on the other hand, can be used by anyone. I’ve found that the design features in AdPro get the job done and the results look awesome. I use the industry-specific templates often because they’re easy to customize.

I just swap out the placeholder text and import my brand logos. The entire process really doesn’t take much time at all, and I’ve even started using the exported digital content on our social media platforms, which has greatly improved the continuity and presentation of our brands.

Q. What Were the Costs Like to Install Digital Signage for In-Store Advertising?

A. The raw cost of installing FTx Digital Signage will depend on the retailer’s requirements. For our QSR locations, we discovered that using commercial digital screens gave us the flexibility to have all warranties handled through the manufacturer.

Of course, to save money when putting up more than 6 screens per store, we have bought residential TVs, which work well for about 1 or 2 years, but we soon learned that the colors start fading, and other small issues start to occur.

Having learned the hard way, we now only use commercial screens. So, in answer to your question, FTx Digital Signage, I believe, is priced fairly considering the technology it provides at your fingertips. It’s well worth the investment.

Learn More. See our Digital Signage Buyer’s Guide to choose the right signage management tools for your business.

FTx POS: A Point of Sale Built by Tobacco Retailers

Smokers Choice and FTx POS are owned by the same company. And many of our latest features are designed for multi-store retail with testing in Smokers Choice outlets.

Here’s how that relationship came to be:

Q. The story of how Smokers Choice got started with FTx Solutions is far more interesting than meets the eye…

A. That’s true! When people ask us how long we’ve been using FTx POS products, we generally say 5 years, because it’s true. But Smokers Choice and FasTrax Solutions [which develops FTx POS] are deeply interconnected.

Q. How so?

A. As tobacco retailers, we needed smoke shop POS features that the average POS systems could not meet. This was decades ago.

We realized that if we wanted a point-of-sale system that could be fully customized to reflect our operational workflows and regulatory demands of the tobacco industry, we were going to have to build our own POS.

In other words, Smokers Choice doesn’t simply use FTx POS, we helped build and test it.

Q. Who better to design a tobacco POS system than a tobacco retailer!

A. Exactly! We didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into back in 2008, when we first purchased a POS technology development license from Interlink. We just knew that the only way we’d have the perfect POS system for our tobacco outlet business was if we rolled our sleeves up.

Amazingly, once we had a finished system, it worked so well that other tobacco retailers ended up buying the point-of-sale system from us. It was really the market demand that pushed FasTrax Solutions to incorporate and go into formal business.

Today, we count 4 of the 5 largest tobacco outlet chains as POS customers.

Q. How Has the Relationship Evolved Over Time?

A. In large part, Smokers Choice has been the testing guinea pig for every FTx POS retail solution that has come to market. We’re proud to say that FTx POS products have become what they are today thanks to our trial, error, and feedback.

Heck, we’re basically the reason FTx POS and other FTx products are user-friendly, customizable, and affordable.

Customizable Features to Serve Evolving Needs

Since its founding, Smokers Choice has expanded from the tobacco business into other areas of retail, including quick-serve restaurants and general retail.

Therefore, the company needed a POS system that could scale with their needs and be customized for different use cases. Here’s how POS customization has helped the company scale their POS to suit their needs:

Q. How have you customized FTx POS to support Smokers Choice?

Our retail chain of tobacco shops is only one aspect of our business. SC Management also owns and operates Choice Wholesale, Munchies, a chain of quick-serve restaurants, and Homegrown Outlet, a chain of garden supply stores.

In other words, we need a POS system that could be customized for different industries with unique cashier needs. As you know, a wholesale business runs much differently than a fast-food joint.

FTx POS offers a ton of flexibility when it comes to modifying POS buttons. The level of customization allows us to accommodate specific needs of our quick-serve restaurants, while also providing inventory and reporting accuracy.

The three hardest industries you can maintain a strong POS system for are convenience with fuel, tobacco and hospitality. FTx POS helps us with each by giving us the ability to customize for all verticals.

Q. How Has FTx POS Helped You Customize to Fit the Industry?

A. I’ll start off by saying, no other POS provider can do what FTx does for us—the industries are that diverse.

Hospitality, for example, requires strong back-end organization to help manage all the food properly. This involves tracking everything that goes into putting a meal together, which in industry standards is called a “KIT.” To track real-time inventory, most food retailers want to include all the paper items and sauces.

This allows the system to track and reorder every item that goes into a meal, including the straws and napkins.

Q. How Is That Different from Tobacco Stores?

A. Tobacco stores don’t have that need. Their needs are completely different. Tobacco retailers need the ability to work with and profit from the major tobacco manufacturers, which means these retailers must meet all manufacturer requirements.

Typically, this is so difficult to do that small tobacco retailers usually end up paying expensive third-party companies like Skupos to handle it. But the downside is that these third-party companies take 50% of the revenue.

It’s insane. Think about forking over 50% of your revenue just to convert sales data into the correct report format that manufacturers require to issue your payment! Like tobacco retailers, convenience stores also sell tobacco products, which means that they have the same POS requirements. They also sell food or have a deli counter. But unlike quick-serve restaurants and tobacco stores, convenience stores also sell fuel, which can be extremely complex for a POS system to track.

Learn More. See how Smokers Choice grew tobacco incentive revenue by 400% with FTx POS’s built-in loyalty program.

Q. Agreed, but FTx POS software can be customized to address the needs of all three industries!

A. That’s why we use FTx POS at all of our locations, including Munchies and Homegrown Outlet. It’s also why other tobacco, vape, and CBD retailers have invested in our software solutions, and why convenience stores, gas stations, restaurants, and pet supply shops have installed FTx POS.

It’s funny, because Smokers Choice doesn’t really have competition thanks to FTx POS. Our competitors become our friends and customers because they all use FTx POS.

Power Your Smoke Shop Marketing with FTx POS

FTx POS can help you grow your business, with best-in-class marketing tools. Our options for multi-store chains and independent retailers include:

• Loyal-n-Save – Fully-integrated POS loyalty software.
• Scan Data Reporting – Industry-specific reporting tools to help you secure more incentives.
• FTx Identity – Integrated EAIV tools and in-store ID scanning software.
• FTx Digital Signage – A complete digital signage management platform with free AdPro signage design tool.
• Uplift – Integrates POS upselling prompts into checkout workflows.
• Ecommerce POS – Launch delivery, direct shipping or in-store pickup fulfillment for your tobacco sales.

All these tools were tested in Smokers Choice and other tobacco outlets countrywide. Contact us today to learn how we can help you scale for growth.