Multiple stores, one location, one iPad?

[Jeff_Williams]

I'm not sure if this is a really unusual situation or not, but I didn't find another topic about it.

I run what's currently an online store with multiple brands. We used to have a brick and mortar store and are getting ready to open a new one now that we've signed a franchise agreement with one of our brands. The new store will be one location with a single register (hopefully) but split in half on the management side. For various reasons (legal, taxes, ease of bookkeeping), we need to keep the records for our franchise brand completely separate from our own store. They will be run like two separate stores. And they'll have separate Shopify online stores too - if not for that, this probably wouldn't even be an issue.

Is there any way to do this in Shopify POS on a single iPad while syncing to both online stores, even with a workaround of some kind? Ideally we want to keep this as seamless as possible for everyone, so that when customers come up to the register with mixed merchandise, we're not telling them we have to ring everything up separately. And we also obviously don't want to have to buy multiple registers for a single small store, or have to manually be updating one of the online stores whenever we sell something through the Shopify POS.

Worst case, can we at least run two separate stores on one iPad, even if we do need to ring up people with mixed merchandise twice?

Thanks,

Jeff

[Andrew_Paliga]

Hi Jeff,

Best thing you can do here is either have two separate iPads or have two versions of the app running on the same iPad. I will send you our beta version which you will be able to run side by side with the App Store version.

[Jeff_Williams]

Thanks - that will hopefully at least keep me from having to have two physical register setups, but will there always be a public beta that I'll be able to run? (I also wish it didn't have to be a beta, but I understand that's probably Apple's fault, not Shopify's, that I can't just run two instances of the same app.)

I'm not sure how many other stores have the same situation I do, but I'll at least make the suggestion of being able to link different collections in the POS to different Shopify online stores. I've seen people request the reverse, but I have to think there are other people who sell items from different online stores at the same physical location, for whatever reason.

I'm still waiting for my hardware to arrive (it's ordered) and then I'll test this out, but this should hopefully be a usable workaround for the time being.

Also just for my info, but if I decided I wanted to have two iPads (e.g. if the beta's not stable enough), can I use the same cash drawer and printer with both? Or would I need two full setups?

Thanks,

Jeff

[Andrew_Paliga]

Hi Jeff,

You can use the same printer and cash drawer with two iPads. The beta is very stable and will always be around. 

[ajdelong]

I am in a similar situation to the one above.  @Andrew_Paliga can you please send me a link to the beta app?

Or is there another way to have two stores on one iPad?

Thanks.

[Andrew_Paliga]

@ajdelong the app has been launched and is available for download here: https://apps.shopify.com/shopify-pos

[ajdelong]

@Andrew_Paligathanks, but I have the app installed already.  I'd like a second app on the iPad for anther store.

I have one iPad and would like to use it for two stores without having to log in and out of the POS app.

is there a way to do this?