New POS Rollout is Unacceptable in Canada - What is Being Done to Alleviate the Issue?

[Satchel_Wissink]

As many Canadian retail vendors may know, the recent forced update to the new POS application has been a nightmare.

We knew for many months that the new application would not be compatible with integrated Moneris payment terminals - that is why we reached out to Shopify support on numerous occasions to ensure we would be able to operate using classic until integrated Moneris terminals were compatible.

I quote: 

"Though I don't have a firm timeline on when this will be released, I do know it's in the pipeline. Keep an eye on the app updates, so you can use this feature as soon as it comes out. In the meantime, you can continue using the POS Classic- this will remain available to you until Moneris is compatible with All New POS.".

We are also an NPO - subscribed to Shopify's NPO-Full plan. With the new Shopify POS, features that came with our plan have been stripped away and bundled as 'Shopify POS-Pro features'. I understand Shopify's need to satisfy its shareholders, but this is a truly disgraceful way of doing so.

To cap it all off - we contacted Shopify support again prior to the forced update of the classic app to ensure we could stay on classic. It's not really surprising that their correspondence changed and said we could not. We were eventually connected with a technician who told us that we could turn auto-updates for the apps off and keep using classic. This worked for a couple of days until the apps completely stopped working unless we updated. 

So we are now forced to take cash-only payments until the hardware that has been forced on us by Shopify arrives (which we had to pay for and need to pay more on each transaction when using), and completely stop using Moneris. On top of this, we will only be able to take tap payments as we physically can not turn the iPads towards the customers in the current COVID-19 environment. We have 7 foot tall plastic barriers between the tils and customers, and this is due to a mandate that will not end any time soon.
The chip and tap readers, which we are being forced to use, are also plagued with issues one can find all over this forum. 

Overall, this is an incredible display of disregard to Shopify's stakeholders. I am posting this to bring awareness to how Shopify's actions have affected their customers, and to hopefully bring enough attention to the issue that Shopify starts to understand the gravity of the situation and provides some kind of support to their customers who are being negatively affected by their business decisions. 

I know we are only one of many Canadian retailers struggling with this right now. It would mean something to at least receive an honest answer from Shopify on what is being done about this. If it is nothing, let us know so we can change our service provider.

Thanks for reading.

[petgrocer]

You can use your own payment processor with the new POS, simply add in your own custom payment types. We use Chase because the rates are amazing if you are a member of CFIB, and I track my etransfer, and all credit cards in the POS system as a custom payment type. I hope this helps you.

[BethCanoe]

Do you know if that works for Moneris too Petgrocer? And is your Chase system integrated, or do you have to input the amounts on the terminal?

[petgrocer]

@BethCanoeit will work with any external processor - we have to manually input the amounts on the terminal. We have a small staff (only 4 ppl) and I spent three years watching for how often input errors occurred for us. Our previous (awesome but not online) POS system charged us to push it to the terminal pad. I never paid it because our errors were less than the cost for the service to push it to the terminal.

[Alison9]

We went with Clover the rates were way lower than Moneris - we had the integrated too.  We manually type in the amount.  Errors are low.

You can tap on it through acrylic plastic barriers and glass shop doors.  it's wireless which has been super handy in lockdown.