upos
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 going to want to
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 want to 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
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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 a 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
setting up pop-up 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 want to 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 pos 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 served 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 real-time 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 e-commerce 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
customers information and purchase
history
you can see what they ordered when they
ordered it how much they spent and even
leverage 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 a
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 going to link
the shopify pos webpage down in the
description below 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 pop-up shop
together does your pos software work
with both ios and android operating
systems actually prerequisite question
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 gross 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 haven't
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 a 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 and hey if
you enjoyed this video give us a thumbs
up by hitting that like button and if
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the rest of the learn with shopify crew
will be busy continuing to create videos
to share all things entrepreneurship
with you catch you guys in the next one
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