If you run a pawn shop, gun store, consignment shop, or buy/sell/trade business, your point of sale software is the foundation of everything. It touches every transaction, every customer, every compliance form, and every dollar of revenue.
Pick the wrong one, and you're stuck with workarounds, double entry, compliance risk, and missed revenue. Pick the right one, and your entire operation runs faster, safer, and more profitably.
This guide breaks down what actually matters in specialty retail POS software in 2026 — and why thousands of store owners across the country have landed on Bravo Store Systems as the platform that delivers.
Why Specialty Retailers Need Industry-Specific POS Software
General-purpose POS systems like Square, Clover, or Lightspeed were built for coffee shops and clothing stores. They don't understand pawn loans. They can't process a 4473. They don't know what a consignment payout is. And they definitely can't manage a bound book.
Specialty retailers — pawnbrokers, FFLs, consignment operators, buy/sell/trade stores, and shooting ranges — operate under a fundamentally different set of requirements. Your POS needs to handle used goods valuation, serialized inventory tracking, regulatory compliance at the state and federal level, customer-facing loan management, and multichannel eCommerce — all without making your team switch between five different software platforms to get through the day.
That's why the choice comes down to a handful of platforms built specifically for these industries. And the differences between them matter more than most store owners realize.
What to Look For in Pawn Shop POS Software
Choosing pawn shop software isn't just about features on a checklist. It's about how those features work together in the real workflow of a busy store. Here's what separates great pawn shop POS systems from the ones that slow you down.
Integrated Loan Management
At the core of every pawn operation is the loan. Your POS should handle the entire loan lifecycle — writing new loans, renewals, extensions, partial payments, redemptions, and forfeitures — without ever leaving the main screen. If your employees are clicking through multiple menus or switching windows to process a basic pawn, you're losing time on every single transaction.
The best pawn shop software also calculates interest automatically based on your state's regulations, generates compliant contracts, captures customer identification (including fingerprints and digital signatures), and produces all required police reporting — all from one transaction screen.
AI-Powered Pricing and Valuation
One of the biggest profit leaks in any pawn or buy/sell business is inconsistent pricing. When your best buyer is on vacation, does your team still make smart decisions on every item that crosses the counter?
In 2026, leading platforms use AI and machine learning trained on millions of real transactions to recommend loan values, purchase prices, and retail prices based on item condition. This isn't scraped eBay data or outdated blue book pricing. It's real sell-through data from actual specialty retail stores — the kind of data that helps you make more on every loan, every buy, and every sale.
Bravo's Product Estimator is built on the largest dataset of actual pawn and specialty retail transactions in the industry. It guides employees through a condition-based assessment and delivers pricing recommendations that are proven to increase loan balances, improve margins, and standardize performance across your entire team.
Compliance That's Built In, Not Bolted On
If you're running a pawn shop in 2026 and your compliance is handled through paper forms, Excel spreadsheets, or a separate third-party system, you're carrying unnecessary risk.
Your POS should handle state-specific police reporting, hold period tracking, OFAC/SDN screening, SAR and 8300 reporting, and identification capture — natively. Not through a plugin. Not through a manual export. Built into the transaction itself so there's no gap between what your employee processes and what gets reported.
Bravo has been audited hundreds of times across its customer base with a track record of zero compliance infractions. That's not an accident. It's the result of building compliance directly into the transaction workflow so your team can't accidentally skip a step.
Multichannel eCommerce from the POS
Your inventory sitting on the shelf isn't making you money. In 2026, the stores growing the fastest are the ones listing inventory online the moment it hits the floor — and doing it without any extra work.
The right pawn shop POS software should let you list items to multiple online marketplaces (eBay, your own branded website, and industry-specific marketplaces) with a single click. Photos, descriptions, condition ratings, and pricing should all push online automatically from your POS. When an item sells — in-store or online — it should be removed from all channels instantly. No double sales. No manual reconciliation.
Bravo's integrated eCommerce pushes your inventory to Buya.com, UsedGuns.com, Guns.com, eBay, and your own company-branded website — all from one system. Stores using Bravo's eCommerce tools report up to 41% growth in total sales by tapping into online demand they were previously ignoring entirely.
Mobile Apps for Customers and Employees
The modern pawn customer expects to check their loan balance, make a payment, browse inventory, and communicate with your store — all from their phone. The MobilePawn app gives your customers exactly that, while also driving repeat visits and on-time payments.
On the employee side, the Shopkeeper app lets your team manage inventory, respond to online offers, chat with customers, and capture product photos from anywhere in the store — or on the road at estate sales and auctions.
What to Look For in Gun Store POS Software
Gun store owners face a unique challenge: you need a POS that's fast enough to keep up with a busy retail floor, compliant enough to survive an ATF inspection, and connected enough to compete online. Here's what matters most.
ATF Compliance: E4473, Bound Book, and Beyond
This is non-negotiable. Your gun store POS must include a fully integrated electronic 4473, an ATF-compliant acquisition and disposition book (bound book), automated 3310 multiple sales forms, gun transfer management, and eNICS integration for background checks.
The key word is integrated. When these tools are built into the same system where you process sales, there's no opportunity for data entry errors, missing serial numbers, or incomplete records. Every firearm that enters and leaves your store is tracked from acquisition through disposition with a complete, auditable trail.
Bravo's FFL compliance suite has been audited by the ATF hundreds of times across its customer base with zero infractions. The system flags incomplete or inaccurate information before a transaction is finalized, and automated 3310 generation means your team never has to remember to file a multiple sales form again.
E4473 Cloud Storage
The ATF's 2022 ruling (ATF Ruling 2022-01) allows FFLs to store 4473 forms electronically, eliminating the need for thousands of paper forms stored in boxes for twenty years. If your gun store software doesn't offer compliant cloud storage, you're still paying for physical storage space and hoping those boxes don't get damaged in a flood or fire.
Bravo's E4473 Cloud Storage is the most widely used digital 4473 storage solution in the industry. Forms are encrypted, instantly retrievable during an inspection, and stored in compliance with ATF requirements. No more digging through boxes. No more storage units. Pull up any form in seconds.
Firearm eCommerce That's Actually Compliant
Selling firearms online is complicated — FFL transfer requirements, shipping regulations, and age verification add layers that general eCommerce platforms can't handle. Your gun store POS needs to manage the entire process: listing, selling, shipping, transfer coordination, and compliance documentation.
Bravo's firearm eCommerce integrates with UsedGuns.com, Guns.com, eBay (for accessories and non-firearms), and your own company-branded website. Listings are created automatically from your POS. When a firearm sells online, the system manages the transfer workflow including FFL verification, shipping documentation, and disposition recording. It's the most complete firearm eCommerce solution available from any POS provider.
Range Management
If your FFL also operates a shooting range, you need software that manages lanes, waivers, memberships, rentals, and class scheduling — not a separate system with a separate login and separate reporting. Bravo's integrated range management module handles all of this within the same platform, so your range operations and retail operations share one system, one customer database, and one set of reports.
What to Look For in Consignment POS Software
Consignment businesses have their own complexity. You're managing inventory you don't own, tracking payouts to consignors, and handling terms that vary by contract. Your POS needs to make all of that invisible to the customer while keeping it perfectly organized behind the counter.
Consignor Management and Automated Payouts
Every consignment store lives and dies by the relationship with its consignors. Your software should track each consignor's items, payout terms, payment history, and balance — and automate the payout process so you're not manually calculating who's owed what at the end of every month.
Bravo's consignment module tracks every consigned item alongside your store-owned inventory. Payout terms, payment promises, and customer communication are built into the system, so nothing slips through the cracks. Consignors can even check their balance and item status through the mobile app — which builds trust and dramatically reduces the "when is my item going to sell?" phone calls.
Pricing for Used and Consigned Goods
Pricing consignment items consistently is one of the hardest parts of running a consignment business. You need to balance the consignor's expectations with market reality, and you need every employee making smart pricing decisions — not just your most experienced buyer.
Bravo's Estimator delivers condition-based pricing recommendations built on real transaction data from specialty retail stores. It's like having your best buyer standing behind every employee, every time an item crosses the counter.
Aging, Discounting, and Inventory Turnover
Items that sit too long cost you floor space and consignor goodwill. Your POS should track inventory age, automate markdown schedules, and give you clear visibility into what's moving and what's not. Bravo's auto-discounter lets you set rules to automatically reduce prices based on age, category, or both — keeping your inventory fresh and your turnover rate high.
How Bravo Compares to the Competition
There are several POS platforms serving pawn shops, gun stores, and specialty retailers. Here's how the landscape breaks down.
Bravo Store Systems vs. PawnMate
PawnMate markets itself as an all-in-one platform with a chatbot assistant and loyalty program. However, Bravo's advantage is scale and data. With over 4,000 stores on the platform, Bravo's AI pricing engine is trained on the largest dataset of actual specialty retail transactions in the industry. PawnMate's smaller footprint means less data, less accurate pricing recommendations, and fewer integrations with the marketplaces and tools your business depends on.
Bravo also offers native eCommerce integration with Buya, eBay, UsedGuns, and Guns.com — not third-party connections that break. Everything is built into one system, with one login, one support team, and one source of truth for your entire business.
Bravo Store Systems vs. Rapid Gun Systems
Rapid Gun Systems is a solid gun store POS, but it's exactly that — a gun store POS. If your business also does pawn loans, consignment, or buy/sell/trade, Rapid doesn't cover those workflows. You'd need to add additional software for those lines of business, which means duplicate entry, disjointed reporting, and more vendors to manage.
Bravo handles pawn, gun retail, consignment, buy/sell/trade, shooting range management, and eCommerce in one unified platform. For FFLs that also pawn or do consignment — which is a significant percentage of the market — there's no comparison.
Bravo Store Systems vs. Trident 1
Trident 1 is a newer entrant that partners with FastBound for compliance rather than building it natively. That means your compliance data lives in one system while your POS data lives in another. For ATF inspections, you're pulling from two sources instead of one. Bravo's compliance is built directly into the POS — every 4473, every bound book entry, every 3310 form is generated from the same transaction that processes the sale.
Bravo Store Systems vs. Celerant
Celerant serves a broader retail market and offers sportsman-specific packages. Their strength is general retail functionality, but their pawn and consignment workflows are add-ons rather than core features. Bravo was born out of five generations of pawnbrokers who built the software specifically for the unique workflows of specialty retail. That DNA shows in every screen, every workflow, and every feature.
Bravo Store Systems vs. Orchid POS
Orchid POS is a compliance-first platform with a strong reputation among FFLs. Their in-house ATF compliance team is a differentiator. However, Orchid's strength is compliance, not full-spectrum business management. Bravo matches Orchid's compliance capabilities while also delivering integrated eCommerce, mobile apps, marketing automation, enterprise management, and AI-powered pricing — the complete toolkit a growing FFL needs.
The Numbers: What Bravo Customers Actually Experience
Switching POS software is a big decision. Here's what Bravo customers report after making the switch:
26% increase in new loan volume in the first year. Bravo's pricing tools help employees write more loans at better values, which means more revenue from pawn service charges and a higher redemption rate.
41% growth in total sales. Between better pricing, integrated eCommerce, and automated marketing, Bravo stores consistently outperform their previous numbers — often within the first few months.
3x inventory turnover improvement. Automated online listings, smart discounting, and multichannel selling mean items move faster. Less dead inventory, more cash flow.
75% increase in redemption rates. MobilePawn makes it easy for customers to make payments on time, which means more pawn service charge revenue and happier customers who keep coming back.
Zero ATF compliance infractions. Across hundreds of ATF audits, Bravo customers maintain a perfect record. That's not just a talking point — it's the direct result of building compliance into every transaction.
Multi-Location and Enterprise: Built for Scale
If you're operating two stores, ten stores, or a hundred, your POS needs to scale without falling apart. Bravo's enterprise architecture was built to handle this from the ground up — not retrofitted onto a single-store platform.
From one central dashboard, you can manage every location's operations, employee access, inventory, pricing, compliance, and reporting. Push configuration changes across all stores simultaneously. Compare performance across locations in real time. Control data access down to the individual employee level.
Bravo's platform has been stress-tested with 3,000+ stores and maintains uptime levels that rival the largest SaaS platforms in any industry. International localization is possible in 30 to 90 days, making Bravo the choice for enterprise operators looking to expand.
Switching Doesn't Have to Be Painful
The number one reason store owners stay on outdated POS software is fear of the transition. They've heard the horror stories — weeks of downtime, lost data, confused employees, unhappy customers.
Bravo has onboarded thousands of stores, including mass migrations from every major platform in the industry (PawnMaster, PawnMate, CompuPawn, and others). Every customer gets a dedicated Onboarding Manager who walks them through the entire process — data migration, hardware setup, employee training, and go-live support.
Built-in training tools and on-demand video tutorials mean even your newest employee can be productive in days, not weeks. And Bravo's live support team is available to answer questions and resolve issues quickly — staffed by people who actually understand pawn, FFL, and specialty retail.
The Bottom Line
In 2026, the gap between leading specialty retail POS platforms and everything else has never been wider. The stores growing the fastest, staying the most compliant, and operating the most efficiently are running on software that was built from the ground up for exactly what they do.
Bravo Store Systems is the only platform that unifies pawn, gun retail, consignment, buy/sell/trade, shooting range, eCommerce, mobile apps, marketing, compliance, and enterprise management in one integrated system. It's built on real industry data. It's backed by five generations of pawnbroking expertise. And it's trusted by more specialty retailers than any other platform in the market.
Your current software got you this far. Bravo gets you where you're going next.
FAQ: Pawn Shop, Gun Store, and Consignment POS Software
What is the best pawn shop POS software in 2026?
Bravo Store Systems is the most widely used pawn shop POS software in 2026, trusted by over 3,000 specialty retail locations. It combines loan management, AI-powered pricing, integrated eCommerce, mobile apps, and compliance tools in one cloud-based platform.
What POS system do gun stores use?
Gun stores and FFL dealers use specialized POS systems that include ATF compliance features like electronic 4473 forms, bound book management, automated 3310 forms, and background check integration. Bravo Store Systems, Rapid Gun Systems, Trident 1, Celerant, and Orchid POS are among the most popular options.
How much does pawn shop software cost?
Pawn shop software pricing varies by provider, features, and number of locations. Most modern cloud-based platforms use a monthly subscription model. Bravo Store Systems offers packages that scale from single-store operations to enterprise deployments with hundreds of locations.
Can I use Square or Shopify for a pawn shop?
General-purpose POS systems like Square, Shopify, or Clover are not built for pawn shops. They lack loan management, police reporting, hold period tracking, customer identification capture, and the specialized compliance features that pawn shops require by law. Using a general POS for pawn operations creates compliance risk and operational inefficiency.
What is the best consignment POS software?
The best consignment POS software handles consignor management, automated payouts, inventory aging, condition-based pricing, and multichannel selling. Bravo Store Systems offers a complete consignment module that tracks consigned items alongside store-owned inventory, with mobile app access for consignors to check their balance and item status.
How do I switch POS software for my pawn shop?
Switching POS software starts with a data migration from your current system, followed by hardware setup, employee training, and a guided go-live. Bravo Store Systems provides a dedicated Onboarding Manager for every new customer and has successfully migrated thousands of stores from PawnMaster, PawnMate, CompuPawn, and other platforms.
What is E4473 cloud storage?
E4473 cloud storage allows FFLs to store completed ATF Form 4473s electronically instead of on paper, as permitted by ATF Ruling 2022-01. Bravo's E4473 Cloud Storage encrypts forms and makes them instantly retrievable during an ATF inspection, eliminating the need for physical storage of paper forms.
Does Bravo Store Systems work for multi-location businesses?
Yes. Bravo's enterprise architecture supports multi-location operations with centralized management of all stores, employees, inventory, pricing, compliance, and reporting from one dashboard. The platform has been stress-tested with over 3,000 stores.
-3.png)
