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Shopify POS
- solaris152000 13y agoShopify constantly seem to be pushing new ground, although I find it hard to imagine a store on that platform turning over $1,000,000+ just seems to limited unlike Magento.
- adammcnamara 13y agoA good number of our stores sell > $1M/month. And, now that Shopify 2 has shipped, any feature gaps that were around are closing very quickly.
- arbuge 13y agoDo you guys have an API by any chance? Can I push orders to a Shopify store via an API call of some kind?
- adammcnamara 13y agohttp://docs.shopify.com/api http://docs.shopify.com/api Order creation will be open soon.
- markgarity 13y agoWe're beta testing the order create api endpoint on our enterprise Shopify plan right now, enabling us to hackily import manual phone/wholesale orders via an internal app we developed. It's definitely a step in the right direction, but Shopify really needs to prioritize a backend order creation tool. Every e-commerce product across-the-board has this feature, and it's disappointing to see a platform as well-crafted and mature as Shopify still without many of the essentials. We can now officially create orders via a POS system, but still can't create an order on our own website without registering as a customer or jumping through 3rd party shipping/tax/payment APIs.
- arbutus 13y agoThe API documentation is here: http://docs.shopify.com/api http://docs.shopify.com/api There's no API order creation at present, but the API is consistently evolving as the platform does.
- browsermostly 13y agoHow about discount codes? I had to write a screen-scraping python script to get student discount codes working and then I then had to write it again to deal with Shopify 2's new interface!
- fourspace 13y agoShopify themselves wrote an app to do this: http://www.shopify.com/blog/6668676-new-free-shopify-app-bulk-discounts http://www.shopify.com/blog/6668676-new-free-shopify-app-bul...
- browsermostly 13y agoI've used that app before and it isn't what I needed. I want to be able to add them myself...through the API.
- blairbeckwith 13y agoI manage the 3rd party apps program at Shopify – feel free to let me know if you have any questions about getting started. @blairbeckwith on twitter and blair@shopify.com.
- twag 13y agoIt's interesting how you mention Magento when talking about online stores with a high turnover. I work with ATG, Hybris and IBM WebSphere mainly. These are the biggest players in ecommerce and some of the biggest brands with massive turnovers use these platforms. Magento is seen as a bit of a joke among big enterprise ecommerce players. The kind of thing will a low entry barrier and with a userbase primarily made up of small retailers. However, I would love to start my own ecommerce agency and the low barrier to entry could make magento the perfect choice for me. I'm not sure if any retailers actually spend serious money on it though, unlike the 3 big players I previously mentioned.
- bhouston 13y agoTwo years ago (October 2011) I submitted this idea to the first Shopify Fund (http://www.shopify.com/fund http://www.shopify.com/fund): "The second idea is to create a POS system that integrates fully into Shopify. Thus one can use Shopify to manage sales for all the store's inventory both those that one sells through the web and also those that one sells from the physical store. The POS front end for Shopify will allow for Shopify to expand into those with both an online presence and those who also have a storefront. This is perfect for small businesses. I believe it could be very disruptive to the POS market because it would be very easy to adopt for customers." Back when I applied to the Shopify Fund there were little requirements it just asked for ideas: http://web.archive.org/web/20111018133854/http://www.shopify.com/fund http://web.archive.org/web/20111018133854/http://www.shopify... I never heard back from them.
- revisionzero 13y agoI'm not entirely sure what your alluding to. My guess is that your claiming they took your idea and ran with it, which irks me. All I will say is that its a bit unreasonable to assume that Shopify didn't have this in the game plan since going public. With Square slowly moving into Shopify's territory this is a fairly expected movement for Shopify.
- bhouston 13y agoI said what I said, I didn't accuse them of stealing the idea in my post. But there is a murkiness with these types of contests though where one asks for ideas from a community with the promise of rewards for the best ideas. Obviously in hindsight, my idea was a really good one (which was the point of the contest no?) but I didn't get funding, not even a response.
- Sam_Odio 13y agoPerhaps you didn't hear back because they were building (or had plans to build) a POS system that they weren't ready to talk about.
- scott_o 13y agoAm I missing something or is there no barcode scanner? It seems like a no-brainer to me. You wouldn't even need additional hardware, just use the camera as a scanner.
- adammcnamara 13y agoWe don't package one in the Hardware Kit, but there is bluetooth barcode scanning integration. http://docs.shopify.com/pos/about-pos/hardware/barcode-scanner http://docs.shopify.com/pos/about-pos/hardware/barcode-scann...
- speg 13y agoThere was one in the video, but I don't see it on the hardware page. Also, why is the stand $130? Edit: I see that is the retail price from http://hecklerdesign.com/product/windfall-for-ipad/ http://hecklerdesign.com/product/windfall-for-ipad/
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- smickie 13y agoI have repeatedly had clients on a budget choose Magento over Shopify due to a lack of fine grain control. It's very frustrating that they can release a POS system, however fail at, for example, complex sales reports. I wish they'd get it together because they would blow everyone out the water.
- nahname 13y agoI agree, in some areas they are simply amazing. In others, they have a lot of work to do. For example, the devs at my company that have had to use shopify hate it. Their systems are based on hacking javascript for everything. The deployments are very painful too. No way to see what it will look like without previewing it live on the site.
- rquantz 13y agoAgree that testing/deployment is a pain. The solution I've come up with is to use the shopify theme manager app, which syncs local files to the online store, then have to two copies of the repo on my local machine, corresponding to the live store and a testing store. It's a pain, but it's Bette than hacking on the live theme files.
- adammcnamara 13y agoA beta of Shopify Reports actually launched today as well. We're starting with point of sale customers, then bringing all merchants on shortly. http://docs.shopify.com/manual/your-store/8-reports http://docs.shopify.com/manual/your-store/8-reports
- svmegatron 13y agoI've sung the praises of Shopify on multiple occasions, here and in real life and to various clients. Their products and services just continue to get better and better, across the board. Excellent work, Shopify!
- samspenc 13y agoDitto. Shopify is great and easy to use. I recommend it to any of my non-technical friends who needs an e-commerce site.
- loceng 13y agoBig competitor with reach just jumped into the market with Square and a few others. Well played.
- pgcosta 13y agoFunny how square totally copied their design! [/irony]
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- snookca 13y agoWe had looked into other names and POS/point-of-sale was the most recognizable and familiar with storeowners. Yes, the acronym is a little unfortunate. :)
- goatforce5 13y agoThe target market (ie, retailers and food service types) will understand the acronym perfectly. Point Of Sale systems have existed for a long time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_sale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_sale
- up_and_up 13y agoI totally disagree. Anyone working in the retail sector (the target customer) will understand immediately what POS means since POS is a well-known business acronym.
- 9oliYQjP 13y agoThe acronym always makes me snicker but having dealt with some clients talk about their POS systems, it's a very widely used acronym. In fact, it was a big US company for which I was first part of a conference call where the acronym was used. I snickered in a "they're calling it an iPad? Really?"-way. Then I got used to it. Just like iPad. I kind of cringed when I saw the name too. But I can understand why Shopify chose it. Potential customers are going to google for "POS" along with a handful of other keywords.
- arbutus 13y agoWorking in retail as a teenager, the cash desk/terminal/whatever else you may call it was always called the Point of Sale. The joke got old really fast when you actually use a POS.
- Ma8ee 13y agoAm I missing something here? This is a parody that is to subtle for my sleepy mind right now? Am I the only one that immediately reads it as Shopify Piece Of Shit?
- wikiburner 13y ago:) - Point of Sale - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_sale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_sale
- Ma8ee 13y agoThat of course makes sense. :) I would maybe have considered a different name anyway. But maybe it is just me, I also have problems with people who have Bull Shit in e.g. Cosmology or Biology.
- compay 13y agoMe too, but I'm not their target audience. I'd imagine the people who are likely to be interested in it won't read it that way.
- axx 13y agosame here!
- daredevildave 13y agoBeing a US company, I'm guessing there is no chip and PIN support?
- snookca 13y agoWe don't have a chip and pin reader right now but you can use your own chip and pin system with Shopify POS.
- fbernier 13y agoShopify is a Canadian company based in Ottawa.
- nchlswu 13y agowhich means chip and pin support is on their radar, as I believe Chip and Pin will be standard within 12(?) months
- SeanOC 13y agoThey're actually a Canadian company but looking at the reader, it does look like it only supports swiping the mag strip of a card.
- nighthawk24 13y agoComing from a Bitcoin world, 2.1% + 30cents fees sounds ridiculous!
- ssharp 13y agoThis is the price you pay for a currency with: 1) Stability 2) A massive user base 3) An infrastructure to support that massive user base BitCoin has none of those things, so I'd expect a discount on it!
- dd36 13y agoIt's the price you pay for interchange fees. If only ACH had an instant verify and hold feature...
- sirclueless 13y ago...it would immediately be a target of fraud and unhappy customers and soon have to charge a more substantial fee. Bitcoin early adopters are willing to put up with more insecurity and inconvenience than most customers.
- jusben1369 13y agoDo you feel like that's a really useful comment and added anything to the conversation? Bitcoin is fascinating but represents what % of global transactions today?
- tommccabe 13y agoSuggestion for the Shopify folk- The site doesn't say that the POS supports a barcode scanner, but the video says that it does (and shows it in use). As a retailer, not having a barcode scanner would be a prompt deal breaker[0]. It should be featured somewhere on the microsite. [0] lack of a barcode scanner isn't bad if you have 16 products. Once you're managing any serious level of inventory, especially with unique size/color combinations, there's so much risk for error if each item isn't being scanned. Then there's speed of service to the customer; it's just quicker.
- jules2689 13y agohttp://docs.shopify.com/pos/about-pos/hardware/supported-hardware#barcode-scanner http://docs.shopify.com/pos/about-pos/hardware/supported-har... Here you go :)
- programminggeek 13y agoI realize that POS is a term that is widely used as a TLA for point of sale, but it feels like Shopify POS is an unfortunate name given that it's also a TLA for piece of sh*t.
- marban 13y agoBut only because you're not their target group.
- mitchellh 13y agoPOS is the standard industry term for this kind of software. Anybody who would actually buy this product would never mistake this. And anyone who might mistake it for the other meaning needs only to click through to see it is indeed a POS system.
- xal 13y agoIt's the industry's term. I was very tempted to headline the whole launch as "Shopify: First POS that's not a POS." but alas..
- kamjam 13y agoAs other's have said, it's an industry standard term. Whilst in acronym heaven, I actually had to look up what TLA meant. Three Letter Acronym for those wondering.
- jfb 13y agoOr "three letter agency" when talking about IRS, NSA, &c.
- awwstn 13y agoI always liked that parallel, because when I worked in college as a waiter or in retail, every POS I used was indeed a POS. I'm glad we finally have a generation of POSs that no longer fit the pun.
- JimmaDaRustla 13y agoIf you ever spent a few days in a retail environment, anywhere...POS means point of sale.
- netcan 13y agoI wonder how many people are primarily online merchants that move into physical stores.
- jusben1369 13y agoPerhaps think of something inbetween too. Someone who sells online then attends farmer markets/artist events/trade shows/flea markets and wants to do physical transactions.
- JimmaDaRustla 13y agoPOS, Inventory management, and merchant services all in one? Wow, game changer. Just needs chip/flash (EMV) support!
- callmeed 13y agoIn the POS 2.0 space (referring to new, tablet/cloud services), how many players will survive 5 years down the road? Is this a "winner take all" or "winner + 2nd place take all" space? I feel bad for the local cafe that hitches their wagon to an eventual loser–especially if their data is locked in.
- mrgreenfur 13y agoI think most of the newfangled POS vendors will help migrate data across. Maybe not historical sales data, but certainly inventory. I also think it's not long before everyone can search local inventories nearby. Unless one of them dominates from the beginning, I can see many POS + web front ends competing for a long time.
- callmeed 13y agoMy counter to your first argument is this: if someone's proprietary digital wallet service takes off (like Square's) or someone with a huge base of users with payment data (read: Apple or Amazon) gets in the space, all other POS vendors will get hammered by churn.
- adrr 13y agoSpeaking of the space. Are there any card readers that lets you bring you own payment processing? Would love roll my own POS software but have yet to find a card reader that has an open API.
- callmeed 13y agoCardFlight http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/08/cardflight-partners-with-stripe-and-launches-sdk-to-become-the-stripe-of-real-world-payments/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/08/cardflight-partners-with-st... and others at https://angel.co/search?q=card%20reader https://angel.co/search?q=card%20reader
- munimkazia 13y agoThis looks like the sort of product that makes me wonder why no one thought of this before. Or has any other online e-commerce platform did something like this before?
- nickles 13y agoOthers have done this before. See Shopkeep POS, Breadcrumb by Groupon, Erply, Vend, Square, etc.
- munimkazia 13y agoAh. I guess I am pretty out of touch with the online payment systems world, as none of the international payment gateways work in India from a vendor's point of view.
- audiodude 13y agoMaybe off topic, but did anyone else notice the slick SVG animation of the wires connecting the computers, about 1/3 down the page?
- dylanblanchard 13y agoha! Good eye. That's legit.
- Ave 13y agoThe page seems to crash the tab after 40 seconds in Chrome Canary Version 31.0.1602.0 canary - also there's a js error after closing the signup popup.
- deadlysyntax 13y agoAs the director a development agency, we cannot use Shopify for our clients until they create the ability for products to have custom fields. Some products need to present more information than is standard, such as a wine store that needs to display vintage, alcohol. volume etc. Til then this excellent new technology is useless to us.
- wheels 13y agoThat's been available for 4 years: http://www.shopify.com/technology/3032322-new-feature-metafields http://www.shopify.com/technology/3032322-new-feature-metafi...
- recurrie 13y agoUnless I've missed it, there isn't a way to cleanly add meta fields to the admin backend for products. It has to be done via an app, which means data entry needs to be split between built-in Shopify fields and meta fields via a Shopify app interface on a different screen.
- jonah 13y agoThis seemed very familiar to me. I remembered seeing Square offering a POS kit[0] just this spring. Interestingly though, they no longer sell it and instead are only offering a (very slick) stand/reader[1]. I wonder why they stopped offering the whole kit. My only guess it was a MVP style trial balloon offering to gauge interest before building their own hardware. Or, it didn't fly, which may not bode well for Shopify either. [0] http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/02/20/square-launches-ipad-driven-business-in-a-box-hardware-for-299 http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/02/20/square-launches-ip... [1] https://squareup.com/register/hardware https://squareup.com/register/hardware
- schappim 13y agoAs someone who runs a pretty big shopify store (in terms of SKUs) littlebirdelectronics.com, this makes it super easy for us to move from being an online store to a brick and mortar store. In the past we've tried to sell our wares at Makerfaires and the like, and in the end we'd be getting people to use our laptop or iPad and place their orders through our site. This dramatically simplifies the whole affair! Credit where credit is due, this is pretty awesome :)
- jonah 13y agoFor sure, no discounting the usefulness of a seamlessly integrated solution for people with both online and b&m businesses. I haven't had the need to dig into Shopify in years but will be curious to see how it handles some of the complexities of multi-front retail.
- jmcdonald-ut 13y agoThe one key advantage that Shopify has, as I see it, is that merchants who use Shopify already have their inventory loaded into the system. Synchronizing their online stock and physical stock now has little barrier to entry beyond the cost.
- jonah 13y agoHow does Shopify do with multiple locations for stock? Say you have inventory in your physical store and then have the inventory you're selling online at a warehouse elsewhere which you also use to re-stock the b&m.
- ruswick 13y agoThe iPad POS market is saturated, and Square already has a tremendous foothold. I have serious doubts about the whether this system can succeed so late in the game. Moreover, I can't really be brought to care about these types of POS systems, primarily because they're all categorically atrocious. Many of my favorite coffee shops have been replacing their registers with iPads, and the universal result has been longer lines and more errors in recording orders. These things have consistently caused a regression of the customer experience in businesses. They're slow, they're unwieldy, and for whatever reason people demonstrate considerable ineptitude at using them. In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the cash register. Things like Square should be used only in instances where using a traditional register would be untenable. The fact that companies are needlessly adopting these things and subsequently worsening the experience for their customers is tremendously disappointing. The iPad will never be better at taking people's credit cards than a traditional register. It wasn't designed to, and companies should stop pretending otherwise.
- ngoel36 13y ago> The iPad will never be better at taking people's credit cards than a traditional register. Are you serious? You do realize that most "traditional registers" are used in conjunction with a credit card terminal and/or a computer + monitor POS system right? Both of those things are computers, and the iPad is slowly replacing a very large number of the things that a computer was traditionally used for...primarily because of three main advantages: portability, size, and enhanced UI (multitouch, gestures, etc.). All three of those (especially the last) offer huge advantages for registers and POS systems. Sure, most offerings are currently somewhat buggy and scrappy. But what new technology isn't? I can guarantee it will get better. This is pretty classic innovation life cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:InnovationLifeCycle.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:InnovationLifeCycle.jpg). What you're saying is the equivalent to somebody in 2005 saying "Flash memory will never be used in place of traditional hard drives in laptops." That person would, today, feel pretty stupid.
- jacques_chester 13y ago> The iPad POS market is saturated, and Square already has a tremendous foothold. I have serious doubts about the whether this system can succeed so late in the game. The search engine market is saturated, and Yahoo! already has a tremendous foothold. I have serious doubts about the whether Google can succeed so late in the game.
- dlf 13y agoFWIW, as a non e-commerce person, I always read POS as "piece of shit," so this did make me chuckle at first read ...carry on.
- lux 13y agoIt's surprising to see no Interac support, since Shopify are from Canada. I don't see any store here using this unless it supports Interac debit cards. I use a Square card reader with my iPhone at a merch booth at concerts, which doesn't need the full POS components, but more storefronts here support Interac than credit cards and you would be turning away a lot of business in a storefront context by not supporting it.