The Cycle of Profitability that Never Ends

Scratchers are a huge draw for returning customers. SSCS’s Lottery Management software helps c-stores keep it that way.

The software development cycle for successful technology providers is ongoing. Programmers and engineers, working on feedback from users and a knowledge of the shifting needs of their market, shape their products accordingly. It’s all to help their customers get ahead, and it’s an effort that never ends.

Of course, that’s what you should expect when you’re supplying the tech for an industry with a lot of growing left to do, as is the case with SSCS and convenience stores. Our Lottery Management software for managing lottery scratchers is a case in point.

Since we introduced Lottery Management, we’ve continued to refine and add features based on c-store feedback from real users. That meant checking and communicating with customers from our first handful of test sites, through subsequent releases, to the present.

It’s important. The availability of lottery tickets can be a huge draw for customers. Better yet, given the nature of the product, they often turn into frequently returning customers, creating a built-in rotation of profitability. And once a person walks through the door, they might just pick up a few things on your shelves, too.

Despite their great potential for a c-store, scratcher management has proven problematic, especially for stores trying to do it manually. Relatively small and light, the tickets are easy to misplace or mis-sort into the wrong bin, exacerbated when you have a line of eager consumers waiting for you to get finished. Tickets also, because of their small size, can have a nasty habit of “walking out of the store” without anyone noticing. Required reporting to state regulating entities ups the ante for accuracy. As does the thinnest of margins.

So SSCS developed Lottery Management. The software runs on a rugged handheld[1] device suitable for industrial use, with a built-in scanner. That means from the moment you scan in a new pack[2] to the time a ticket exits the building after being rung up, Lottery Management is on the job—even tracking movement among bins.

Digitizing the process provides the kind of accurate sales (and potential shrink) values that can only occur when error-prone manual intervention is out of the way. An option to track by PLU at the POS provides an invaluable way to reconcile sales to the ticket, sales which, by the way, you can check at any point in any day, with up-to-the-minute results.

Lottery Management’s reporting tools tee up relevant information for you; you don’t have to sift through paper and cardboard to spot potential issues. You can see what packs are active and inactive, and how long that’s been the case. You can see what you’ve sent back, and what commissions you owe. You can even see if a ticket was scanned or manually entered, often a clue that fraud may have been committed.

Lottery Management has rolled out to 33 states as of the time of this writing. And while we’ve tried to describe its benefits in words, we all know a picture is worth a thousand of them. With that in mind, we’re provided you this link to our brand new Lottery Management video. And of course, if you have any questions after you watch, give us a call at (800) 972-7727. We look forward to it.

[1] The Datalogic Memor 10

[2] New games only have to be set up once.