Running an E-Commerce website involves complex tasks that require time, resources, and even some technical knowledge & skills. However, most small to medium size sellers do not have the bandwidth to indulge in the technical aspect of their business. This is where a POS (Point of Sale) tool can solve your problems. A software application like Shopify POS can influence your business majorly by enhancing its daily tasks especially if you run an online store. This tool will sync your online store with your retail shop and will automate business operations like Inventory Management, Transaction Processing, Employee Management, and Tracking Customer Preferences, etc.
This article introduces Shopify and the Shopify POS and lists down their key features. It will also explain the steps to set up your Shopify POS application easily. Moreover, it will discuss the difference between Shopify POS Pro and Lite versions along with the benefits of using this application for your business. Read along to understand more about this popular management tool!
Table of Contents
Introduction to Shopify
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Shopify is an E-Commerce platform that is popular for providing all the tools on a single platform that are required to run an online store. This software provides adequate security for your E-Commerce site and allows you to easily create engaging pages with its built-in online editor. It is simple to use and you don’t need to have a strong technical background to work with it. These features make Shopify a quick and affordable way to build your online store. Furthermore, it offers you the integration of local language support and customization for your business platform. Shopify is a comprehensive E-Commerce website development platform that helps users build their shopping websites.
Key Features of Shopify
Shopify offers its users the following features:
- Hassle-Free Design Process: Shopify enables you to seamlessly design your shopping website as it supports most of the required features. Shopify provides more than 60 themes and in numerous languages to enhance your E-Commerce website design process.
- SEO Tools: Shopify has built-in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tools that provide you services such as assigning titles and meta tags to your pages. It also offers various plugins like SEO Plugin, SEO Plus, etc. that allow you to improve your Sales by reporting issues on your site and fixing them.
- Fast Speed: Shopify provides fast load and response times when it comes to website speed. This will improve your buyer’s journey and your Google rankings will also rise as Google prefers sites to load slower sites.
- Security: Shopify secures your website from intruders and encrypts all your stored data. Moreover, Shopify is compliant with PCI Level 1, so your customers can have the option to pay using their cards right off the bat.
To learn more about Shopify, go here.
Introduction to Shopify POS
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Shopify POS (Point of Sales) integrates your online and retail stores thus allowing you to manage your store better and build strong customer relationships. Shopify POS offers versatility when it comes to usage as it can be liked easily by pop-up shops, malls, or retail stores. It offers features that simplify your tasks like selling products, tracking business performance, and managing customers. Moreover, you can sync Shopify Point of Sales with your Shopify account and track your inventory seamlessly. It also allows you to manage the orders of your E-commerce website from any location through its application.
Shopify POS is available in 2 forms, Shopify POS Lite and Shopify POS Pro, which differ in terms of functionality and pricing. You can choose any one of these versions and manage your Sales Transactions and the daily working of your E-Commerce Website.
Key Features of Shopify POS
The following features make Shopify Point of Sale a popular choice:
- Flexibility: It offers 5 different POS levels (plans) and a lot of functionality available to you. One of those Sale solutions will certainly fit both your business needs and your budget.
- Offline Transactions: It allows you to make Sales even without internet access. Then, when you log in, the in-person Sales you’ve created will automatically sync with your entire Shopify inventory.
- Data Analytics: It provides you insights into how your store is growing. Also, you can, view, analyze, and export Sales Reports by staff, customers, or positions within a specified period. The application will even generate reports to see how much you will get paid and when you will receive your money from the online store.
- Product Management: It sorts products by type, season, promotions, and more. It enables you to use smart collections to automatically sort products by vendor, price, and stock level. Also, you can add an unlimited amount of products and variations to your point of Sale.
To learn more about Shopify POS, visit here.
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Setting Up the Shopify POS Application
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You can use the Shopify POS application to connect your in-store Sales to online Sales and monitor all the business activities on your POS application. This saves you from worrying about managing 2 individual Sales Records. Moreover, Shopify POS provides you with a single platform to collaborate with all of your business maneuvers.
The following steps will get you started with the Shopify Point of Sales application:
Step 1: Installing the Application
Download the Shopify POS application on your desktop or mobile device. Once you have the application, log in using your Shopify admin account. Also, you can purchase hardware tools like a barcode scanner and receipt printer and connect them to your Shopify Point of Sale application to further enhance your setup.
Step 2: Set the Sales Tax
Then fill in the required details and configure the necessary Sales Tax according to your region as shown in the below image.
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Step 3: Set Up a Payment Option
To establish a payment option, for your customers, you must set up a 3rd party payment provider or use the Shopify Payments option. Shopify Payments is an in-built tool that allows you faster payment than most 3rd party payment providers. You may now test the payment procedure before opening it for customers. This is shown in the below image.
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That’s it! Your Shopify POS application is ready.
Shopify POS Pro vs Shopify POS Lite
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Shopify POS offers 2 versions, the standard Shopify POS Lite which comes along with your Shopify account, and the advanced Shopify POS Pro that offers greater features but also requires extra fees. Although both of these versions are beneficial for your business, Shopify POS Pro offers the following advanced features that make it a superior choice:
- Omnichannel Selling: This is a set of features that creates a seamless shopping experience for your customers. The Shopify POS Lite has many features of this tool however some services like automatic discounts, exchange of products brought online in retail stores, and notifications to customers are available only with the Shopify POS Pro plan.
- Staff Support: The Shopify POS Pro has the upper hand when it comes to Staff Management. Most features like automating staff commissions, deciding Staff roles, monitoring staff ids, etc. are offered only in the Shopify POS Pro version. The Shopify POS Lite can only enable you to assign unique ids to your staff.
- Inventory Management: Shopify POS Pro allows you to manage your inventory smartly unlike the Shopify POS Lite version. It provides features like Automatic Inventory Analysis, Demand Forecasting, Low Stock Reports, etc that can take your Inventory Management process to the next level.
Benefits of Using Shopify POS
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Shopify Point of Sale has a top-notch design with an incredibly simple user interface. This makes this app a perfect solution for traders who don’t have the time or experience to deal with complicated systems. On top of that, you can experience the following benefits by using the Shopify Point of Sale application:
1) Customer Management
If a new customer shops from your store, the Shopify POS software automatically creates a profile and keeps on updating it based on future purchases. This serves as a great way for grasping the consumer’s buying habits. Also, Shopify SOP syncs your customer’s orders from both retail and online stores.
Shopify Point of Sale is great at managing your E-Mail Campaigns. It provides you access to your customer’s contact details or order history instantly and helps you to communicate with your subscribers and build strong relationships.
2) Store and Staff Management
Shopify Point of Sale provides you the control to manage your entire online and retail store from your Shopify account only. If you are using the Shopify POS Pro, then you can even initiate refunds easily and return the money to customers through their original payment method.
Moreover, with the same plans, you can keep tabs on changes you make to your cash flow as well as control any replacements of your staff. Shopify POS allows you to generate Staff PIN Codes to monitor their activities from a single platform. Also, you can track the order history of your clients and use various filters like Product, Brand, Date to streamline the process.
3) Inventory Management
Shopify POS makes sure that your store inventory and system inventory are on the same page. It also allows you to transfer products between various locations while tracking the shipment containing your inbound and outbound products. It uses a barcode scanner to accurately perform inventory counts and use a classification system to rank products based on their Sales performances.
4) Smart Payment
Since Shopify Point of Sale allows 3rd party payments long with its in-built payment provider option, it is required to track those external payments. It uses external card terminals to track Credit or Debit Card payments made on your Shopify account. Moreover, the Shopify POS Pro version accepts 2 or more types of payment in one transaction so the consumer can pay a part of the bill using cash and another part by Credit Card. Another popular feature of this application is the Email Gift Cards that you can assign to your customers online or print them on your receipt printer.
Conclusion
This article introduced Shopify and the Shopify POS application along with their key features. It also explained the steps that you can follow to start working with your Shopify POS easily. The article discussed the major difference between the 2 versions of Shopify POS namely Lite and Pro and listed down the benefits that you will experience by connecting this tool.
Now, building your E-Commerce Website and managing it along with your retail store will no longer be a time-consuming and expensive task. The Shopify POS application automates most of these tasks and enhances your customer’s journey, making them loyal to you in the long run.
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You may want to go one step further and perform an analysis of the Shopify data. This will require you to transfer data from the Shopify account to a Data Warehouse using various complex ETL processes. Hevo Data will automate your data transfer process, hence allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business like Analytics, Customer Management, etc. This platform allows you to transfer data from 100+ multiple sources like Shopify for free to Cloud-based Data Warehouses like Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, etc. It will provide you with a hassle-free experience and make your work life much easier.
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Share your understanding of the Shopify POS application in the comments below!