You P O S.
No, not you.
This.
The Shopify point of sale system.
And in this video, I'll be sharing everything you need to
know from the hardware to the software, to who needs one.
And you're gonna wanna stick around until the very end where we'll tie
it all together for one of the most important elements: how to choose the
right POS for you and your business.
But first, I just wanna welcome you to Learn with Shopify, where we aim to
arm you with the knowledge, skills, and tips to succeed in all things business.
And when it comes to doing business, especially if you have a physical store
or are a traveling business, like a food truck or a residential gardener, a point
of sale system is an absolute must.
Consider subscribing and hitting that bell so that you will be notified the moment,
new videos just like this one drop.
But what exactly are the components of an entire point of sale system?
At the base level, there are the hardware components and the software components.
When it comes to hardware, we can go super bare bones with just a
smartphone, as well as a card reader, to process debit, credit and gift cards.
But depending on the type of business that you're doing, you
may want a dedicated tablet.
If for example, you have product images on your tablet that you can
use to show customers your goods.
From this more bare bone setup, your business may require additional
hardware, like an integrated cash drawer that unlocks and opens during
transactions if you accept cash payments.
A barcode scanner, if you have a lot of different products that you're
selling and just want to quickly scan, instead of finding each one
individually on your smartphone or tablet.
A receipt printer, if your customers require a physical copy and not just email
receipts, and to even further consolidate, you may want an integrated scale and
label printer, if your POS station is also the place where you process
online orders for shipment as well.
That's a quick one/two overview of the potential hardware components.
But software, now that is arguably the more important part since it's
what needs to do all the heavy lifting behind the scenes, you know,
communicating in real time with your inventory management system.
Communicating with your bank and the payment cards your customers use to pay.
Communicating with your CRM if you offer loyalty program and so much more.
The software and its features become even more mission critical, if you have
multiple physical locations and multiple additional channels, like an online store.
Selling across social platforms and sending up popup shops
at events or trade shows.
Essentially POS software that connects with your online store helps you
run your entire business, end to end in one single point of truth.
If you wanna sell in person, a point of sale system is a must and best of all,
when your online store and in-person retail operations talk to each other
seamlessly and in real time, it makes managing and growing your business
infinitely more straightforward.
Now that we know about the hardware side and the software side of the POS
system in general, and also know that anyone who intends on selling in person
needs one, let's really explore the most important considerations when
choosing which POS system to go with.
You heard me mention this term already, but let's kick things off with the
concept of a single point of truth.
You see most businesses that have been around for a while, had a legacy POS
system before they started to expand to selling online, which means that when
they launched their websites, there was no real reliable way to manage
inventory between the two operations.
Aside from APIs that serve as communications manifolds, that
didn't happen in true real time.
This meant that these poor business owners would have to count inventory by hand,
just to be sure, then jump back and forth between their online inventory manager and
their physical retail management system constantly, and still never be 100% sure.
And since selling things is one of, if not the most important priorities for your
business, one of the first considerations when choosing a POS is that there are
reliable, realtime comms between your in person sales and online orders, to ensure
inventory representation is accurate to your customers, you and your staff.
Speaking of the online, offline blend in your sales numbers, a good in person
POS system actually boosts your online eCommerce sales, believe it or not.
With a fully integrated point of sale system, like Shopify POS you and your
staff at your physical location can send emails to people who visited your
stores, but were a bit indecisive and didn't end up buying right then and there.
With this powerful integration that email, you send them a day or two later
can enable them to go directly from that email to a cart added with that
jacket that they tried on and be able to check out and have it shipped to them.
And to think that sale happened because of the integration between your offline
and online stores and the powerful POS that could communicate between each
other and directly to your customer.
And speaking of your customers, a truly integrated POS and online store
enables you to build a much deeper relationship with your customers because
of the effective collecting, archiving and interpreting of your customer's
information and purchase history.
You can see what they ordered, when they ordered it, how much they spent
and even leveraged the power of loyalty programs and just as effectively
target different customer segments with different marketing campaigns.
You and your staff can, for example, search for men who only bought orders
of $100 or less in the past three months and send them a marketing email
for that new sweater that costs $79.
Next accepting mobile payments is a key feature you want in your POS system.
I mean, legacy POS systems require you to be tethered to your
store's cash register countertop.
And although you may choose to have a full setup in store, if at any point you decide
to sell at the festival, stripping down to just the bare bones card reader and tablet
is all you need to keep making money.
And with Shopify POS, if you already have an online Shopify store, this complete
integration means that the powerful and industry leading Shopify payments
continues the theme of a single point of truth for your in-person transactions,
enabling so much more ease when it comes to your financial reporting, getting money
transferred into your bank account, and probably the biggest lifesaver of all,
when it comes time to do your taxes.
Now, this is learn with Shopify, so we are biased with our deep
belief in Shopify POS as one of, if not the best point of sale system,
especially for businesses that intend on selling both online and in person.
But regardless, I welcome you to check out Shopify POS for yourself and really
get to know its features and even the elegant hardware options available to you.
And I'm gonna link the Shopify POS webpage down in the description.
We also recognize that it's possible that Shopify POS may not be the right
choice for your business right now.
And that's why we have an incredibly in depth article on the Shopify
blog that runs through how to choose the right POS for your business.
And that article will also be linked down in the description below.
To help you get started on your decision making path though.
I thought it'd be a great idea to share some of the most important questions
I would ask if I were looking at a few different POS options right now.
Right off the bat, I'd want to know how much it'll cost me to use each POS system.
Transaction after transaction after transaction.
So the first thing I'd ask is how much is the monthly POS software fee
and what are all the per transaction fees and how are they calculated?
Another vital question for me would be does the POS automatically
sync in real time, my inventory as customers buy return and exchange
items, both in store and online?
What about digital wallets?
I mean with more and more people using things like apple pay or
Google pay and not even bring all of their cards with them in person.
Can the POS system I'm considering except digital wallets?
And speaking of compatibility, I'm team iPhone.
But my side hustle partner is team Android.
If we run a popup shop together, does your POS software work with both
iOS and Android operating systems?
Actually prerequisite questions.
Does your POS software support mobile payments, period?
Meaning, if I have to go real bare bones and just connect a card
reader to my phone, will payments be accepted without a hitch?
What about gift cards?
Can gift cards that were originally purchased and gifted online,
be used in store and in person?
What about the other way around?
What about growth and scale?
Can I add users set permissions and track activity if I start hiring employees?
Will your POS system track their sales results like average order value,
growth, sales, and units per transaction?
So I'll know who to mentor and spend my time conducting sales training
effectively for my growing team.
What about on and offline blended and segmented reporting?
Can I just log into one place and see how my online sales are doing and how
my in-store sales are performing and extract and interpret that data to
help me make better business decisions?
And what about a CRM?
A customer relationship management component.
Will I be able to create a loyalty program with points and discounts
for my most loyal customers?
Will I be able to segment customer groups easily with simple filtering
to be able to send the most targeted and effective marketing campaigns?
And saving the dreaded thought of tax season to the end,
can I generate reports easily that I can just export and send off to my
accountant and have everything easily interpreted between my total sales and
expenses, but also compartmentalize with my online and in-person retail operations?
As you can see, there are a lot of considerations to make, and depending on
the type of business that you are running, there may be even more questions that I
have even thought of that you may have.
And if there are, please do be sure to write them down in the comments below.
Look, at the end of the day, the purpose of the POS system is to enable
you to accept payments in person.
That's it.
But the last thing you want is for your POS system to end up creating more work
for you, if anything, it should make life easier and free up your time and your
mind to focus on the parts of growing your business that'll have the greatest impact.
And Hey, if you're watching this video and don't have a Shopify store
yet, I welcome you to start your 100% free, no strings attached trial,
so you can get to experiment with everything Shopify has to offer with no
pressures and no sales pitch looming.
You can claim your completely free trial by clicking the link right over here,
or down in the description below.
That free trial for your Shopify online store might just be the thing that'll
turn your hobby or true passion into the business that enables you to lead
the life you were always meant to lead.
And if having a physical retail operation is a part of that dream, Shopify POS will
integrate seamlessly with that online store, that all started by watching this
video and signing up for a free trial.
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But in the meantime, me and the rest of the learn with Shopify crew will be
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you, catch you guys in the next one.