Maximize your Marketing Efforts with Shopify POS: Seamless Integration of Online and Offline Sales

Many of the most successful companies today are making a concerted effort to establish an omnichannel foundation in order to deliver the most effective marketing communication for their customers. With the availability of numerous digital tools, the barriers to implementing omnichannel marketing have become significantly low.

Despite this convenience, businesses still face challenges in integrating brick-and-mortar retailing into their omnichannel ecosystem. This article will delve into the Shopify POS system, which seamlessly blends online and in-person sales, making it easier to connect data across online and offline channels than ever before.

Strengthen your business by collecting data offline

To deliver the most personalized experience to customers, it is necessary to have a comprehensive understanding of their needs, preferences, purchase behavior, and engagement with marketing campaigns. While various online channels and tracking services can provide data about these factors, the challenge lies in integrating this information into a unified profile. This requires combining both online and offline data, which can be a complex task. However, for Shopify users, this is made easier with the Shopify POS system, which is included in the Shopify subscription at no additional cost.

Control everything from Shopify POS

The Shopify POS system is the Shopify point-of-sale system which lets businesses do sales both online and in person, gather information about the customers and track inventory. It’s put together in a single dashboard which can be used on any type of device whether it’s a computer, smartphone or tablet meaning that you can not only check and manage your sales from everywhere but also receive payments. This brings many advantages to all sorts of businesses, not just the e-commerces. It’s especially a great advantage for shops which sells both online and physical in a shop or doing pop-up shops as it let’s you track your customers, inventory and sales from a single platform and not having to worry about synchronising data in between different tracking systems.

Apart from the obvious advantages of bringing together your inventory and sales tracking, the data collection about your customers provides strong marketing benefits. The better you know your customers shopping behaviour and the more closely you can track their customer journey, the better they can be accurately targeted in your marketing to increase sales. To begin, you should set up your Shopify POS system to collect customer data such as name, contact information, and purchase history. This data can then be organized into customer profiles, allowing you to gain insight into their purchasing behavior and preferences. Once you have a better understanding of their needs, you can start creating relevant and personalized offers.

For example, you could offer discounts or free shipping to loyal customers who have made multiple purchases, or create special offers for customers who have expressed interest in particular products. Additionally, you could provide customers with targeted discounts or other incentives based on their purchasing history.

By leveraging Shopify POS and its data analysis capabilities, you can increase sales through customer directed marketing. This will allow you to create targeted campaigns that are tailored to individual customers, leading to higher customer satisfaction and increased sales.

Accept payments directly through your iPhone using Shopify POS Tap-to-Pay

Use your iPhone for in person card payments with no extra hardware

Stripe, Apple and Shopify have worked together on a function called Tap to Pay on iPhone which let’s you accept contactless credit cards or debit cards and all digital wallets without the need for payment hardware. This is for now only available in the US but Shopify is working on making the technology available on as many markets as possible in the near future.

However, other easy mobile payment options are available as Shopify recently launched their Shopify POS Go which let’s you receive card payments wherever you are. Shopify POS also works with other payment systems more commonly used in physical shops.

Shopify POS Go let's you easily recieve card payments

The Shopify POS system is a point-of-sale solution that enables businesses to conduct offline sales and gather information about customers, as well as manage their inventory. It offers a unified dashboard that can be accessed from any device, including computers, smartphones, and tablets.

This means that businesses can easily monitor and manage sales on the go, and accept payments from customers. Shopify POS provides many benefits for businesses, including the ability to track inventory, sales, and customer information from a single platform, without the need to synchronize data between different tracking systems. This is particularly useful for businesses that operate both online and offline, such as brick-and-mortar stores and pop-up shops.

In addition to facilitating inventory and sales tracking, the data collection provided by Shopify POS offers significant marketing benefits. The more data businesses have on their customers’ shopping behavior, the better they can understand their customers’ needs and tailor their marketing efforts accordingly. By setting up the Shopify POS system to collect customer data such as name, contact information, and purchase history, businesses can create detailed customer profiles that reveal purchasing behavior and preferences. 

This information can then be used to create relevant and personalized offers, such as discounts or free shipping for loyal customers, or special offers for customers who have shown interest in certain products. By leveraging Shopify POS and its data analysis capabilities, businesses can increase sales through customer-directed marketing and create targeted campaigns that are tailored to individual customers, leading to higher customer satisfaction and increased sales. To summarize, with Shopify POS a business can move their customers from being offline and unknown into the known digital customers.

Cons of the Shopify POS system

The biggest con which can be a dealbreaker for some businesses is that the transaction system comes with a fee on each transaction and an additional fee for not using Shopify Payments. Shopify POS can therefore be more expensive compared to physical shops already having a custom payment system up and running.

Pro vs. Lite

The Shopify Point-of-Sale (POS) system is available in two distinct versions: the POS Lite and the POS Pro. If you want to know about pricing and subscriptions, you can read more from Shopify here. The lite POS includes important features like:

• Mobile POS
• Order and product management
• Customer profiles

For those seeking advanced features for their POS system, the Pro version is available for an additional fee of $89 on top of your Shopify subscription.

The Pro version includes:

• Automatic Discounting: Establish triggers for discounts that are activated by various situations such as buy-one-get-one-free, customer loyalty, or discounts after a specified total amount has been spent.
• Custom Shipping/Pick-up Options: Offer customers the ability to purchase online and pick up in-store, or vice versa.
• Customer Item Suggestions: Provide custom item recommendations for potential cross-selling and up-selling based on customers’ prior purchases across channels.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Shopify POS is a robust, user-friendly, and future-proofed point-of-sale system that can help enhance your business and improve your omnichannel marketing efforts by providing detailed information on your customers. The system simplifies the complex world of omnichannel marketing by providing a single platform to manage your customers and inventory, while also offering smart features such as customer-specific recommendations.