- Highs: Sophisticated integration with online sales. Excellent CRM. Advanced product management. 24/7 support.
- Lows: Hardware connects to iOS app only. Not worth the cost without online store. At least one subscription required.
- Best for: Retailers who need an extensive online store that’s connected with their till system.
How it works
With the Shopify POS app, you can turn an iPad, iPhone or Android device into a portable point of sale for your in-store sales.
The software keeps all your online and in-store sales synced in the cloud so inventory and reports are always kept up to date wherever you access it. The seamless ecommerce-POS integration is designed for a well-organised sales experience across multiple retail sales channels.
Credit: Shopify
The POS app is available on iPad, iPhone and Android devices, but the latter two have some limitations.
Shopify POS works with a card reader, barcode scanner, cash drawer and receipt printer if using the iOS (not Android) app, so it’s ideal for a brick-and-mortar retailer. For the full range of POS features, however, a monthly POS subscription applies in addition to a compulsory ecommerce subscription.
Suffice to say, this is only worth considering if you want to pay for Shopify’s ecommerce features in the first place – otherwise, other retail POS systems may be better.
Subscription pricing
While Shopify’s still pretty much focused on their US customers, they have slowly changed over the last few years by listing more prices in Australian Dollars. For example, Shopify currently sells their card reader, WisePad 3 Reader, for $69 AUD.
However, subscription billing is still shown in USD, so this is based on the exchange rate on the purchase date.
In order to use Shopify POS, you must subscribe to an ecommerce plan first, or you’ll be unable to use the POS app and payment system
The eccommerce plans are available on a monthly, annual or biennial subscription and can be cancelled any time. Users can choose between Shopify Lite, Basic Shopify, Shopify and Advanced Shopify subscriptions. There is also a Shopify Plus plan, but it’s more suited for large or high-volume businesses.
| Shopify Lite | Basic Shopify | Shopify | Advanced Shopify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy Buttons & invoicing | Online store & any ecommerce | Online store & any ecommerce | Online store & any ecommerce |
| US$9*/mo | US$29*/mo | US$79*/mo | US$299*/mo |
| 1.75% + A$0.30 for Australian cards, 2.9% + A$0.30 for Amex & international cards /online transaction |
1.75% + A$0.30 for Australian cards, 2.9% + A$0.30 for Amex & international cards /online transaction |
1.6% + A$0.30 for Australian cards, 2.8% + A$0.30 for Amex & international cards /online transaction |
1.4% + A$0.30 for Australian cards, 2.7% + A$0.30 for Amex & international cards /online transaction |
| Max. staff accounts | |||
| 1 | 2 | 5 | 15 |
| Max. locations | |||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 8 |
*Excluding GST. Pricing for monthly subscription payments – annual and biennial payments work out cheaper per month.
| Shopify Lite |
Basic Shopify |
Shopify | Advanced Shopify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy Buttons & invoicing | Online store & any ecommerce | Online store & any ecommerce | Online store & any ecommerce |
| US$9*/mo | US$29*/mo | US$79*/mo | US$299*/mo |
| 1.75% + A$0.30 for Australian cards, 2.9% + A$0.30 for Amex & international cards /online transaction |
1.75% + A$0.30 for Australian cards, 2.9% + A$0.30 for Amex & international cards /online transaction |
1.6% + A$0.30 for Australian cards, 2.8% + A$0.30 for Amex & international cards /online transaction |
1.4% + A$0.30 for Australian cards, 2.7% + A$0.30 for Amex & international cards /online transaction |
| Max. staff accounts | |||
| 1 | 2 | 5 | 15 |
| Max. locations | |||
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 8 |
*Excluding GST. Pricing for monthly subscription payments – annual and biennial payments work out cheaper per month.
While you can’t set up an online store on Shopify Lite, you can embed ‘Buy Buttons’ on an existing website or blog and send email invoices.
Basic Shopify is Shopify’s cheapest ecommerce plan, and it comes with basic online store functions, 24/7 customer support, and an online card processing rate of 1.75% + 30¢ AUD for Australian cards and 2.9% + 30¢ AUD for Amex and international cards. The Shopify plan comes with professional reports for better analytics, more shop locations and user accounts, and a lower online transaction rate of 1.6% + 30¢ AUD for Australian cards and 2.8% + 30¢ AUD for Amex and international cards.
The pricier Advanced Shopify plan includes custom report creation tools, customer analytics, real-time calculated carrier shipping, user support of up to 15 staff and the lowest possible rate of 1.4% + 30¢ AUD for Australian cards and 2.7% + 30¢ AUD for Amex and international cards.
In our opinion, businesses that have a high sales turnover should consider the Shopify and Advanced Shopify plans for its lower processing rates.
All of these plans allow you to download the Shopify POS app and use the free Shopify POS Lite features. However, businesses will need to subscribe to Shopify POS Pro for US$89 + GST/month per location to access all POS features.
| Shopify POS Lite | Shopify POS Pro |
|---|---|
| Free | US$89*/mo per location |
| Suitable for a market stall holder, pop-up shop or mobile merchant | Suitable for brick and mortar shops, multiple staff and multiple locations |
*Excluding GST.
| Shopify POS Lite |
Shopify POS Pro |
|---|---|
| Free | US$89*/mo per location |
| Suitable for a market stall holder, pop-up shop or mobile merchant | Suitable for brick and mortar shops, multiple staff and multiple locations |
*Excluding GST.
Shopify offers a 14-day free trial covering both the ecommerce and POS features. We would absolutely recommend trying that out first. But even then, it can be hard to know exactly which plan is most suitable for you. Once you pay for a monthly subscription, the plan can be upgraded or downgraded any time so you are not stuck unless you pay for an annual or biennial subscription upfront.
Shopify POS transaction fees
The Shopify POS terminal accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Apple Pay, and Google Pay payments. Transaction fees are the same between cards, regardless whether the card is debit, credit, premium or international. However, Shopify’s EFTPOS terminal will not accept eftpos cards that are not Visa or Mastercard. As with online rates, the fee for card reader payments varies with your ecommerce plan.
| Ecommerce plan | Shopify card reader fee |
|---|---|
| Shopify Lite (US$9 + GST/mo) | 1.7% |
| Basic Shopify (US$29 + GST/mo) | 1.7% |
| Shopify (US$79 + GST/mo) | 1.6% |
| Advanced Shopify (US$299 + GST/mo) | 1.5% |
| Ecommerce plan |
Shopify card reader fee |
|---|---|
| Shopify Lite (US$9 + GST/mo) | 1.7% |
| Basic Shopify (US$29 + GST/mo) | 1.7% |
| Shopify (US$79 + GST/mo) | 1.6% |
| Advanced Shopify (US$299 + GST/mo) | 1.5% |
Shopify Lite and Basic Shopify plans charge a 1.9% fee per transaction, while the Shopify and Advanced Shopify charge 1.7% and 1.5% per transaction respectively, which is pretty competitive for credit cards.
For example, if your retail store has a card turnover of $8,000 per month, the 1.7% rate will cost $136 in card fees, and the 1.5% rate would cost $120. This $16 difference in transaction costs is significantly less than the difference in monthly subscription costs between the Advanced ($299 USD/month) and Basic ($29 USD/month) plans. So if you want better rates, you need a much higher sales volume for that to make sense.
If the monthly card turnover is $20,000, the Advanced package will leave you with $300 in fees, and the Basic package $340 – still not much of a difference considering the Advanced Shopify plan costs USD$270 + GST more per month than Basic Shopify plan.
Card payments can take up to 5 working days to reach your bank account, which is not exactly the fastest.
Accepted payments
Businesses can use a standalone EFTPOS terminal, and it will not incur any transaction fees for Shopify, only for the chosen card machine provider. Supported payment gateways incur an added “Shopify transaction fee”, but this refers to the online store only. This is Shopify’s way of encouraging people to use their payment system.
Shopify card reader and POS hardware
If you’re using Shopify POS in Australia, the WisePad 3 Reader from Shopify will integrate with the POS system. It connects to the POS app and works seamlessly with the Shopify Payments system.
But there’s a caveat: the card reader – any till equipment, in fact – only integrates with the iPad or iPhone app. The only way to integrate POS hardware with Shopify is therefore to use the latest app for iPad or iPhone.
Unfortunately, the Android Shopify POS app has been sidelined by the development of the iOS app, so much so that the Android app doesn’t work reliably for a lot of users. Certain features may not work with Android either, so iPad and iPad are best to use.
Several receipt printers are compatible with Shopify including models from Star Micronics. You can also integrate a barcode scanner instead of using the in-app barcode scanning feature.
If you’re selling at a counter, you can get specific cash drawers. There’s a condition to opening the cash drawers, though: they connect through a receipt printer. This means that unless you have a compatible receipt printer, the cash drawer will have to be opened manually.
Photo: Shopify
Shopify’s POS system can just be an iPad and reader, or include cash drawer and barcode scanner.
The hardware compatible with the iOS app is pretty standard, but beware that only the particular models listed by Shopify will work. Some of them are sold online in the Shopify hardware store, but you can also buy hardware from any other retail stockist as long as the item is compatible.
How easy is it to get started?
Before you get started with Shopify POS, you need a Shopify account through the web sign-up form. The sign-up process takes you through the basic questions about the online shop you need and your business and personal details. The whole process takes just a couple of minutes to complete.
At the end of registration, you can skip to the service with a free trial that does not require any payment information beforehand. At this point, you can just download the POS app on your mobile device, log in with a 4-digit PIN, and start using the features.
Before you can do anything useful from the app, though, you should add products from your web dashboard. The product library applies to both your online store and POS checkout, so you don’t need to enter separate products for each.
| Shopify POS Lite | Shopify POS Pro |
|---|---|
|
POS Lite features, plus:
|
| Shopify POS Lite | Shopify POS Pro |
|---|---|
|
POS Lite features, plus:
|
Now let’s look a little closer at the point of sale features.
Inventory management
Shopify was developed for a complex online store, so all plans allow you to add unlimited products (from Backoffice) that are searchable in the POS app. With multiple locations, you can allocate stock to each brick-and-mortar store, online store, or warehouse.
In addition to a detailed product description, categories and subcategories, you can add variants such as sizes and colours. You can also organise items into collections to create some order, add pricing, quantity information alongside SKU numbers and barcodes.
Shopify will also help you track stock levels. If the stock count reaches zero, the product will not be available for sale in your online store, whereas the POS app shows quantities relevant to the location where you’re logged in.
POS Pro also gives you:
Checkout
The checkout interface has a customisable ‘smart grid’ on one side of the screen to include the exact functions or products you use the most. It even adapts its buttons to show cues for staff based on your cart actions – not something we have seen in other iPad POS.
Above the smart grid is a search bar, which you’ll probably use the most because it finds anything else such as customers, products and orders.
Credit: Mobile Transaction
There is also a light colour scheme, as opposed to the black theme that Shopify promotes.
If you have a barcode scanner, scanning a product will add it to the bill, or you can use the in-app barcode scanner.
Other features include custom sales and discounts, GST calculations, discount codes, refunds (even if the item was bought online), custom email and text receipts, order notes and offline cash transactions. With a third-party app, the POS app can also show product recommendations.
Physical gift cards can be customised and ordered online.
All plans allow you to offer and accept physical gift cards and e-gift cards emailed to customers. The physical gift cards are beautiful, but they are costly at $256 AUD for a pack of 100 cards. The bigger the package, the lower the price per card.
Every transaction can be split into several payments or even saved as a partially paid transaction. You can always find an order, whether complete or incomplete, from the till app. Cash flow is tracked from the start to end of each shift.
POS Pro also gives you:
Staff management
The POS Lite plan has very limited staff functions. In fact, you can just create the maximum number of users allowed on your ecommerce plan, with PINs assigned to each team member for logging into the POS app.
POS Pro also gives you:
Customer management and marketing
All plans include the full range of customer management features.
Detailed customer profiles can be created with contact information, order history, customer loyalty rewards, marketing preferences and tags. You can even reach out to customers directly from the app via text or email.
Credit: Mobile Transaction
Customer profiles allow you to track their history, remove their data (on their request) and much more.
The customer profiles allow you to encourage individuals to leave a review online. If they purchase something from the online store, they can be nudged via emails to visit your shop in person, and vice versa.
You get access to all Shopify Email features on all plans, which is basically email marketing with full control over email templates, mailing lists and more. It’s pretty good value considering that other POS systems typically require external software for this.
Reports and analytics
It’s a bit of a mixed bag which reports you get on the different ecommerce and POS plans.
Let’s start with what everyone has access to. With all subscriptions, you can view a snapshot of transactions in the POS app or online Shopify Dashboard (there are more analytics online). The cash in your till drawer is tracked – though not generated in a report – so the cash drawer can be checked against it at the end of a day. Then you have general finance and inventory reports analysing the products sold, types of payments and more.
Credit: Shopify
The Shopify POS iPhone app is convenient for checking sales remotely.
If you are on the Shopify (mid-range) ecommerce plan, you also get cash flow reports (useful when you receive the cash from your physical store), detailed product reports, discount reports and retail sales reports that help you analyse crucial aspects of your store performance.
In general, the analytics consolidate both online and in-store sales, but things like cash tracking and in-store performance are obviously specific to the physical locations. It’s also very easy to export Shopify reports to CSV files.
On POS Pro, you also get access to:
Omnichannel selling
As opposed to multichannel sales that just means you are selling through multiple channels such as an online store and POS system, omnichannel selling means different sales channels work together in an intelligent way to support the customer sales journey. This is where Shopify POS really comes into its own.
Credit: Shopify
Only on POS Pro can you organise pickup orders in the app.
You only get a few omnichannel features on POS Lite. This includes in-store availability information on your website (so customers can locate where a product is in stock), the option to send a cart from the till to a customer email address so they can purchase something later online, and product QR codes that customers can scan in-store for more information.
On POS Pro, you also get access to:
Additional apps and integrations
You will find an overview of all the other free and paid integrations and add-ons available in the Shopify App Store.
Amazingly, many of these apps can be added to the POS app for features such as loyalty points, items sold by weight, payroll, and inventory planning. There are currently 72 apps that work with Shopify POS, and many others are geared towards the online store.
Over 70 apps from the Shopify App Store work with the POS system.
If you want to take analytics and accounting one step further, Shopify integrates with Xero and a number of other cloud accounting apps.
If your internet is intermittent, consider setting up a second WiFi connection as a backup.
For example, you can’t accept card payments offline but you can accept cash. Moreover, you can’t use customer profiles offline, so if you have a loyalty programme running, you’re going to have to throw out a lot of apologies if your internet is down.
Customer service and support
Shopify offers general 24/7 email and chat support on all plans. Round-the-clock phone support is included on Basic Shopify, Shopify and Advanced Shopify only, so not on the ecommerce Lite plan. Shopify says that priority support from Retail Support Specialists is “coming soon”, which would probably only apply to POS Pro.
As for the quality of support, we’ve seen many users complain about a lack of responses from Shopify and issues not being resolved.
Our own experience is the customer service team is friendly and knowledgeable, although their knowledge about the Aussie market isn’t as strong as the standard North American service yet. We’ve seen this improve as Shopify rolled out its card reader and secured more customers, but Shopify reviews still lean towards unhelpful support.
We like that Shopify lets you know what the current wait time will be on the chat, by email or phone. The first time we emailed them, we got a reply within six hours. Our second time emailing, we were told the average response time was 14 hours – we got a response 21 hours later.
The bottom line is that Shopify works well as a product, but dealing with issues can get difficult.
Recent users have reported regular server issues on the ecommerce side, but we see that the POS app is regularly updated to address bugs and improve features. Another common complaint is the need to reactivate (i.e. pay for a subscription) an inactive Shopify account in order to deactivate it. The bottom line is that Shopify works well as a product, but dealing with issues can get difficult.
Who is it best for?
Shopify POS is created for retail businesses. If you’re running a restaurant, bar or coffee shop, other POS systems will suit you better simply because the features included in Shopify’s packages do not cover hospitality functions.
Instead, Shopify is particularly suited to complex product management and those with multiple locations. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the introduction of the new Shopify POS app is proving to be perfect timing, as it perfectly integrates with your online store with useful cross-channel selling tools.
Shopify targets small-to-medium businesses, although they offer a Plus plan for bigger enterprises. To hear about prices for this, you’ll need to contact them directly.
