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Sync your Web Store with your POINT OF SALE (POS)

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Some  research about syncing Bricks and Mortar (Shop) with your web store (website) Woocommerce or Shopify

Initial research shows Shopify to be the simple go to version if you do not have time to research or do not have an existing website but depending on your setup and knowledge Woocommerce may be the better long term option.

Do you need to Sync your Web Store (website) with your POINT OF SALE (POS) (Till)

I will elaborate when I have done some more research.

After spending 3 days researching my go to would be WordPress Woocommerce using VEND to connect and process payments.

Maybe in conjunction with MINT depending on store size and reporting required.

Things to check

  • Woocommerce to POS (Point of Sale) connection.
  • Does the connector work with your existing hardware? after researching probably not but if you rent your existing POS (till) then changing to new hardware should not be a problem.
  • Book an online appointment with VEND to check compatibility.

Support is really important I found  SLYNK, VEND, MINT and SHOPVENTORY EASY TO CONTACT

Why not Shopify? If you are currently operating a wordpress website you will now how flexible it is and how easy to use it is. You can make it quicker using a VPS (virtual private server) I use VPS on the Magento stores I manage. Why do I mention this? there are a lot of posts written about how to make Shopify quicker the advice is the same as how to make any site quicker, image size, plugins etc but none of them mention changing server, why because you can’t.

The difference in cost between Shopify and Woocommerce is not a lot, Woocommerce is slightly cheaper  but using Woocommerce gives you flexibility.

If you do not have a website Shopify maybe the one for you.

Why VEND The British Independent Retailers Association (Bira) are the UK’s biggest independent retail network, working with over 6,500 retailers in the UK. They chose Vend as their partner for retail ePOS.

VEND logo

You’re a retailer, not a tech wizard. We designed Vend to be so intuitive, anyone — from owners to managers to cashiers — can get the hang of it in minutes. You and your team can stop worrying about the tech side of things, and focus more on running and growing your business.

FOR: Read the website if you are not heavily invested in another POS then check out VEND.

AGAINST: You may need to invest in hardware, screen, cash drawer, card reader, printer.

Cloud-based order fulfillment software for online retailers, warehouses and 3PLs looking to stay ahead of the increasing demands of ecommerce and multichannel selling.

https://jovvie.com/pricing/

Jovvie Cloud POS provides a powerful modern software deployment method, ready-made for businesses of all sizes. With cloud, we do the heavy lifting by providing built-in platform security, compliance, quick uncomplicated set up, & stellar SLAs for reliable uptime performance. Cloud comes with the added benefit of continuous innovation so you will always have the latest and greatest features and functionality. Our cloud services are built on best-in-class cloud technologies, providing you with a scalable, secure and reliable experience wherever your business processes transactions.

Benefits of hosting in the Jovvie POS Cloud:

  • POS Access for employee managers & cashiers without requiring WordPress admin
  • 50% faster performance running the POS in the cloud versus self-hosted plugin
  • Customized POS domain URL naming to directly access stations
  • Your current website speed/server resources will not be used to operate the POS
  • No risk to other WordPress plugin conflicts impacting POS downtime or performance
  • Secure card processor approved HTTPS connection for all orders & payments
  • Real-time active sync between POS cloud and your WooCommerce store data
  • Get immediate access to our latest features with automatic upgrades
  • 99.5% uptime reliability of the POS Cloud service

From <https://jovvie.com/cloud-vs-self/>

Sync your inventory between your Point-of-Sale and your eCommerce

SKU IQ helps small to medium businesses sync inventory and reporting between their Point-of-Sale and eCommerce platforms.

Find out what SKU IQ can do for you here is a report showing sync between Woocommerce and square

Find out what SKU IQ can do for you here is a report showing sync between Shopify and square

 

 

Everything in one package (epos now)

Our EPOS system enables you to adapt, gain new customers, increase profit and remain future-proof.​

  • Set up, onboard and train staff in minutes​
  • Online, delivery, collection and multi-channel ready​
  • Access your business insights through any device, on-the-go​
  • Real-time reporting on staff, customers, sales, margin and stock​
  • Use standalone, or connect to hundreds of apps including payment systems, accounting software and much more​

CONCLUSION:

Against: Relies on a 3rd party to sync with Woocommerce or Shopify 

For : If you already have an EPOSNOW till then maybe worth a trial, the POS syncs to woocommerce stock using SLYNK

Seamless Inventory Management

Shopventory integrates with your point of sale to make inventory management seamless across channels and locations. Whether you use Square, Clover, BigCommerce, Shopify, WooCommerce, or PayPal Here, Shopventory gives you one view of your business.

Connecting a merchant account integration to Shopventory is easily done from the Locations and Integrations tab in the ‘Settings’ section of Shopventory.

We have a helpful guide that walks you through the process. Click here.

A typical use case that I see every day would be something like a Clover
POS for in-store with a WooCommerce for online. We will integrate the two
platforms so that the inventory is always the same! Hope this helps!
Brandon shopinventory

CONCLUSION:
For: Great service easy to contact if you already have Square or Clover ask for a trial
Against: Limited to Square or Clover payment providers

In most cases, our clients use Epos Now as the master with our Epos Now WooCommerce integration as Epos Now has a pretty robust inventory management system built in.

There are however some use cases where it is beneficial to use WooCommerce as the master. First, let’s define what we mean by ‘master’.

The master is the platform on which all inventory is managed, and to which all orders will be synced

One of the most popular use cases where it is useful to have WooCommerce as the master is when Epos Now is not being used to manage the inventory, it is simply another sales channel.

 

Benefits

  • Inventory management does not have to be in Epos Now
  • Update Epos Now inventory from WooCommerce
  • Update Epos Now inventory from an external platform
  • Sync Epos Now transactions into WooCommerce

More Reading

Reviews of a comparison or a review thee is always I bias or a preference based on the writers agenda or personal preference, read between the lines.

https://wphive.com/reviews/plugins/woocommerce-point-of-sale/

https://www.getapp.com/website-ecommerce-software/a/shopify/compare/epos-now/

https://wphive.com/articles/shopify-vs-wordpress-which-one-is-better

LINKS TO OTHER PROVIDERS

https://www.shopify.com/pricing

https://oliverpos.com

https://www.mintsoft.com/integrations/shopping-carts/

https://www.vendhq.com/uk/pricing

https://www.posnow.com/

https://www.mintsoft.com/integrations/shopping-carts/

https://baselinker.com/en-GB/integrations/woocommerce/

https://www.skuiq.com/integrations/

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February 21, 2023
In Resources

Wix v WordPress

First published by Elegant themes an interesting article abridged and published here as a resource to help our customers.

Wix is an extremely popular website builder.

But it isn’t the only one!

In fact, there are plenty of excellent Wix alternatives out there. Some, like WordPress, offer tons of flexibility if you feel comfortable with coding and widgets. Others, like Squarespace and IM Creator, give you plenty of options regarding the type of website you create and require absolutely no coding skills. From blogging to eCommerce, no matter what kind of website you need, these Wix alternatives are worth a look.

The chances are that when you think of blogs and “website building,” you likely think of the world’s most-used CMS – WordPress. The popularity of WordPress is undeniable. After all, it offers a wide range of tools for design and code-savvy individuals to build a fully functioning website. Use a premade template as the structure of your site and customize it to your liking, add additional functionalities with any number of compatible plugins, and manage content on your site from your homepage to your about page to your blog, quickly and easily in WordPress’ user-friendly CMS.

Of course, the downside with WordPress is that it requires at least some knowledge of coding. Even if you use a premade template, the chances are that you’ll want to add your own logo, change the color scheme, embed videos, and so forth. Most of the Premium WordPress themes allow you to do that within their settings, but in many cases making changes such as these requires you to get into the code of the template (or, at the very least, use the HTML version of the editor rather than the visually-based version). For some people, that’s out of the realm of their comfort zone.

Making the choice between WordPress and Wix is not easy. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Both have their purpose. Both can build an elegant website.
When you’re building your website you want to be certain that you’ve chosen the right platform to build with. The last thing you want to do is be surprised that the platform you chose won’t do what you need it to. You have enough to worry about than to waste any effort in rebuilding your site because you chose the wrong platform.
In this article, we will do a side by side, unbiased comparison of WordPress and Wix and give you the information you need to decide which is right for you.
What Are They?

At their core, both are website builders. You can create and run nice websites that live up to today’s design standards in many topics and industries. Both have excellent abilities for SEO and security. Both are great for building pages and blog posts. But let’s take a moment to look at each in more detail.

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) on the planet. It is built with PHP and uses MySQL for its databases. It can use HTML and CSS. This gives it a lot of advantages.
Here’s the rundown of what it has going for it:
35,900 plugins in the directory (includes SEO, Security, eCommerce)
3000 themes in the directory
Tutorials
Support supplied by community and providers
Multiple hosts

WordPress

There are over 3000 themes in the WordPress themes directory. Many of these are free. There are also many premium themes available that range from $20 to $200. Most cost around $100. Styles include various column layouts, magazine layouts, etc. and topics cover personal sites to professional services, education, art, and so forth.
Quality ranges from low to high. Some are older, but many use the latest design trends. You can modify them through the use of plugins and CSS, or you can recode them using the code editor. It’s wide open. Make any changes you want. You can change to a new theme with a few button clicks. There are no limits to how many themes you can use or how many times you change it.
Wix

There are 529 HTML5 templates to choose from. They include multiple columns and many topics from personal sites to business consulting, art, education, online retail stores, and much more. All templates are free. Some templates require the eCommerce plan. You can edit them using the drag and drop editor. You can even start with a blank theme if you want.
You cannot access the HTML or CSS, so you can’t make any real under the hood modifications. The worst thing, and in my opinion this one is major, once you’ve selected your template you can’t change to a different template.
The Verdict on Themes and Templates

WordPress has more themes available, including many older themes, and you can make any changes you want because you have access to the code. Prices range from free to several hundred dollars. You can get a theme to do virtually anything you want. Not all themes are created equal and some are not as SEO optimized as others.
Wix has lots of great looking templates. You can edit them, but you don’t have access to the HTML or CSS, so your edits are limited. Some templates require the eCommerce plan. They’re SEO optimized.

Which is Best?

Of course this is something you have to decide for yourself, or something your clients will have to decide. What’s best for you might not be what’s best for me.
WordPress: It’s open source and filled with choices. Everything is owned by you (unless you choose a hosting plan that gives you a free domain). You are responsible for all themes, plugins, updates, security, and SEO. You can make your site anything you want it to be. Plugins and themes might cost you some good money, but it’s more flexible. You choose who to host through.
If you decide to host through someone else you can move your site to another host. Going through the tutorials and choosing your plugins and themes, and then getting everything set up properly can take some time. It is also possible to just get started quickly and cheaply and add on as you go. It’s more customizable, but this can make updates more difficult and expensive. Overall, this one is the most flexible, but that flexibility can also become more complicated.
Wix: You don’t own the site. The URL and hosting are not yours and you can’t modify it any way you wish. You don’t have a choice of hosting companies. You can only have apps and themes that are allowed from Wix. What it does it does well, but if you want something it doesn’t provide, you can’t have it. But you can run a business from it. You can even develop sites for your clients with it. Still, you are limited.
WordPress is better for flexibility and expandability. Wix is better for simplicity.

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October 26, 2017
In Resources

Migrate from Shopify-The Best Way

There is a lot of advice out there with many solutions offered on how to Migrate from Shopify. At the top of the list is create a new Magento site and manually copy the products into the new site.
This is an option we have proposed and implemented on a number of occasions and it works.

Why? You have a new site with no errors caused by migration.
Why? All sites can be improved, and during the manual migration all product details are checked and improved for accuracy and optimisation.
Why? The new site is created with product descriptions that are accurate for today’s market. We always find that existing descriptions can be improved.
Why? The new store is built with search engine optimisation as the primary consideration. There is no point having an attractive site if the search engines do not find it and fails to index the products.”The benefits of manual migration from Shopify or Woocommerce to Magento” Our process minimises loss of ranking due to the migration.
Our process quickly recovers ranking.
Our process leads to an increase in ranking.
Our process ensures not ranked products are ranked.Our process minimises loss of ranking due to the migration.
Our process quickly recovers ranking.
Our process leads to an increase in ranking.
Our process ensures not ranked products are ranked.

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October 26, 2017