As omnichannel commerce continues to grow in importance, ensuring that your in-store and online systems are in sync becomes less of a nice-to-have and more of a necessity if you want your business to succeed.
While point of sale (POS) systems aren’t new, they’ve undergone considerable change over the last few years. Today, a point of sale system isn’t just an upgraded cash register. Instead, modern POS systems are built to act as retail management systems: the central hub for your entire omnichannel commerce ecosystem.
The problem? There are a ton of POS options to choose from these days. In this blog, we’ll go over the importance of selecting the right POS system for your business, explain what you should consider when choosing a POS system, and unveil our agency’s recommendation for small to mid-sized ecommerce businesses who are looking to expand or optimize their omnichannel operations.
Why Choosing the Right POS Matters
Selecting the right POS system for your business is incredibly important because it touches nearly every part of your operation. A modern POS should be the central hub for sales, inventory management, and customer data.
The best systems let you track inventory in real time, monitor sales data, build customer loyalty, sell online, and even operate offline, all of which are features that can help retail businesses provide exciting, fast, and tailored experiences for their customers.
A good POS speeds up checkout and reduces manual errors. It syncs information across channels, ensuring that selling a product in-store automatically updates your online inventory so you never oversell products you no longer have in stock.
If used properly, a unified POS can dramatically improve the customer experience, enabling conveniences like buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) and easy in-store returns for online purchases. Additionally, if your POS integrates with your ecommerce platform of choice, you can benefit from unified customer accounts across channels, rewards/loyalty program syncing, and easy email collection at the cash for further marketing efforts and better communication.
Similarly, everything syncing across online platforms/tools and retail enables unified reporting and analytics without manual data import/export.
If your customer accounts are synced, you’re pulling from one inventory pool. Your reporting automatically considers everything, eliminating a ton of duplicate work and ensuring a consistent omnichannel commerce experience for your employees and customers alike.
What to Consider When Choosing a POS System
When evaluating POS systems, there are a few factors to consider to ensure that the system you choose aligns with your business needs today and in the future.
Scalability
Can the POS grow with your business? Consider your five-year vision. The system should easily handle increasing product catalogues, more locations, and higher sales volume. Avoid going with an ultra-basic system; you might outgrow it in a year.
Retailers need POS platforms that can scale as their businesses expand. POS hardware is pretty standard, but you’ll want to select a system with customizable software that can be upgraded to more advanced plans with additional features as your budget increases.
Compatibility
Think about the devices and platforms the POS supports. Do you plan to use tablets, laptops, or dedicated terminals at checkout? Ensure the POS software runs smoothly on your preferred hardware and can connect to essential peripherals (receipt printers, barcode scanners, card readers, cash drawers).
Also, consider whether the POS can integrate with your existing software stack, such as your accounting or ERP software. A system with open APIs or a marketplace of integrations can be a big plus.
Platform Integration
This goes without saying when discussing how your POS fits into your omnichannel commerce strategy. Still, you should ensure that your POS of choice syncs with your ecommerce platform so that in-store and online sales, inventory, and customer data all update in real time.
Strong ecommerce integration means you can have a single source of truth for inventory and a single customer database for marketing. This prevents inventory inconsistencies and simplifies management.
User Experience (UX) and Ease of Use
The most successful retail stores are agile: quick to serve customers, adapt to the market and trends, and even faster to get new employees up to speed on using their hardware/software. Your staff should be able to learn the system quickly, navigate the interface with minimal training, and resolve basic issues independently.
Look for a clean interface and features like quick product/customer lookup, easy barcode scanning, and simple workflows for discounts and returns. Also consider customer-facing experience: Can the POS email receipts, accept modern payment methods (chip, tap, mobile wallets), and even support features like customer display?
Support and Training
No matter how intuitive a system is, you’ll still want good customer support from your POS provider. Evaluate what support channels are available (e.g. 24/7 phone support, live chat, email, a help center/forums, etc.).
Access to timely support cannot be overstated if something goes wrong on a busy sales day. Also, look into the onboarding and training resources: Does the vendor offer tutorials, documentation, or one-on-one onboarding sessions?
Create a checklist of these criteria and score each vendor you evaluate. This will make the comparison process more objective and increase confidence in your ultimate choice.
Comparing POS Options: What the Market Offers
The POS market is crowded with options, ranging from modern cloud-based solutions to traditional legacy systems.
Modern POS solutions are largely cloud-based, meaning your data is stored online, and the software is accessible via web or mobile app. Cloud POS tends to offer greater flexibility. You can access your sales data from anywhere, and updates/new features roll out automatically. On-premise (legacy) systems run locally; they might work without an internet connection and offer greater control, but they often lack the scalability and remote access of cloud systems.
Some POS systems are part of a larger commerce platform, while others are standalone products that focus purely on point of sale. For example, Shopify POS is integrated with the Shopify ecommerce platform and is designed for retailers who want an all-in-one solution that connects online and offline sales. On the other hand, options like Square or Clover might serve primarily as in-store POS with add-ons, and you’d integrate them with your separate online store if needed.
Generally speaking, the market offers both lean, simple systems for small businesses and feature-rich systems for larger operations. Make sure you’re not paying for features you don’t need, and that you won’t outgrow the feature set too quickly. You want a POS that works for you long-term as your business grows and your needs evolve.
How to Set Up a POS System
Setting up your new POS might seem complicated, but more often than not, it can be much easier than you think, especially if you pre-plan and follow some best practices:
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Decide on an Implementation Timeline: Before jumping straight into installation, plan when and how you will roll out the new system. Choose a deployment period that avoids your peak sales times to minimize disruptions. Set aside time for data migration and training. If you’re switching from an old system, decide if you’ll run both in parallel for a short period as a backup.
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Prepare your Data: Audit and organize your product information before inputting it into the new POS, especially if you don’t already use a PIM. Clean up your item names, SKUs, prices, and stock counts. Most POS systems allow bulk product uploads, which you can use to save time. If you’re migrating from another system, export that data and format it for the new POS, if needed.
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Set Up Hardware and Connectivity: Next, set up the hardware and connectivity. Install the POS app/software on your device (download the app from the App Store or Play Store if using a tablet, or log in via browser for web-based systems). Connect all necessary hardware: plug in the receipt printer and cash drawer, connect the barcode scanner, and set up the card reader. Many modern peripherals connect via Bluetooth or USB relatively easily,
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Configure Software/Settings: After you’ve gone through the app’s onboarding flow and set up your hardware, start digging into the settings and tailoring the app to your needs. Customize your receipt templates and set up any specific preferences, like whether you require customer signatures on card transactions or enable tipping. This is also the time to integrate any add-ons or connect the POS to other systems like an external payment processor or CRM.
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Import Products/Store Data: If you chose a POS that isn’t tied to your ecommerce platform or integrated with other tools like your PIM, you’ll need to populate the POS with your inventory catalogue. Similarly, if your system allows, import your customer list so you have existing customer profiles in the POS (including loyalty program statuses or store credit).
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Set Up User Accounts & Permissions: Add your staff to the system with the appropriate roles. Most POS platforms let you create user accounts for each employee or sales associate, with a variety of permission levels for security, accountability, and sales tracking.
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Test, Test, and Test Again!: Before going live, run through some tests. Perform a few sample transactions, like sales, returns, and exchanges, to confirm everything works as expected. If you have multiple registers or stores, test transactions on each. Also, test workflows like end-of-day closing and verify that reports are generated correctly. Generally, you should have a small “soft launch” or pilot period, using the new POS for a day or two in parallel with the old system, or in a single store, to ensure everything is running properly while you still have your other system to fall back on if anything comes up.
Once you’ve got your system properly configured and running, your final step is to train your team on the new POS and go over any similarities/differences between how it runs and your old system. Then, you’re all set!
Why Our Clients Choose Shopify POS
While there are many POS solutions available, one name that often comes up for ecommerce and omnichannel retailers is Shopify POS. As a Shopify Plus Partner agency, we at Blue Badger recommend it to all our clients using Shopify as their ecommerce platform simply because the integration is top-notch.
Products, inventory, orders, and customer data are all synced in real time between your website and your physical store. This means no manual data transfer or reconciliation is required. Online and in-store operations truly run on one system. You can sell an item in person, and the inventory on your website updates instantly, and vice versa.
Because Shopify POS and Shopify’s ecommerce platform share a database, you get combined sales reports and analytics across all channels. You can see total sales, product performance, and customer purchasing patterns in one dashboard, rather than pulling reports from separate systems and trying to merge them.
Additionally, Shopify POS is known for its clean, easy-to-use interface. The app is intuitive, so your staff can pick it up quickly. Tasks like product lookup, discount application, or sale completion are straightforward. The user-friendly design reduces training time and minimizes errors during checkout. Plus, since it’s app-based, any phone or tablet can become a POS in seconds.
The Shopify POS is also customizable. Add or remove tiles from the homescreen in a few taps, set up shortcuts to frequently used discounts, or link to other integrated tools, like your Yotpo loyalty program.
Customize your customer-facing displays to match your store’s branding and style guide, and leverage context-aware smart search to quickly pull up product and customer information at checkout.
For developers, Shopify POS now also lets you create POS-specific Shopify Functions to add even more custom functionality to the system.
Conclusion
While there are plenty of options on the market, finding a POS solution that integrates with your ecommerce platform, scales with your growth, and simplifies your team’s workflows should be at the top of your list. For Shopify merchants, Shopify POS consistently checks all those boxes, and then some.
Whether you’re opening your first retail location or looking to bring multiple channels under one system, the right partner can make all the difference. At Blue Badger, we’ve helped merchants of all sizes implement and optimize Shopify POS to create smooth, scalable, and future-ready retail ecosystems. Ready to get started? Get in touch with us today to learn more.
