A UK retailer seeks feedback on switching from EposNow to Shopify POS due to reliability issues with their current system. Responses reveal sharply divided experiences:
Critical perspectives:
Positive experience:
Key limitations identified:
Outcome: Original poster decides against switching, adopting a “better the devil you know” approach with EposNow despite ongoing frustrations.
Hi,
I’m UK based and have a bricks and mortar shop as well as a website through Shopify. I am currently with EposNow for my till system with shopify integrated however am finding them more and more unreliable.
I am considering the Shopify POS - can I have pros and cons from those who use it please?
Many thanks
Rachel
As a web/shopping cart system, Shopify is a pretty good option. Not sure if it’s the best, but it’s got a lot of pros. Their POS system, however, is nothing but abyssmal. I can’t think of a single good thing to say about it, other than the fact that it lets you link your physical shop up with your website. Right now, I’m using it, but I feel totally trapped and I would do anything to ditch this horrible system. Alas, I cannot recommend anything better, as I am still stuck in the Shopify hell/trap of my own making, but if I ever figure out a better solution, I’ll update this post. Other than that, I’ll just say: please DON’T use this terrible system and get stuck like I am now…
Oh NO! Thank you for your candid answer. I will take heed and stay away. I feel your frustration though, I am the same with EposNow, the customer service is abysmal and the glitches are daily. They sometimes choose a Saturday to do maintenance! I hope you find a solution. Thank you for your reply.
Ha! It just so happens that I was with Epos and only a week ago ditched it for ahopify pos. Epos and shopify app were an utter nightmare so because I had a shopify store I closed epos down and went with shopify. That way my brick and mortor inventory would sync with online. Perfect! No! I’ve had so many issues with the card reader that I could just literally scream!!! I can’t believe they will charge monthly for something so horrible. The only good thing is the syncing of inventory. Love that but other than checking people out…total nightmare. I have a business to run, why should I spend 2 to 3 hours a day trying to connect and then praying it works???
For a different view point: We use Shopify POS (at 5 stores) in combination with Shopify for our online business and have mostly nothing but positive things to say for it. It’s for the most part an exceptionally stable and user friendly POS which integrates into the Shopify ecosystem allowing you to do clever things with developments / apps to enhance the overall solution.
There are some major drawbacks to the system, including not having a native solution for customer reserves & variable priced products. As well as they really do restrict you to using Shopify Payments on POS & don’t integrate with other payment providers.
However generally speaking the positives do outweigh the negatives.
Helpful. Thank you
Absolutely feel your pain! I am so over EposNow, its horrible to try to work with and if something does work well theres always something else that works just as badly. I hope you manage to get Shopify sorted, I’m not seeing anything that makes me want to change over. As much as I want to ditch EposNow, I’m kinda thinking ‘better the devil you know’ at the moment.
Do you integrate with Quickbooks Desktop or QB Online? What are your must have apps for the POS side of Shopify? Thanks for your input.
You have five stores and don’t find the refund process challenging? The inability to save a cart? The confusing way to do your receiving where Stocky doesn’t match the invoice totals for the items that are not received? The inability to have multiple discounts active (check out the Black Friday nightmares with Shopify!). We came from a full featured real POS to this, and the downgrade has been extremely painful. Daily, the developers change and remove functionality. I can’t even imagine trying to manage this in five stores, let alone our one. The daily frustration would be off the charts.
I don’t know if this will find you too late, but don’t do it! I am in Shopify hell…first of all, I have been charged more bullbleep charges then any other system I have been on. I was just doing my accounting work for the month and noticed that on the 2nd of the month I made a sale on my site for $765, but after fees only received $716, which is fine. But when going to fulfill the order, I was told it was fraudulent and not to fulfill, so I canceled the order and refunded the card. Only it wasn’t until the end of the month that I learned $765 was take from my bank account because even though I canceled the purchase, on Shopify’s suggestion, I was still charged the full transaction fees. Turns out that is the case with all online refunds. If you find the item is out of stock or not longer available or a fraudulent charge, it doesn’t matter to Shopify, you are required to pay the full transaction fees as if you made a full sale. After “chatting” with customer service, they said that’s just the way it is, deal with it. Well that’s not good enough for me and I plan to file a class action lawsuit against Shopify. Don’t be surprised if you get a notice to be a part of it. This is highway robbery!!! BUYER BEWARE!
FYI…this is the actual wording of the Shopify employee…
Our company builds POS software for retail stores, and we’ve worked extensively with Shopify. From our developers’ experience, Shopify POS offers seamless integration with Shopify stores, syncing inventory and orders efficiently. It’s user-friendly and ideal for small to medium-sized businesses.
However, there are some considerations:
Hardware Costs: Additional investment may be required for devices like card readers and receipt printers.
Feature Limitations: Shopify POS may lack advanced features needed for larger or more complex stores.
Transaction Fees: Additional fees may apply if you’re not using Shopify Payments.
If your store has basic needs and you’re looking for simplicity, Shopify POS is a solid choice.
This old post popped up again and I want to comment here to say that Shopify is stable for uptime, but the system itself is FAR from stable. Shopify’s business model is chaos first - it’s stated right on their careers page - and boy oh boy do they succeed and take that seriously. The POS is only ideal for a small store - we have about 3000 skus and 7 staff, and it is not effective for us because of the extreme instability in how often features are removed, the whole system gets changed, we have to constantly relearn how to use it and then retrain our staff. If someone has a small shop - one or two employees, go for it. If you have a shop with higher volumes, I urge you to look elsewhere. Yes, it will seamlessly update your inventory online and in store - that’s the only good thing I am able to say about it. The rest is time consuming losses and frustrating inventory counts and expensive bookkeeping to try to work around this highly unstable system, that is not designed for retailers.