How to handle special orders in POS without marking them as fulfilled?

[hstb]

This is a basic feature and I can't believe shopify hasn't done this yet. JK that's how all thoughtful posts are supposed to start 🙂

Does anyone have a solution for handling special orders in POS? Specifically, most of our items sold in POS are in-stock adn customer walks out with it so those items need to be mark fulfilled. But on a significant number of receipts, customers will special order items which shouldn't be marked fulfilled.

Someone suggested separate receipts but I'm seeking other solutions.

Someone suggested marking all sales in POS as unfulfilled but then we'll still have the same but opposite problem: knowing which items have been fulfilled.

The Shopify POS API seemingly doesn't have a way to address this at this point. Which may be why I can't find a POS app to do it.

Willing to consider other POS systems if necessary.

Thanks

[RubyWalker]

A couple of suggestions that might help, depending on how you handle your special orders.

Shopify POS allows you to mark an individual order as Unfulfilled. Once you’ve rung the item up and it’s in the cart, you can click on "More actions" at the top, scroll to the bottom and untick “Mark as fulfilled”. When you complete checkout, this order will show as Unfulfilled in the admin and you can then fulfil manually at the appropriate time.

POS also marks all Ship to Customer orders as Unfulfilled automatically. So once the item is in the cart, you can click the "Ship to customer" button, collect the customer details (which you might need to anyway) and the complete checkout. Again, the order will be marked as unfulfilled - this time with the customer details included (you can obviously ignore the shipping bit if the customer is coming back to collect the item).

[hstb]

Thanks @RubyWalker 

I'm really looking for a way to do this on a line-by-line basis. Even separating the transaction into two separate transactions is going to be frustrating to us and the customers because many times they will add/remove in-stock items as they're checking out or add/remove special order items as they're checking out.

[_SMETS]

I'm looking for the same thing. I've moved from Lightspeed Ecom to Shopify. But for my 2 physical locations are still running Lightspeed. I would love to move then to Shopify POS. But special orders are critical. I've been looking for a solution for a couple of months now. But can't find anything. Also not with 3th party apps. It has to work easy, so my staff can use it when the costumer is in store. 

[hstb]

Lightspeed POS has looked great when I've looked at it in the past. I don't
know what limitations I'll bump against using it with Shopify eCommerce, as
well that there are huge switching costs time-wise switching to any new
software product.

[_SMETS]

For me, Lightspeed POS lacks the integrations Shopify has. Like Loyalty programs, auto review invites etc. Also, If you want to have a good integration with Shopify you need something like Accumula, which is also a big yearly cost. So that's why I want to move from Lightspeed POS to Shopify. 

[HStCinci]

We also run on LightSpeed Retail and are looking for a solution that is more rich in features (loyalty, analytics, seamless e-commerce, customer reviews, etc). I’ve been looking at LightSpeed for years and have haven’t been able to solve the special order need (customer wants sofa “x” with fabric “y” and wood finish “z”). 

anyone have a reasonable work around??

[Jaxonday]

I know this is kind of old, but I had used Lightspeed for several years and recently switched to Shopify. The retail side of Lightspeed is great, but does have some limitations such as there is no way to see what you have on order outside of going into the details of every item. The website side sucks, sucks, sucks. You can't even have customer filter for things like size and color. The reason I left is they are forcing you to use their payment system with outrageously high fees. 

My workaround for special orders, we probably have like 10 a month or so, is to create a draft order in admin and then check it against when we receive inventory manually. Not ideal but for our volume it works. Lightspeeds special order system was not very good eother. We basically did the same thing with them.

[chippa2funky]

Tony Chiappetta, Chiappetta Shoes.  Single shoe store operation.  Multi Channel.  I'm in the process of switching from RICS Software over to Shopify for both eComm and POS.  We're about a week away from going live with both but special orders are a concern as well.

I like the idea of using the "unfulfilled" function and will make sure to utilize this.  I was also thinking using a TAG like "Special Order" and then automate daily reports on sales with that tag to create an extra layer of notification.  

I haven't gone down this road yet but I'll be looking for report automation (emailed at "x" time)... not sure if there's any native functionality in Shopify for reporting like that but it would help!

Last note on this, DEPOSITS... is there a way to only take partial payment on an unfulfilled purchase?

[_SMETS]

@chippa2funky with the POS app you can take partial payments. And this can function as a down payment. It’s possible to finish the sale online, sending the costumer an invoice for the remaining amount. And this can be paid online. The other way around is not possible. 

[hstb]

You can take partial payments. So you can make one payment cash or credit
card, etc. and for the second "payment" mark it as unpaid. This will
definitely achieve what you want and isn't even really a workaround. It's
pretty much exactly what you need. The only piece is that it doesn't mark
the paid portion as "Deposit", doesn't automatically tag the order as a
special order. The result of the above is the order is marked as partially
paid.

I'd caution you again that you can only mark the order as entirely
fulfilled or entirely unfulfilled. So if the transaction includes Special
Order items as well as Customer Left With It items, you'll need a separate
way of tracking what items are in fact still unfulfilled and need to be
ordered.

Shopify, line-item fulfilment status in POS please! And while you're at it,
it's great that identical variants are grouped as a single line-item with
multiple quantities on POS and on the receipt. but for this feature, would
need to be able to ungroup identical variants when necessary so we can mark
some fulfilled and some unfulfilled. (Eg Customer takes the last two; and
special orders/prepays for 6 more.)

[CoastalShop]

Chip, Did you make the switch over to Shopify POS from RICS?  Hope it went smooth. Do you have any observations about the process and how well Shopify works for you? Would you do it again?  

Thanks

[chippa2funky]

Yup!  We moved to Shopify in early June.  Just a few funky things like returns and special order management.  Overall super love the new system.  We'll be doing a physical inventory later this month so check back with me then and we'll see 😬😬😬.  

[dshobbies]

How did you solve for your special order requirement?

[Perfski]

Hi Chippa2funky, we have been eyeing Shopify POS in our peripheral vision, and are running on Lightspeed R with the Accumula interface.  How did your inventory go?

[Noah_D]

We basically do what @RubyWalker & @hstb mentioned.

@RubyWalker

Shopify POS allows you to mark an individual order as Unfulfilled. Once you’ve rung the item up and it’s in the cart, you can click on "More actions" at the top, scroll to the bottom and untick “Mark as fulfilled”. When you complete checkout, this order will show as Unfulfilled in the admin and you can then fulfil manually at the appropriate time.

@hstb

You can take partial payments. So you can make one payment cash or credit
card, etc. and for the second "payment" mark it as unpaid. This will
definitely achieve what you want and isn't even really a workaround. It's
pretty much exactly what you need. The only piece is that it doesn't mark
the paid portion as "Deposit", doesn't automatically tag the order as a
special order. The result of the above is the order is marked as partially
paid.

I would also recommend that you split the special order products out as a separate transaction. The good thing about that is you can then mark the order as unfulfilled when you take the split payment (as a deposit). You'll then mark the order as fulfilled when it gets picked up or shipped. 

Sure the second order adds a little friction to the checkout process but it also lets the staff ask more questions and get the right product ordered. It also helps us remember to print a second copy of the receipt and get it going as a special order.

@hstb

Shopify, line-item fulfilment status in POS please! And while you're at it,
it's great that identical variants are grouped as a single line-item with
multiple quantities on POS and on the receipt. but for this feature, would
need to be able to ungroup identical variants when necessary so we can mark
some fulfilled and some unfulfilled. (Eg Customer takes the last two; and
special orders/prepays for 6 more.)

---

And in case anyone at shopify is paying attention to what features would be helpful...

line-item fulfillment status in POS would be great to have

Noah

[chippa2funky]

OK So special order management on the front end seems to be ok when marking a POS transaction as unfulfilled BUT there is a problem when a customer picks up the special order.  There is not a way to mark a pick-up as fulfilled on the POS terminal and that's a problem!  We need the ability to close out an unfulfilled transaction on the POS terminal.

@hstb 

[WC-Brealz]

We are in the process of migrating to Shopify for our stores. I like your solution for special orders. Are you currently using this same process for special orders now? Ho did you work around the POS terminal not marking orders as fulfilled? 

[Noah_D]

We have a computer at the front and we mark the order fulfilled there. You can also mark the order fulfilled using the Shopify Admin app on an ipad.