Bring Back the quick and easy Save & Retrieve Cart Tile on Shopify POS

[LaurenMcNicol]

Since Shopify has archived the other discussion threads and marked many of them as "resolved" or simply stopped responding, and since the issue is very much NOT resolved for us, the actual end users of Shopify POS, I'm reviving this discussion anew: BRING BACK SAVE CART ON POS!!!

I was curious to see how widespread the feedback was from us, the users of Shopify POS, regarding the negative impact of the removal of Save Cart earlier this year. It appears to be one of the MOST viewed issues of 2024, if not the most viewed, and high ranking even when we take into years' worth of discussions on this forum. The original thread "Why is the save cart function missing in the POS app?" discussion from Feb 29th has over 7,200 views and 106 replies, and I'm certain it would have amassed more discussion had Shopify not shut the thread down. There's plenty of other discussions as well, like "Save Cart vs. Save as Draft Order (Nightmare)" from March 7th with 976 views and 14 replies, "Saving Cart function now draft orders increasing the time and steps to accomplish the same thing" from March 1st with 1007 views and 20 replies, "Why is the POS 'Save as Draft Order' feature not working properly?" from March 2nd with 1938 views and 27 replies as of this writing. Shopify continues to brag about how the POS is "checkout's best friend" with one of the bulleted features being "save carts and retrieve them later to continue serving other customers quickly" on the App Store download page. 

I submitted countless support tickets, getting nowhere each time. Back in March, I even reached out to a friend / former employee of Shopify (she was unceremoniously laid off last year after years of service). She graciously put me in touch with a friend of hers who still works higher up at Shopify, who relayed my concerns to a current member of product POS team and suggested that they meet with me to discuss directly. (Context: Shopify used to facilitate meetings between their teams and merchants like us, to better understand pain points and use cases etc. Turns out that they don't do that anymore - they don't have the capacity after all the lay-offs!! Shocker.) The response we got back was not promising. I shall paraphrase to protect the employee who got me this far, but basically it was that the POS team are aware of the pain points and they hear us re: retrieving save carts taking longer. Apparently they are pushing to fully re-vamp smart grid tiles on POS, and had to fight really hard for the "view draft orders" to be a tile. Meanwhile, they are looking at what can be done to reduce the number of taps.

Hmm... things that can reduce the # of taps... why not just revive the original code for the Save Cart Tile which did exactly that? There is a serious lack of end-user experience being taken into account! This is first and foremost a Point-Of-Sale system for brick & mortar retailers with real live customers shopping in store, filling up carts all at the same time. It just baffles me why Shopify will not take into account ALL of this feedback from their users about restoring this very specific feature that the majority of us relied on? I do not want to hear anything about how the new draft order functioning is the same as the save cart tile - if it were the same, we'd all be using it and not complaining. And in case it comes up, I acknowledge that the Draft Order functioning on POS was something requested by merchants (ex/ this post from 2022). But you'll notice that at no point did anyone say it should be at the expense of the much more integral and useful Save Cart functioning. The fact that this Shopify POS Product Manager said it was "hard to fight for a "view draft order" tile" makes me feel even angrier, did anyone fighting for that know that it would come at the expense of an integral very basic POS feature like save cart? The way I see it, there's either a whole bunch of Shopify employees who knew how bad this would be, and who tried to prevent it. OR NONE of them thought about it at all. Either way it's bad.

In our case, our retail managers have literally deleted the "draft order" tile entirely from our POS home page, because it's truly more of a headache than it's worth for our retail staff, and it was not doing anything to ease the shopping experience of customers or speed up the checkout process. I'm so sick of this company and the seeming monopoly it has for retail and e-comm businesses. Thank you for letting me vent, and for joining me a revived fight for the restoration of the Save Cart feature!

[edited only to paraphrase the feedback I heard from Shopify POS product team employee, rather than provide direct quote. I don't want to get the employee who agreed to escalate my concerns in any hot water, as they were just trying to help]

[Jessedaly]

Wholeheartedly agree! I can count the number of times on every slightly busy day that the lack of a useful save cart function has directly caused slower checkout times, muddier communication with customers, and all around prevents us from operating as efficiently as we had been previously. Every other place I've worked that sells physical items of any kind has had a function to save a cart, from small coffee shops to larger chains. BRING BACK SAVE CART.

[petgrocer]

I agree, and appreciate Lauren's efforts to document this. The fact that they have archived old threads is showing how very little Shopify is listening to their user base. Why? To what end? The merge customers debacle was a thread for over two years with hundreds of comments. Why shut down threads of retailers asking about the pain point created by a poorly managed change? I ask again - to what end?

Dear Shopify: user complains are golden opportunities to create a better user experience. A better user experience nets you happy clients, who become your brand ambassadors. Brand ambassadors means you keep your income from current users and generate new (happy) users who also generate income. Think of it like compound interest. (Currently working backwards for you - go check your app reviews online).

We recently received a survey from Shopify asking us about our POS onboarding experience. I laughed and laughed! That was years ago! Who cares about the onboarding experience when you can't get the system itself to remain functional or stable? I used that survey to relay that fact, and hope that it can bring to light (to those who can actually effect change at Shopify) - you are breaking your system. The BEST WAY TO MAKE MONEY is to create a stable environment with happy users who tell all their business friends. I don't have one single staff member who thinks this system is useful. They follow up with me routinely to see if I have found a new system. They would rather learn a whole entire new system and put up with all the disruptions that causes, than continue to use this POS. Is that not a wake up call? Help us! We want to love this system, we want to be brand ambassadors. Implement CHANGE MANAGEMENT! Let us help you!

[soulchild37]

Hi LaurenMcNicol,

I understand the frustration of Shopify removing the "Save cart" function without giving notice and forcing us to move to draft orders, which introduces inconvenience as you mentioned.

To bring back the "Save cart" functionality,  I have developed an app for Shopify POS recently, which you can utilize back the "Save cart" and "View saved carts" tiles like previously. (I understand installing an app for this might not be ideal, I try keep the app price as low as I can to maintain the app's server expenses)

The app name is Yagi POS Cart Helper (https://apps.shopify.com/yagi-pos-cart-helper ), the app comes with a 14 days free trial which you can give it a try. (I am happy to extend it if you need more time, or let me know if you are testing it on a development store)

After installing the app, you can then add the "Save Cart" and "View Saved Cart" tiles in your Shopify POS, and you can save cart and view cart easily as before. The saved cart is also viewable by another POS device, as long as they share the same location.

Here's a demo video on how it works:

Hope this can help!

Regards,

Axel Kee (developer of the Yagi POS Cart Helper app)

[LaurenMcNicol]

We've just downloaded the Yagi POS Cart Helper app today. It was very easy to install and set up the tiles on our POS home screen, and when we had an issue with the carts saving across all locations, Axel fixed it right away. It's been working exactly as we need! Thank you so much for doing what Shopify would not, you're a lifesaver!!!!