Omnichannel & POS
Running shops and a webshop as one business: Shopify POS, shared stock, and the choice between Shopify at the till and keeping your current POS.
Most retailers with a webshop also have shops, and their customers move between the two. Omnichannel means the business behaves as one: the same stock, the same customer and the same prices, wherever the sale happens.
Shopify POS
Shopify POS turns Shopify into the till system as well. Products, stock, customers and orders are shared between shops and webshop, so a product sold in store is gone from the website at once, and a customer can order online and pick up or return in a shop.
Keep your current POS, or move it too
Moving the webshop to Shopify does not mean replacing the tills. Systems like Tilroy and Lightspeed run stock and shop-floor processes well, and a good integration keeps them in charge while Shopify runs the webshop. Whether to move the POS as well depends on your hardware, payments in store and how your shops work. We wrote out that choice for Lightspeed and Tilroy.
What makes it work
Stock that is right in every channel, one customer profile, and clear rules for click and collect and returns. The technology connects the channels; the processes in your shops decide whether customers notice.
Questions
What people ask about this topic.
No. You can keep your current POS and connect it to Shopify, or move the tills to Shopify POS as well. The right choice depends on your hardware, payments in store and how your shops work.
Ordering online and picking up in a shop. With shared stock, the website only offers it for products that are actually available in that shop.
With Shopify POS, shops and webshop share one stock. With another POS, stock syncs through an integration, and how often depends on how that integration is built.