Few Questions before considering POS

[Krissy101]

Hi, hope everyone is ok in this horrid Covid era. I have a few questions if anyone can help me out?

We are opening a shop this month and considering the Shopify POS so would like to know;

1, Do you have to add customers personal details when processing a face to face transaction? If there is a queue I literally want to tap and go the payments?

2, If I use another company ie izettle or sumup to process card payments, would I be charged a Shopify fee as well as my izettle or sumup fee? (some fees are reduced due to Covid issues so please let me know as if everything is normal)

3, Can you use any tablet with the Shopify POS, it looks like they only use IPad but I really don't want to go down the Apple road?

4, Regarding the barcodes, do you have to print your own barcodes for each item or can you load in the barcodes that already come on the items?

Any advice warmly received, I have tried looking on youtube but if I am honest the Shopify POS looks so complicated I'm a bit overwhelmed!

Kristina

P.S I am UK based if that makes a difference 🙂

[Trevor]

Hey, @Krissy1011!

Great questions! I'll dive into the answers below. 

1. No, you do not! You're welcome to submit your sales without customer information. Our Quick Reference help doc will provide more information on how to process a sale using the all-new POS. 
2. You're welcome to use your own payment hardware while still using Shopify POS. You will not be charged for doing so, however; you do want to ensure the sales are being processed through your external processor before marking the order as paid within Shopify. Doing so ensures your funds are captured accordingly, as there have been cases where external payment processors did not successfully charge the customer, costing the store owner hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. You can learn more about setting up an external payment processor here. 
3. The "All-new POS" is only available for iOS devices; however, an android version is being developed. If you choose to use an android tablet instead, then you would use Shopify POS Classic, which is similar to the all-new POS minus UX changes and certain features. You can view the additional features the all-new POS adds here. That said, if you choose to use Shopify to process your payments down the road (i.e. Shopify Payments) then using an Apple device would be recommended as our card reader for the UK only work with iOS devices. 
4. It is possible to use already created barcodes so long as they are either 1D or 2D barcodes as our POS only supports 1D/2D barcode scanners. You will need to manually enter in the barcode digits which typically need to be 8 or more digits in length. 

I hope that helps answer the questions you have; however, if you have any other questions, or need clarification, please let me know!

[GwennL]

Thank you, this was one of the clearest answer on the topic, as I was going round and round on your documentation.

So, if you are in the UK and you have an Android device, what are the options for a card reader? I understand that I need an external card reader as the WisePad 3 only works on iOS, but do you know of models that work well with your app?

Please do not answer me that it works better on iOS, I'm looking for an Android-specific solution!

Many thanks in advance,

Gwenaell from Darvaza Teas.

[Trevor]

@GwennL 

Happy my previous answer could help! 

At this time, we do not offer a card reader that supports Android. If using Shopify Payments, then you can choose to scan the credit card instead of manually entering the credit card information. Standard online credit card rates will apply to any credit card scanned or manually entered. 

In terms of third-party external payment providers & devices, we wouldn't be able to provide guidance on which one would be best for your business as their hardware would not sync with our POS. You can accept payment using an external card terminal. These payment methods are turned off by default, but you can enable them from the Shopify POS Payment types screen.

When you accept payment with an external terminal, Shopify POS records the transaction, but the payment is processed and collected by your external terminal provider.

To enable payment by external credit, external debit, or store credit:

1. From Shopify POS, tap Store > Payment types. The External terminal and Store Credit payment methods appear under Disabled payments.

2. If you want to accept payment by store credit, then enable the Store credit option.

3. If you want to accept credit or debit payments with an external terminal, then tap External terminal and enable the payment types that you want to accept.

[Krissy101]

@GwennL 

Hi, It is really annoying and quite bizarre that a company as large as Shopify is locked to Apple but there you go. I purchased a SumUp card reader & receipt in one as it is a really quick, cheap and simple machine and has the bonus of printing the receipt for the customer if they want one. You can process the sale through your laptop/android tablet on Shopify if you choose to then, just click on pay by external credit card reader at the end. I sell in large volumes of small value items so I just add up in my head how much it adds up to and just do SumUp on its own, guess it depends on how you do your figures.

If you process the payment on your Android Tablet/Mob or Laptop then you need to manually type in the card details (photographing the card does not really work too great). You also need to type in the postcode of the address the card is registered with for Shopify to process the payment and believe it or not some people are not entirely sure lol. It is a bit time consuming, especially if you have a queue.

It really does not work brilliantly with Android and I am considering investing in the whole Apple set-up but a) I begrudge being held hostage over it and b) If I can find another system out there I am happy with I will happily ditch Shopify 🙂

[GwennL]

Thank you very much for your real-life example @Krissy101, that's really useful. I also don't like the idea of being hostage to an agreement between brands, and I am certainly not switching to Apple for this reason. Following your message I had a better idea of what I'm looking for, and I found SumUp and Zettle listed as the cheapest/best contenders for external card readers.

I wish you all the best in your business!
Gwenn