Ecommerce website with POS capability

[paulk7737514]

Someone called me wanting to configure their Shopify website, saying they needed the point-of-sale capability. I have used Cartweaver in the past, but I doubt it has evolved this functionality. Otherwise I have gotten familiar with the VirtueMart extension for the Joomla CMS, but do not believe it has POS capability either.

Has anyone else been asked about POS capability when asked to do an ecommerce site? Or is the argument in favor of value enough? The non-basic version of Shopify is $79/month.

[paulk7737514]

Have found a POS extension for VirtueMart, but it is for cash only purchases, can't be configured with a debit/credit card reader.

[BenPleysier]

Have a look at using Square (this is what I use) or Stripe

[paulk7737514]

Hi, Ben. I think the Shopify POS feature integrates with your Shopify website backend inventory, so it makes it unnecessary to allow client access to the backend. I don't know how the Square POS could do this.

[BenPleysier]

I am sorry, but I do not use Shopify, they are much too expensive. You can use Square or Stripe to do the same free of charge, you only pay for the transactions.

At the moment, I am working a an e-commerce solution based on a thought bubble that I expressed here: https://hollandtrade.com.au/wcart. Please try it. The Pay button will be able to use any payment gateway.

[Nancy OShea]

What's wrong with the Shopify POS?

Does your client use QuickBooks accounting software?

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/point-of-sale/

[paulk7737514]

There's nothing wrong with it, it's just that I would have to sign up for a free 14-day trial and learn how the thing works in order to recommend it to my clients. Whereas I am used to using Cartweaver in DW and VirtueMart in Joomla (and DW).

Not to mention, products like Shopify are usually geared towards people who want to avoid having to hire a web designer in the first place because of a bad experience or whatever. I have had a couple of  merchants call me for help setting up their Shopify website because they quickly realized they were in over their heads and had probably spent so much money that they didn't want to pay Shopify for help.

I suppose what I'm saying is Ecommerce solutions designed for DW and even Joomla are starting to seem quite antiquated and I'm beginning to start to wonder if I should just give up on Ecommerce or give in to learning Shopify.

[Nancy OShea]

I don't build POS systems.  That's not something I want to touch with a 10 foot pole either.   I defer to POS experts.  Let them absorb the liability.

If client is already invested in Shopify for their shopping cart, they should probably stick with Shopify's POS.   $79/month is not an unreasonable cost of doing business.

[paulk7737514]

I thought I had found a solution using the Square Up payment gateway which has an extension for another Joomla e-commerce component, with which you could use the Square reader for offline brick-and-mortar purchase: https://www.j2store.org/extensions/payment-plugins/square-up.html 

But reading the fine print I see that they will not sync the inventory, which is of course one of the most important things.