A good POS System can eliminate many of the problems associated with running a retail store. More and more merchants are now adopting this technology in their stores to make their lives easier. If you’re looking for a good Point-Of-Sale System, here are three suggestions – Shopify, Lightspeed, and Shopkeep.
Three Of The Best Pos Systems In The Market
Here we discuss three top POS Systems to help you narrow down your options:
Lightspeed Retail
Lightspeed Retail provides a POS system ideal for mid to large-size businesses with vast inventories and complex inventory tracking needs. Lightspeed POS system costs $ 99/month. You can pick your own payment processor and you can also get hardware kits from Lightspeed for your POS terminals.
Lightspeed retail POS system’s inventory and reporting modules are its standard features. You can create an extensive inventory and add searchable tags to make it easy to find specific items. You can also segment items with descriptors like colors, size, etc. Inventory updates are done in real time. You can generate purchase orders through the system, add supplier’s product catalogs for easy ordering. So, with Lightspeed POS, you get a complete stock tracking system right from received orders to selling the items and raising purchase orders again.
Lightspeed has basic CRM features. But you need to get an addon to create customer loyalty programs. With this addon, you can create reward programs, setup email marketing, and more. Lightspeed retail doesn’t come with an integrated payment processor but you can connect to any of your preferred payment processors, allowing you to shop for the lowest transaction fees.
Lightspeed retail is a good choice for mid to large businesses with multiple locations and extensive inventory tracking needs. However, you need addons for eCommerce capability and customer loyalty programs This POS system works on an iPad interface.
ShopKeep
Shopkeep POS system is a retail solution ideal for small businesses. It’s popular with boutique and specialty stores. It has a good inventory system, customer tracking/management module, and reporting features.
Shopkeep inventory system lets you create product variants and product bundles. Inventory updates are done in real time in this cloud-based system, eliminating understock and overstock issues. Its extensive inventory features are adequate for small to midsize businesses.
With ShopKeep, you can create unlimited staff accounts and keep track of employee activities, and also extract reports on staff activity. Employees clock-in and clock-out easily on the iPad registers, so you get time records. Store managers can extract time reports and other staff activity reports, like reports on sales made by POS cashiers.
ShopKeep also allows you to extract reports on sales, customer buying patterns, inventory. etc. For payment processing, ShopKeep provides its own payment gateway. To integrate with another payment processor, you have to pay a gateway fee. Shopkeep also integrates with MailChimp, enabling you to set up good email marketing. Shopkeep is a good choice for boutiques, restaurants, bars, etc.
Shopify is basically an eCommerce platform that also an efficient POS System. If you have an eCommerce site on Shopify, the POS software comes free to help you automate your physical store operations. If you have the Shopify POS system, the eCommerce module is included so you can easily create an online presence for your store.
Shopify POS provides a good inventory system. You can create an unlimited number of SKUs and create variants for each product. Inventory updates happen in real time and automatically sync with your online store, so you always stay on top of your stock count.
You can create customer profiles and keep track of customer purchases and buying patterns. You can associate a customer profile with each transaction, you can also associate transactions with customer records in the back backend. This helps you keep track of customer buying patterns and preferences to set up targeted marketing campaigns and to provide targeted offers.
You can create secure staff logins to keep track of employee activity. You can track the sales made by each of your staff members, the cash adjustments they make, etc. Shopify POS system also records login and logout times, enabling you to extract time reports.
Shopify comes with its own payment gateway but it also lets you easily integrate with several of the popular payment gateways. You can accept tap, chip, and swipe cards. You can create custom payment methods, split tenders and accept multiple payments for the same transaction.
Shopify POS System lets you sell in brick and mortar stores, temporary pop-up stores, and integrate your online sales channel and social media sales channels. You can also add multiple store locations and sync all the data to the backend, and access data from anywhere, as it is a cloud-based system.
Shopify POS system is powerful and is a good choice for small, mid, and large retailers. Shopify has a huge app marketplace letting you extend its capabilities. The Shopify API also lets you customize it for your needs if you have the development skills needed.