Your Shopify POS system is set up - whether you configured it yourself or worked with a Shopify agency or Shopify experts - and your team is trained. Now, it’s time to leverage the powerful features that streamline your daily retail operations and create an exceptional shopping experience for every customer.
This blog dives into the essential day-to-day workflows for managing your business’s products, inventory, and checkouts within a commerce strategy that spans both in store and online. You’ll learn how to unify your sales channels, manage inventory, optimise checkout workflows, and leverage product management tools with Shopify POS.
What is Shopify POS?
Shopify POS is a point of sale system that processes in-person purchases for your business. Although not exclusive to businesses running their ecommerce store on Shopify (although you will need an active Shopify plan), Shopify POS is specifically built to link physical retail to an online store, which allows for a holistic view of inventory management, customer profiles, and sales data. And that’s true whether or not you’re working with a Shopify development agency to configure the system to your specific needs and ensure you get the most from the platform from day one.
Running your business takes a lot of work, so whether you’re navigating between sales channels, managing inventory, or curating your product catalog. Shopify POS makes your life easier with powerful operations solutions, which means you can focus on building your company and delighting customers.
How Much Does Shopify POS cost?
Shopify POS comes in two distinct tiers - POS Lite, and POS Pro, which have a tiered pricing model.
Shopify POS Lite: Provided you have an active Shopify plan already and an iOS or Android device, Shopify POS lite is actually free. You can download the app through the Apple or Google play store and activate the sales channel within the admin of your Shopify account.
Shopify POS Pro: Pos Pro unlocks unlimited POS-only staff with granular permissions, advanced inventory management, retail analytics, and custom receipts. As a result, POS Pro is a paid-for add-on. POS Pro comes in at £69 per location per month. However, if your business is trading on Shopify’s top-tier ecommerce plan, Shopify Plus, POS Pro is included. For larger retailers already investing in Shopify Plus, partnering with a Shopify Plus agency can help you unlock the full value of both the plan and POS Pro.
* Please note, this excludes the costs of any hardware.
What are the Benefits of Shopify POS?
Shopify POS combines the power of your online and in-person buying experiences. Not only does this create consistency for the customer, but it also brings all of your data together into a single centralised platform, allowing you to reduce business complexity, make more sales, and build more brand loyalty.
This method of omnichannel selling provides a cohesive and integrated approach to retail operations - in fact research from Shopify has found that 40% of customers make a purchase in store after first browsing online, and that a similar percentage do the opposite.
Therefore, if Shopify POS powers both your ecommerce store and your brick-and-mortar locations, customers are able to interact with your brand across multiple channels seamlessly. With data centralised within Shopify POS, you can enhance customer loyalty by offering a consistent, cohesive experience no matter how a customer chooses to shop with your brand.
Additionally, with the omnichannel capabilities of selling through both POS and online, you can reach a wider audience, improve inventory management, optimise your marketing efforts - whether managed in-house or through an ecommerce marketing agency - and gain more insights into customer preferences.
Ultimately, you’ll remove the friction between your sales channels, allowing you to focus on what matters most: building great products and creating lasting relationships with your customers.
Shopify POS Enables Additional Buying Models
Unifying your online and non-online channels helps you offer a seamless experience for your customers. In fact, Shopify POS empowers your customers to make more complex self-serve purchases such as
Buy online, Pick up in-store: Sometimes referred to as Click and Collect here in the UK, this allows a customer to purchase a product online and then collect their order from a brick-and-mortar location, which is a particularly convenient option for some customers.
Buy in-store, ship to customer: For businesses with physically larger products or products only shown on display, customers have the option to buy a product in store and then have it shipped to their home address. In this case, taxes and shipping rates are automatically calculated at checkout.
Buy online, exchange and return in-store: With Shopify POS, Customers can return and exchange the purchases made online at a physical location - whilst updating your real time inventory across all platforms and locations.
Buy online, Local delivery: You can assign a catchment zone to each of your retail locations, which allows local customers to have their orders delivered from a store when shopping online. If an eligible customer's address is within your delivery area, then the customer will have the local delivery option appear at checkout.
Product QR codes: With Shopify POS, you can attach QR codes to products - each linked to - a product page online, which allows customers to learn more about a product when browsing in store. You can generate these using the Shopcodes within the Shopify POS app.
Shopify POS Empowers Enhanced Inventory Management
With Shopify, you’ll have a POS inventory system that provides real-time visibility into both live and incoming stock levels across warehouses and retail locations. This means you can spend less time worrying about what products to purchase and more time maximizing your profits with the best product mix for your business - and the best product mix for each unique location.
Unlocking real-time inventory insights brings three major advantages to your retail operations:
- Enhanced Forecasting Accuracy: Optimize your stock levels to prevent capital from being tied up in deadstock while eliminating the risk of stockouts and phantom sales.
- Reduced Operational Overhead: Minimize manual counting and administrative reconciliation, allowing staff to reallocate their time toward high-value customer service.
- Centralized Fulfillment: Connect your inventory directly to Shopify POS to reduce processing errors and boost overall order accuracy.
Additionally, Shopify POS unlocks advanced inventory tools that allow you to seamlessly handle supplier orders, stock tracking, and stock counts from a single dashboard. Key capabilities include:
- Streamlined Purchase Orders: You can create and manage orders for vendors and suppliers directly within your Shopify POS admin.
- Intelligent Demand Forecasting: Take the guesswork out of ordering. Use historical sales data to get smart suggestions on which products to reorder and the ideal quantities on a per location basis.
- Multi-Location Transfers: You can easily request, send, and track the status of inventory moving between your different retail locations.
- Proactive Low Stock Alerts: You can prevent stockouts with automated warnings calculated from your current sales velocity and supplier lead times for each location.
- Smart ABC Analysis: You can automatically grade products by revenue with an A-grade, B-grade, and C-grade system. Shopify will not dictate which products you order and when, but you should prioritise reordering your "A-grade" bestsellers, bundle your "B-grade" items, and discount "C-grade" stock to free up cash flow.
- Precise Stock Adjustments: You can keep your stock counts accurate by logging inventory that is damaged, used for promotions, or written off outside of regular sales.
- Fast Inventory Receiving: You can ise a barcode scanner to instantly count, verify, and log incoming stock from transfers and purchase orders.
- Deep-Dive Inventory Reports: You can access comprehensive reports to analyse trends, track performance across locations, and make data-driven decisions for future planning.
This centralised inventory management in Shopify POS streamlines processes by automating tasks, like creating and formatting purchase orders. With less manual work, staff can focus on customer service.
Shopify POS Enables a Smooth In-Person Checkout Experience
Unlike at an ecommerce store, if a customer has made it to the checkout desk, they’re highly likely to complete their purchase, but this is still where a shopper becomes a purchaser. We want to make sure that the process is smooth and satisfying for the customer, which is crucial in both making the sale and encouraging repeat business. Shopify’s POS is built to make this seamless, a USP not typically provided by other payment providers.
POS lets you customise the checkout experience before a single customer has even walked through the door. You can set up a branded personal touch to your point of sale system, reflecting your brand and streamlining your business operations from day one.
Options for Tailoring the Checkout Experience
Customizable Smart Grid: You can arrange your home screen with personalized, tap-to-use tiles. Get instant access to your most popular products, discount keys, and apps, customized to match the unique workflow of each store location.
Branded Receipts: You can design printed, email, or SMS receipts that feature your logo, store hours, policies, or current promotions. Digital receipts also double as an easy way to capture customer contact info for future marketing.
Customer-Facing Displays: You can give shoppers a clear, real-time look at their cart, discounts, and taxes using a POS Terminal or the customer view app.
Processing the Sale
You can equip your retail staff with intuitive, everyday tools designed to keep checkouts fast, efficient, and accurate.
- Flexible Discounting: Apply discounts effortlessly using automatic cart rules, specific promo codes, or manual custom percentages/dollar amounts for single items or the entire cart.
- Automated Tax Calculations: Once registered, taxes are automatically computed based on your store's physical location. You can easily override, customize, or disable taxes for specific items or unique transactions when needed.
- Internal Order Notes: Add special customer requests or internal reminders directly to a transaction. These notes sync instantly between the POS app and your Shopify admin to keep your entire team aligned.
- Rapid Barcode Scanning: Skip the manual search. Scan items into the cart instantly using a dedicated hardware scanner or the built-in camera on your iOS or Android device.
- Reliable Offline Mode: Don't let a spotty internet connection stall your sales. You can safely accept cash offline; Shopify POS will automatically sync everything to your admin once you are back online.
Managing Post-Sale Operations
A smooth post-purchase experience turns one-time shoppers into loyal customers, which lets you easily manage returns, updates, and holds without messing up your books.
- Unified Returns & Exchanges: Handle omnichannel returns effortlessly. Accept in-store returns for items bought online, automatically restock inventory, and issue refunds via the original payment method, gift cards, or store credit (POS Pro feature).
- Quick Cancellations & Voids: You can cancel mistaken orders on the spot. If a payment is authorized but not yet captured, you can void the transaction directly to save time and avoid unnecessary credit card processing fees.
- Save and Load Carts: You can leep lines moving during peak hours by saving incomplete carts as drafts. Staff can instantly pull up the drafted cart later from any device or location to finalize the sale when the customer is ready (POS Pro feature).
How to Make the Most of Shopify POS
In the retail space, your products are the heart of your business, and thats true of both ecommerce and brick and mortar. In the ultra-competitive environment, it’s key to manage them effectively.
With Shopify POS, you can effectively analyse sales data, track inventory performance, and optimise the product selection within an individual retail location. This lets you focus on the items that generate the most revenue and customer satisfaction on a per location level.
Streamlining Your Product Catalog
A cleanly structured catalog makes life easier for your team and creates a frictionless shopping experience for your customers.
- Dynamic Product Variants: Add unlimited products to your store, with up to 100 variants (such as size, color, or material) per item. Each variant tracks its own unique price, SKU, weight, and stock level independently.
- Curated Collections: Group related products together effortlessly. Hand-pick items to build Manual Collections, or set up Smart Collections that automatically sort products based on pre-defined rules like vendor, price point, or stock levels.
Precision Inventory Tracking
Accurate stock management is your best defense against waste, overstocking, and costly stockouts.
- Real-Time Inventory States: Gain total clarity on where your items sit in the fulfillment cycle. Instantly see what is on hand at your locations, committed to existing orders, incoming from suppliers, or unavailable. This visibility helps you buy smarter and provide accurate timelines to shoppers.
- Multi-Location Management: Track stock across retail stores, warehouses, and temporary pop-ups independently. When a sale happens, Shopify automatically deducts inventory from the exact location where the transaction took place.
- Smart Barcode Labeling: Accelerate both checkout times and stock takes by assigning barcodes to your products. Use existing manufacturer barcodes or design and print your own seamlessly using Shopify's Retail Barcode Labels app.
With these tools at your disposal, you have a clear roadmap to take control of your catalog. Mastering these inventory and organization features empowers you to make data-driven decisions that keep your business thriving.
Shopify POS Operations: Bottom Line
A linked commerce strategy using Shopify POSseamlessly integrates online and in-store operations. This powers customers with advanced self-serve purchasing models, merchants with enhanced inventory management, checkout and product ordering capabilities, and staff with a streamlined UI that enables them to focus on delivering great customer service.
If you need help setting up Shopify POS for your business, contact our ecommerce agency team. We're an ecommerce agency based in the UK, working as Shopify experts across ecommerce development, Shopify website builds, and full Shopify agency partnerships, helping retailers of all sizes unify their commerce strategy - so we’d love to hear from you.
