
Shopify POS - remi
http://www.shopify.com/pos
======
bhouston
Two 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...](http://web.archive.org/web/20111018133854/http://www.shopify.com/fund)

I never heard back from them.

~~~
revisionzero
I'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
I 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
Perhaps 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.

------
smickie
I 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.

~~~
adammcnamara
A 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)

~~~
fourspace
Super excited to see what these can do. Wish they were available for Pro plans
as well, as I'm building similar reports for our store as we speak.

------
programminggeek
I 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.

~~~
unono
Only to vulgar, childish individuals. The target demographic for this is
businesspeople leading honorable lives.

~~~
RodericDay
_businesspeople leading honorable lives_

------
svmegatron
I'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
Ditto. Shopify is great and easy to use. I recommend it to any of my non-
technical friends who needs an e-commerce site.

------
tommccabe
Suggestion 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
[http://docs.shopify.com/pos/about-pos/hardware/supported-
har...](http://docs.shopify.com/pos/about-pos/hardware/supported-
hardware#barcode-scanner)

Here you go :)

------
solaris152000
Shopify 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
A 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
Do you guys have an API by any chance? Can I push orders to a Shopify store
via an API call of some kind?

~~~
arbutus
The 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
How 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
Shopify themselves wrote an app to do this:
[http://www.shopify.com/blog/6668676-new-free-shopify-app-
bul...](http://www.shopify.com/blog/6668676-new-free-shopify-app-bulk-
discounts)

~~~
browsermostly
I've used that app before and it isn't what I needed. I want to be able to add
them myself...through the API.

------
Ma8ee
Am 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
:) - Point of Sale -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_sale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_of_sale)

~~~
Ma8ee
That 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.

------
scott_o
Am 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
We don't package one in the Hardware Kit, but there is bluetooth barcode
scanning integration. [http://docs.shopify.com/pos/about-pos/hardware/barcode-
scann...](http://docs.shopify.com/pos/about-pos/hardware/barcode-scanner)

------
ruswick
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.

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
> 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.

------
jonah
This 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-
ip...](http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/02/20/square-launches-ipad-driven-
business-in-a-box-hardware-for-299)

[1]
[https://squareup.com/register/hardware](https://squareup.com/register/hardware)

~~~
schappim
As 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
For 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.

------
loceng
Big competitor with reach just jumped into the market with Square and a few
others. Well played.

------
lux
It'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.

------
audiodude
Maybe off topic, but did anyone else notice the slick SVG animation of the
wires connecting the computers, about 1/3 down the page?

~~~
dylanblanchard
ha! Good eye. That's legit.

------
deadlysyntax
As 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
That's been available for 4 years:

[http://www.shopify.com/technology/3032322-new-feature-
metafi...](http://www.shopify.com/technology/3032322-new-feature-metafields)

~~~
recurrie
Unless 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.

------
callmeed
In 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
I 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
My 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.

------
netcan
I wonder how many people are primarily online merchants that move into
physical stores.

~~~
jusben1369
Perhaps 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.

------
daredevildave
Being a US company, I'm guessing there is no chip and PIN support?

~~~
fbernier
Shopify is a Canadian company based in Ottawa.

~~~
nchlswu
which means chip and pin support is on their radar, as I believe Chip and Pin
will be standard within 12(?) months

------
Ave
The 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.

------
dlf
FWIW, 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.

------
JimmaDaRustla
POS, Inventory management, and merchant services all in one? Wow, game
changer.

Just needs chip/flash (EMV) support!

------
munimkazia
This 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
Others have done this before. See Shopkeep POS, Breadcrumb by Groupon, Erply,
Vend, Square, etc.

~~~
munimkazia
Ah. 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.

------
nighthawk24
Coming from a Bitcoin world, 2.1% + 30cents fees sounds ridiculous!

~~~
ssharp
This 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
It's the price you pay for interchange fees. If only ACH had an instant verify
and hold feature...

~~~
sirclueless
...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.

------
pgcosta
Funny how square totally copied their design! [/irony]

