Shopify PoS is dependent on having Shopify Payments set up on your shop, sadly this is currently only available in the US and Canada.

However, you can still use the PoS app in the UK but you'll need to process payments using a third party PDQ card machine, read on to find out more.

About Shopify Payments

Shopify Payments is Shopify's payment gateway offering, it means you can let Shopify integrate with your merchant account directly rather than using a third party like PayPal, SagePay or WorldPay.

One of the main advantages of this is that you can manage your money easily from your order screen, including refunds and other cash actions, which should simplify shop admin. Other benefits includes:

• No more transaction fees within Shopify plans. Currently these can be up to 2% otherwise. Note that you'll still pay a payment processing fee as you would to PayPal or whoever you use currently, but this payment will go to Shopify, it's between 2.25% and 2.9% depending on your plan, plus 30 cents per transaction. It's a good idea to see how that compares with your current payment gateway.
• Instant sign up approval without dependence on a third party gateway to set up your account.
• Real time payment tracking.
• Easy chargeback management.
• Consolidated sales reporting across your business.

You can read about these features in more detail here.

As I say, Shopify Payments isn't available in the UK yet, but it hopefully will be soon.

What's are the benefits of Shopify PoS?

Some of the coolest features of the PoS service will be:

• Instantly transform your iPad in to a point of sale device by plugging in a card reader (see picture above)
• Add other accessories like a cash draw and receipt printer
• Gather customer email addresses with each sale
• Manage your inventory in one place
• Consolidate your reporting in to one place

This is the card processing plugin for the iPad, it goes in to the headphones slot:

You can see the full rig here, including the cash draw and receipt printer:

You can customise the email receipt that's sent to customers:

Here's what the new Shopify reports look like:

This looks great and could easily become addictive viewing for a growing business.

Using the Shopify PoS app in the UK

The good news is that you can still use the PoS app in the UK and make use of the features that don't require Shopify Payments.

You'll need a third party PDQ terminal to process card transactions, and then mark them as paid in the Shopify PoS app, which you can get from the app store here.

Here is the process without Shopify payments i.e. for retailers outside of the US or Canada (plus those in the US that can't get Shopify Payments):

1. Add your customer's chosen products to the cart within the Shopify PoS app.
2. Tap Total and select your external credit/debit payment type.
3. Enter the total into your credit card terminal and process the transaction.
4. Tap Mark as Paid in Shopify POS.

So the main difference is that instead of processing the payment using the iPad card processing hardware with Shopify payments, you are using your normal merchant account and PDQ device, but still performing the admin side of the order (marking paid, printing/emailing receipts) from within the PoS app.

Note that the instructions above are valid anywhere in the world except Indonesia and India.

The image and instructions are taken from the official Shopify instructions here.

With this process, you are still getting a lot of benefits like tracking your orders and inventory in one place, in addition to gathering customer email addresses with each order - great news for building your mailing list.

When will the full UK launch be?

As with many big Shopify features, the initial PoS launch is restricted to the US, but we should expect it in the UK some time after Shopify Payments is available here.

We have asked Shopify for a date and they will only say it's soon.

Stay in the loop

WeMakeWebsites will be a Shopify PoS ambassador when it launches in the UK so we'll pass on what we know when we know!

Watch this slick vid for a sneak preview. You can try Shopify for free here.

Embedded content: https://www.youtube.com/embed/8y4JzCopAPg