Shopify POS on desktop

[JoseH]

Hey, I was wondering if anybody has had any success with finding a solution of running your POS system on desktop. I do not want to buy an iPad, and then be tied down by the product limits.

If a Shopify guru sees this, can we get an update on if there is any desktop plans in the works or if there is a timeline for its release?

Thanks.

[Gregarican]

I would be curious as well. We will have backoffice staff who will process special orders. These items will have a dummy placeholder SKU in Shopify POS. They will order the item, and replace the dummy SKU with the real Shopify item that's created once it arrives. This would presumably need to take place in Shopify POS. Since the majority of backoffice work takes place using a Windows PC, having an extra iPad at their desk is a waste. I have read where Shopify POS works on an Android tablet, so there is some app portability there. Having it run as a web app on a computer would really be great...

[Greg_Ayres]

Hi,
We’ve used Shopify POS for a year in all types of customer circumstances and I’m unclear what you’re trying to achieve but can maybe help (I have also been a Shopify partner).
Just to be completely clear, we would only ever use POS to process an order for a customer standing in front of us. For this reason its simplicity is its best feature. If we wanted to create a custom order, for example, which we often do, we would use back office and create a draft order from there. In fact we have our back office bookmarked in Safari on our POS iPad in case we want to do that with a customer in store. When we order new products, we create “placeholders” initially in back office and mark the item unavailable on all channels and then flesh out the photos, descriptions etc when it’s arrived at which point we make it available on POS and/or the online store.
If you have specific use cases, we have likely encountered them and I am glad to share how we work. I must say we don’t do anything which feels too much like s workaround.

[Gregarican]

Thinking about it a little more after I originally posted, that's where I was heading in terms of handling special orders. The sales staff would add the dummy SKU in Shopify POS, defining its attributes (vendor, vendor item number, etc.) a bit more by using an Admin+ app template once the dummy SKU is added to cart. Then the backoffice staff would refund the dummy SKU, and add the real item once it arrives. Using the Shopify web-based admin. Then when the customer comes in to pay off and pickup their special order, the salesperson just completes the transaction using Shopify POS. 

[Greg_Ayres]

I guess it depends on the kind of detail you need on special orders. We do a quick sale for the deposit (which we take in our shop on special orders), making sure a good description is put in. We then use notes and add customer details as per usual and unmark the item as fulfilled to it comes up in back office as needing to be actioned. Another possibility for some merchants where they use specific suppliers is to reach out to the supplier for a spreadsheet of all their products (including those not normally stocked by that merchant) and do a CSV import marking them as unavailable. It would even be possible for those with set markups to use an excel formula to work out a “potential” sales price for unstocked items and then make them available as ordered. Clearly this would need to be maintained regularly for pricing and stock but I suppose that could be done with VLOOKUPs. Better still would be some kind of xml feed which many suppliers do offer but that one’s a bit beyond me. Could work well for fashion retailers needing unusual sizes, colours etc.

[Gregarican]

Those are all great ideas! For us it would be quite a load on the front-end, in terms of Shopify products appearing in POS to search and select. I think there are loading issues on the iPads once the stock listing surpasses certain limits. We have jewelry vendors who have product catalogs each consisting of tens of thousands of SKU's. While I have experience importing into Shopify using the API, I don't want to introduce too much of a load into the stock listing.

For us, we plan to just have the sales staff pop up an Admin+ template for our dummy special order SKU that's sitting in the Shopify POS cart. The salesperson provides the vendor name, the vendor's style number, and then any specific custom attributes that might not be cookie cutter. We have online vendor catalogs to help guide the salesperson through the item selection process. Once the order has been partially paid (i.e. - an initial deposit has been laid down), then the backoffice staff can "flip" the order so it has the real Shopify item is in there by refunding the dummy SKU and replacing it with the real one that's defined when the special order item arrives. 

[Greg_Ayres]

That's a great solution. I *think* I'm right in saying products don't load
onto the iPad until they're triggered as available in POS because you're
absolutely right in saying it will slow down immensely if you have too
large a catalogue. I *guess* not using images would help a lot as well.
I'm going to have a closer look at Admin+ as we don't currently use that.

I read these forums quite a bit and rarely comment, but what's good here
(imho) is that it shows good solutions can be found for merchants normally
FOR WHOM SHOPIFY IS THE RIGHT PRODUCT. As with anything, Shopify POS has
its drawbacks but for a business like us wanting to run a genuinely
omnichannel business and in the mindset of an online seller ( mainly
repeatable, specific, identifiable single unit products sold at set prices
both instore and online), it is a godsend. We have one product instore we
sell by weight for example and the "price per gram" workaround is a pain
but that's an exception and the way the stock etc is shared between a great
web platform and a competent POS far outweighs that FOR US. I've used
other platforms like Vend, ShopKeep, Kounta and Lightspeed in the past and
very clearly they have features Shopify POS doesn't for more specialist
retail operations so it's a classic case of choosing the right solution
upfront.

[Gregarican]

Well said in all respects. There is no magic bullet retail solution that fulfills 100% of the out-of-the-box requirements. We have found that to be all too true over the years. As long as the solution is flexible enough where viable workarounds can be created for the outliers and the 1%'ers that don't affect each and every transaction set. With Shopify POS we have found this to be the case. The Shopify API allows us to extend some functionality, there are good add-on apps that likewise extend functionality without requiring us to reinvent the wheel, and it truly pushes us toward an omni-channel presence. 

One of our holding's companies uses Lightspeed Retail. While the API is nice for extensibility, there aren't a plethora of third-party plug ins, they aren't inherently integrated even with their own e-com platform, and overall we felt the workarounds to be cost and time prohibitive.

[Greeny_Au]

Hi Greg, Great input. I hope you can give some advise... we have been running shopify for past 7+ years for our online b2b and b2c channels... works great! In the past we have used POS for b2b trade-shows... again all great!... BUT we are about to open a new showroom in Australia and want to use the POS system for in-store checkouts. I am familiar with the POS solution (from prior b2b trade-shows)... but for trade shows we only took PO's... not full payments at checkout. I am wondering if we should use barcodes with scanner at sales checkout, or use the catalog feature within POS to add items to cart??  If we used a barcode scanner... how do they sync with more than one iPad?... and I'd like to use a larger screen Mac at checkout for other sales actions (emails) - can you run the shopify app on iMac?? I know this was impossibloe years ago - but thought id ask a pro user!!!... We are based in Australia - so some of the hardware options available from Shopify are not supported here yet... so need to find a suitable card reader and barcode scanner. many thanks for your help??

[Showers_Pass_Sh]

We too have this basic question, how do we get Shopify POS to work on a PC, The requests go back to 2016. There must be a solution by now 

[Reapthesew]

Any update on this? We really need Shopify POS to run on desktop

[Greg_Ayres]

Old post but still watching. 

Speaking as someone who’s worked in both retail and retail tech for the last 15 years or so, what I see you want as as POS is:

1) definitely touchscreen.

2) stable.

3) reasonably priced.

Given that you can buy a brand new iPad for $379 or so and given how stable it is as a platform, how could any other option compete except for outlying use cases which Shopify isn’t designed for. 

[ConnectPOS]

Dear @JoseH,

Retailers are really fond of having a POS system on desktop since it will guarantee a more consistent connection between online and offline platforms (as better Internet connection).

It's really unfortunate that Shopify POS hasn't support POS system on the PC. However, Shopify App store features lots of supportive POS software that are compatible with PC. You can check out ConnectPOS since the app is suitable for both PC (Windows & Mac OS) and mobile devices (iOS & Android). This will support the best performance for your store.

Hope this will help you. 

[kimurak]

Even though I already had a USB Star Micronics receipt printer for my previous POS system (Lightspeed) I purchased the recommended Star Micronics Bluetooth receipt printer and an iPad and a card reader and a card reader stand. The receipt printer didn’t work and now Shopify says they no longer recommend this printer even though it is still listed on their “supported printers” list. I now have two Star Micronics printers and neither of them work with Shopify. If Shopify had a desktop app, I could use either printer. So frustrating. 

on top of that, the expensive card reader stand was designed so that you cannot access the restart button on the reader. This means you have to pry the reader off the stand every time you start up the system or if it loses connection. That piece of hardware had to be to tossed aside. Very frustrating.