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    Point of Sale

    I've asked this question so many times that I am beginning to feel like I'm the only one with clients that need a POS system. I've already lost 3 clients to other "carts" because they needed to tie into Square or another POS to be able to have real-time inventory either in their brick & mortar store and eCommerce cart or they do a lot of trade shows where they take some of their show on the road. I know that Rick Wilson has previously asked "what do you want it to do?" The store owners simplify their answer with wanting to have inventory control over all of their products sold regardless of where they sell it from. The 2 store owners that left Miva for a cart that supports Square. The third seems happy with the POS built into the cart they moved to. I have another client who is at the starting point of their decision making (they bought the site from a Miva store owner). They need POS. Suggestions?
    Leslie Kirk
    Miva Certified Developer
    Miva Merchant Specialist since 1997
    Previously of Webs Your Way
    (aka Leslie Nord leslienord)

    Email me: [email protected]
    www.lesliekirk.com

    Follow me: Twitter | Facebook | FourSquare | Pinterest | Flickr

    #2
    Couple different ways I'd tackle this:

    1. Andreas at PCI Net has a connector to Square POS
    2. SkuVault also can solve this problem
    Thanks,

    Rick Wilson
    CEO
    Miva, Inc.
    [email protected]
    https://www.miva.com

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by Rick Wilson View Post
      Couple different ways I'd tackle this:

      1. Andreas at PCI Net has a connector to Square POS
      2. SkuVault also can solve this problem
      Thanks, I'll touch base with Andreas again. Will SkuVault connect with Square and Miva together?

      Leslie Kirk
      Miva Certified Developer
      Miva Merchant Specialist since 1997
      Previously of Webs Your Way
      (aka Leslie Nord leslienord)

      Email me: [email protected]
      www.lesliekirk.com

      Follow me: Twitter | Facebook | FourSquare | Pinterest | Flickr

      Comment


        #4
        I haven't directly confirmed they support Square (but I suspect they do). At the end of the day what SkuVault does (multi-location inventory management) is exactly what you're asking for.
        Thanks,

        Rick Wilson
        CEO
        Miva, Inc.
        [email protected]
        https://www.miva.com

        Comment


          #5
          FYI - I was just sent this link by a store owner https://squareup.com/help/us/en/arti...iva-and-square which links back to this page https://www.miva.com/square-payments...re_marketplace - to say the least they were confused.
          Leslie Kirk
          Miva Certified Developer
          Miva Merchant Specialist since 1997
          Previously of Webs Your Way
          (aka Leslie Nord leslienord)

          Email me: [email protected]
          www.lesliekirk.com

          Follow me: Twitter | Facebook | FourSquare | Pinterest | Flickr

          Comment


            #6
            I too need exactly this functionality. I have a business partner that runs a warehouse that drop ships for me, and we opened a retail store two months ago. My partner uses Finale Inventory, and we keep Miva inventory up to date by manually running a custom app with XML provisioning.

            We ran separate inventory using Square for the store, but this isn't an ideal solution. Plus, Square seems to have it's own issues and caveats. We also run a tent for seasonal sales for about a week and a half each year.

            What I would really like is for customers to be able to shop online for local pickup or delivery, as well as retail POS, and to do that I need local inventory. I'm not excited about having to run two web stores to achieve this, as I rank fairly well organically and don't want to mess it up.

            I will explore SkuVault to see if it's cost effective, but given that I have a hyper-seasonal business, I'm not sure that it is.

            Comment


              #7
              Originally posted by captainboom View Post
              I too need exactly this functionality. I have a business partner that runs a warehouse that drop ships for me, and we opened a retail store two months ago. My partner uses Finale Inventory, and we keep Miva inventory up to date by manually running a custom app with XML provisioning.

              We ran separate inventory using Square for the store, but this isn't an ideal solution. Plus, Square seems to have it's own issues and caveats. We also run a tent for seasonal sales for about a week and a half each year.

              What I would really like is for customers to be able to shop online for local pickup or delivery, as well as retail POS, and to do that I need local inventory. I'm not excited about having to run two web stores to achieve this, as I rank fairly well organically and don't want to mess it up.

              I will explore SkuVault to see if it's cost effective, but given that I have a hyper-seasonal business, I'm not sure that it is.
              Would you mind keeping me posted? I had had discussions about using the website as a POS but that got shot down really fast. Side note, I am also in search for a barcoding system for the products.
              Leslie Kirk
              Miva Certified Developer
              Miva Merchant Specialist since 1997
              Previously of Webs Your Way
              (aka Leslie Nord leslienord)

              Email me: [email protected]
              www.lesliekirk.com

              Follow me: Twitter | Facebook | FourSquare | Pinterest | Flickr

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by lesliekirk View Post

                Would you mind keeping me posted? I had had discussions about using the website as a POS but that got shot down really fast. Side note, I am also in search for a barcoding system for the products.
                Will do. Square can use barcode, and there is inventory functionality available also. Put it in the SKU field. We used it this year in the store and it mostly worked well. We used the Square Terminal and the associated hub to connect the bar code reader and cash drawer. There's a Square for Retail that's offered at a monthly fee that supposedly allows bulk inventory transfers, but we were not able to implement.

                I know that many competitors in my line of work use Clover POS, and a major competitor uses CloudSent POS, which may actually be an in house solution that they are making available for sale.

                Comment


                  #9
                  I have more inquires for a Point of Sale and I'm hoping to follow up on this. I will check in with Andreas to see if he is still doing Square POS integrations. I also want to ask about PayPal's POS called iZettle.

                  The "good news" one client wants to move away from having QuickBooks handle inventory and have Miva keep track of it. But they really want to have a POS to handle in-store sales.

                  I just realized I have been begging for a Point of Sale system that works with Miva since my very first Miva store that started as an online store, was so successful as an online store that they opened a store front and ran the business until she retired. Other stores that want a POS do a lot of trade shows (and don't want to have to keep a separate inventory just for it).
                  Leslie Kirk
                  Miva Certified Developer
                  Miva Merchant Specialist since 1997
                  Previously of Webs Your Way
                  (aka Leslie Nord leslienord)

                  Email me: [email protected]
                  www.lesliekirk.com

                  Follow me: Twitter | Facebook | FourSquare | Pinterest | Flickr

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by lesliekirk View Post
                    Other stores that want a POS do a lot of trade shows (and don't want to have to keep a separate inventory just for it).
                    Curious, how do people put in an order for a product at a trade show? Are they just entering payment data and handing that person the thing? How does an order like that get tracked at other levels (customer name/product bought/etc) for ongoing support, etc. Reason to ask is it seems like in at least this case, just having a good web site and a tablet would work.

                    Bruce Golub
                    Phosphor Media - "Your Success is our Business"

                    Improve Your Customer Service | Get MORE Customers | Edit CSS/Javascript/HTML Easily | Make Your Site Faster | Get Indexed by Google | Free Modules | Follow Us on Facebook
                    phosphormedia.com

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by Bruce - PhosphorMedia View Post

                      Curious, how do people put in an order for a product at a trade show? Are they just entering payment data and handing that person the thing? How does an order like that get tracked at other levels (customer name/product bought/etc) for ongoing support, etc. Reason to ask is it seems like in at least this case, just having a good web site and a tablet would work.
                      What I'm being asked for is a system that include bar coding for quick scanning and checkout. Having to going through all the steps to create an order slows them down. The same thing in their brick and mortar stores. They want to keep it easy for the customer - beep, beep, beep...done.
                      Leslie Kirk
                      Miva Certified Developer
                      Miva Merchant Specialist since 1997
                      Previously of Webs Your Way
                      (aka Leslie Nord leslienord)

                      Email me: [email protected]
                      www.lesliekirk.com

                      Follow me: Twitter | Facebook | FourSquare | Pinterest | Flickr

                      Comment


                        #12
                        What processor do they use. From what you are describing, they want a direct POS to their gateway since the are not capturing the additional order information like customer name/address/etc.
                        Bruce Golub
                        Phosphor Media - "Your Success is our Business"

                        Improve Your Customer Service | Get MORE Customers | Edit CSS/Javascript/HTML Easily | Make Your Site Faster | Get Indexed by Google | Free Modules | Follow Us on Facebook
                        phosphormedia.com

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Various ones. I even have one that might be interested in PayPal's new POS.

                          The need to make sure when they ring an order up in their brick and mortal store it gets subtracted from their online inventory. Using the Miva storefront/admin is not what any of these store owners want to do.
                          Leslie Kirk
                          Miva Certified Developer
                          Miva Merchant Specialist since 1997
                          Previously of Webs Your Way
                          (aka Leslie Nord leslienord)

                          Email me: [email protected]
                          www.lesliekirk.com

                          Follow me: Twitter | Facebook | FourSquare | Pinterest | Flickr

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Bruce,

                            If you're at a trade show, etc, and have Square there's a good chance the store owner doesn't want to track in Miva. I have a client that really wants to use Square for the baseline of their inventory control and sync by pushing to their Miva store. The cost for me to build that connection or use Andrea's wasn't in the cards. But, while I haven't used the Square App extensively, the store owner at a trade show would simply plug the sale into the Square App and run the payment through it. I'm not sure if the "other" information that goes with the sale would be tracked. Obviously, that type of thing is better done with a responsive website/store and a tablet.

                            There is an incentive to use Square, for example, being able to swipe the credit card gets a lower processing rate. Right now, there isn't an option for that feature in Miva.

                            I think many of the complexities of this whole topic are included in this whole thread. And the fun part is there is no set answer for which is the best direction to track the inventory.

                            Scott
                            Need to offer Shipping Insurance?
                            Interactive Design Solutions https://www.myids.net
                            MivaMerchant Business Partner | Certified MivaMerchant Web Developer
                            Competitive Rates, Custom Modules and Integrations, Store Integration
                            AutoBaskets|Advanced Waitlist Integration|Ask about Shipping Insurance Integration
                            My T-shirt Collection is mostly MivaCon T-shirts!!

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Originally posted by lesliekirk View Post
                              Various ones. I even have one that might be interested in PayPal's new POS.

                              The need to make sure when they ring an order up in their brick and mortal store it gets subtracted from their online inventory. Using the Miva storefront/admin is not what any of these store owners want to do.
                              I've written a few POS and inventory-control hookups. I would think that, whatever system the brick & mortar store is using, it probably has some sort of API or webhook capability. If so, a module can pull data; and/or the POS system can push data to Miva using the JSON API. I'll be glad to discuss a project with any of your clients, to see what's feasible and how much it will cost.
                              Kent Multer
                              Magic Metal Productions
                              http://TheMagicM.com
                              * Web developer/designer
                              * E-commerce and Miva
                              * Author, The Official Miva Web Scripting Book -- available on-line:
                              http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/IS...icmetalproducA

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