10 Best POS Systems For E-commerce Companies

The point of sale or POS solutions offer a host of functions, its implementation and backend operations at modest pricing plans. 

Modern POS systems for e-commerce companies include excellent features like purchase order management, inventory management, customer relationship management, loyalty programs and employee management to name a few.

AxiomQ offers web products and applications to make companies more digitized.

Based on certain company needs, this article offers a curated list of POS systems for companies to choose from. Look through the POS solutions first before making a choice. 

10 Best Retail POS Systems For Ecom Companies:

An advanced POS system will offer omnichannel and social media selling besides integrating online and offline selling, keeping up with the latest marketing and technological trends. 

Several Retail POS solutions are available to meet the specific needs of e-commerce and retail company owners. With that notion in mind, it’s safe to say that there is no single POS system meeting all the needs of a company owner.

1. Shopify POS

Shopify POS has been a significant competitor in the e-commerce industry, with its excellent point of sale, offering ease of use and flexibility. Driving past the basic features to advanced options raises its price point.

Key features of Shopify POS.

• Omnichannel selling point

Offers a seamless shopping experience for target customers, whether they shop online or in-store. 

Common features include pick up in-store option (BOPIS), buying online, QR codes on product details in-store; increases the visibility of in-store availability and drive on-site.

• Payments 

Customizes payment options and optimizes cash flow management. Flexible payment options allow customers to benefit from every purchase they make. 

Available payment modes include cash payment, debit or credit card payments and wallet payments like Google or Apple pay. 

• Checkouts

Guarantees consistent checkouts for customers and staff with the help of features like custom discounts, paperless receipts, online and in-store refunds and tip options. 

• Product management

Aims at organizing the product catalog while streamlining laborious tasks. Its features include unlimited products, multiple inventory locations, and complete inventory status.

• Customer management 

It allows target and potential customers to become loyal to certain brands with features like customer’s purchase history, contact information, their website profiles and loyalty points.

• Staff management

Manages and tracks staff performance, controls permitting by assigning unique PINs to staff with Shopify admin accounts; credit staff with commissions and bonuses for their sales. 

• Inventory management

Optimizes inventory decisions using this POS system’s smart recommendations. 

• Reports and analytics

A wide range of e-commerce company reports is available including finance reports, sales reports, product reports and cash flow reports.

• Marketing

Shopify offers expertized tools like email marketing, product reviews, and social media integration, increasing website traffic, driving more sales online or in-store.

• Support

Offers 24/7 assistance through live chat, email or call, answering queries on the POS software or providing relevant information to grow the e-commerce company.

Advantages of Shopify POS

• Economical monthly pricing plans.
• Integrated e-commerce.
• User-friendly interface.

Disadvantages of Shopify POS

• Unable to process offline card payments.

2. Square POS 

Square POS offers a great selection of features for e-commerce companies looking for flat and predictable pricing plans. Despite its simplicity and convenience, it offers robust features like free credit card processing, inventory and employee management.

Key features of Square POS. 

• Linking vendors

A new and helpful feature, complimenting the unit cost function of Square POS.

• Create purchase orders

Automatically create purchase orders from its dashboard, based on low or empty stock, without any manual selection of items. 

• Employee management

For basic employee time clock, scheduling and reporting, use its Square team management feature.

With Team Plus, track employee working hours, set up user permissions and create customized employee roles. Sync employee time cards with Square Payroll or other third-party payroll providers. 

• Free online store

Basic online store with simple setup and integration with third-party shopping carts; accept online orders, picking them up in-store. For more online store features, use the online store plans.

• Inventory management

Manages inventory across multiple locations through a central dashboard on Square POS. 

• Client messages

Allow customers to make appointments and leave messages with comments and notes. 

• Invoicing

Send customizable invoices on the Square dashboard, keeping customer cards on the file. 

Advantages of Square POS 

• In-built system processing.
• Simple setup and robust features.
• Free online selling options.

Disadvantages of Square POS

• Square POS tends to occasionally keep the funds on hold.

3. ShopKeep POS

ShopKeep is a small e-commerce company-oriented point of sale solution, doing pretty well, based on its user-friendliness and third-party integrations.

Add-on features come with an additional cost. It is recommended to test thoroughly before making any further investment in POS features.

Key features of ShopKeep POS.

• Register

Set up through the backend UI. Rings up sales faster and modifies items, splits checks, processes payments, adds discounts to products or order levels, refunds and returns. 

• Inventory management

Organizes and categorizes stock levels in inventory. Items are ordered in terms of their category, department or supplier. Tracks product amounts and sets reorder points, thereby compressively managing inventory. 

• Employee management

The built-in time tracking software can be used to track employee performance time and scheduling purposes.

• Customer management

A marketing feature allowing companies to collect customer information for creating email lists and running subsequent customer loyalty programs. 

• Multi-location management

Offers a web-based reporting feature for viewing data from inventory and sales reports across multiple locations. It allows company owners to analyze the performance across multiple stores, individually or combined.

• Reporting

View and print reports on sales data based on sales per hour, average sales value, gross and net sales, the number of transactions, the bestselling and least selling products, customer sales and discounted sales. 

An in-built Tax Group Feature helps to set a default tax rate for all features or tax rates for various products. 

Advantages of ShopKeep POS

• Easy to program.
• Reasonably priced solution.
• Simple and intuitive user interface.
• Robust back-office data in real-time.
• Handheld orders and payment options.
• Offline credit card processing option.
• Consistent software improvement.
• Commitments without any contract.

Disadvantages of ShopKeep POS

• Occasional complaints on hardware issues.
• Long waiting time for customer services.
• Online chat or email are preferred modes of customer support.

4. Lightspeed Retail POS

Lightspeed Retail POS is a great point of sale solution known for its inventory management and e-commerce. It is becoming a popular choice amongst fast-pacing retailers wanting to manage multiple inventories and sync sales online or in person.

Key features of Lightspeed retail POS.

• Tag customization

Allows inventory managers to essentially custom-make their inventory classification for searching products in the inventory.

• Item variants

Inventory management with lightspeed retail POS allows managers to add multiple trait grids like blue, shirt, cotton, for example. This helps to re-organize goods, including consecutive items in the inventory. 

Manage goods bought in bulk and sell them individually with customized tags and attribute matrices. 

• Shipping tools

With lightspeed shipping tools in hand, organize goods for checkout and maximize the shipping efficiency. 

Besides organizing, lightspeed POS allows viewing and editing shipments from the backend, issuing relevant tracking codes to specific customers and integrating with shipping APIs like EasyPost. 

• Returns and exchanges

With lightspeed e-commerce, customers of a particular company can directly open support tickets from their profiles which simplifies the returns or exchange process.

• Holds and layaway plans

Allows users to hold or suspend sales and return them or transfer them later on from another device. Items can be placed on hold or layaway for customers to be picked up at a later date. 

• Gift cards and certificates

The barcodes available for each of the gift cards and certificates make it easy for customers to add them to their purchases and reuse them if balance is left.

• Customer loyalty programs

Reward target customers with loyalty points for online or in-store purchases. The fully integrated point-based loyalty program adds relevant customers to the program, automates marketing campaigns, classifies rewards by sending occasional offers on birthdays or other events and celebrating VIP customers. 

Advantages of Lightspeed POS

• Advanced e-commerce platform.
• Detailed inventory management.
• Advanced features on retail POS. 

Disadvantages of Lightspeed POS

• Additional features will cost extra on the basic pricing plan.

5. Clover POS

Clover POS is an all-around multi-faceted app with custom-built Android hardware. The setup may seem like a hassle whereas the interface can be mastered within a limited period. 

It allows advanced inventory management for importing, labeling and sorting. 

The reporting system can be directly viewed or exported with a single click.

Key features of Clover POS

• Inventory management

Clover POS offers updated inventory features like item variants, color, quality, item options like size, organized into categories and labeled for quick access.

• Customer management

Helps to collect appropriate customer information at the time of sale. Later on, search for their information based on their names and dates, or their order purchase history. 

• In-built item exchanges

The ability to exchange items in the store is a simple process that comes with the software. No additional setup is necessary. Users can easily link up with the inventory system, ensuring an accurate stock level and item count in hand. 

• App market

Clover has its app market, providing access to several applications, improving the e-commerce company within the system, while the market is constantly updating. 

• Loyalty programs

Its loyalty functionality customizes customer loyalty programs allowing them to accumulate loyalty benefits. Store customer information and track their spending habits. Carry out text or email campaigns to send out promotions in real-time and directly receive relevant feedback from the targeted customers.

• Gift cards

Physical and digital gift cards are offered, accessible from smartphones, redeemable in-store or online. The cards can be tracked digitally, preventing the mess of paper receipts or additional cards from taking up the wallet space of the customers. 

Advantages of Clover POS

• User-friendly interface.
• In-built purposeful hardware components.
• Customizable feature sets.

Disadvantages of Clover POS

• Locked with financial management technology, Fiserv for payment processing.

6. KORONA POS 

KORONA POS is a cloud-based point of sale solution, supporting a wide range of companies. It offers front=end customizations and its subsequent detailed reports, and tools for specialized sales. 

KORONA POS is easy to use and seems to be a good fit for e-commerce companies needing specialty functions. The platform is highly customizable, with affordable pricing plans and customer assistance options, suitable for any company with multiple locations.

Key features of KORONA POS.

• Inventory management

Track shipment, print label and price tags, carry out product analyses, import and centralize product databases with KORONA POS.

It offers good inventory management and controlling features like auto-ordering based on stock levels, ABC inventory grading, vendor management, employee permits for preventing theft or losses, inventory scanning using barcodes and receiving goods via backend, POS or mobile app.

• Flexible payments

With this POS solution in hand, provide flexible payment options for customers to choose from. It may range from cash payments and debit or credit card payments to KORONA gift cards and contactless payment modes like mobile payments.

• Customer management

It provides integrated customer relationship management, supporting SMS and emails, and third-party apps to run target campaigns and promotions. All this information is available in a centralized database on the system. 

In Addition, point-based loyalty programs are available for customers, offering rewards, coupons, discounts or gift cards to retain their brand loyalty. 

• Effective back-end

An efficient POS solution must have a strong back-end. With that view in mind, KORONA POS provides employee management functionality that grants managers and company owners several permissions and daily, monthly or weekly POS activity reports and staff reports. 

Besides, it provides receipt customization, customer management and loyalty management tools like coupons and gift cards for target customers.

• Reporting 

KORONA POS’s report and metrics feature ABC product analysis technology provides each product its specific grade and report. In addition, reports can be generated for product return rates, annual overall sales, single employee shifts, average customer spend, conversion rates, and other granular KPIs.

Tax reporting shows the sales tax generated per economic zone. Volume reporting can offer sales quantity and revenue data. Whereas warehouse reporting provides data on maximum levels, reorder levels, total ordered goods and goods in stock.

Advantages of KORONA POS.

• Intuitive interface with personalized workflow.
• Anti-theft permit features.
• Around 100 customizable reports are available.
• In-built support for managing restricted products.
• Supports multiple locations. 

Disadvantages of KORONA POS.

• No direct integration of online store functionality.
• No payroll or scheduling options.
• Limitations in integrations.
• Limited features for inventory management. 

7. Vend POS

It is yet another cloud-based point of sale integration that is popular for its inventory management features. It allows company operations online or in-store. Aside from managing inventories, common functionalities include customer loyalty, analytics and e-commerce. 

The system has a flexible build to support iPad, mouse, keyboard and touchscreen systems. It aims at boosting product management, tracking and organizing customer databases while offering clear visibility of products and its sales on the system dashboard.

Key features of Vend POS.

• Inventory management

Vend POS has pretty impressive inventory management abilities. Its users can add diverse product variations to the system like material, color or size, to name a few. A unique feature is its product bundling functionality, allowing companies to create personalized gift baskets. 

The solution works with barcodes, importing, and/or creating and printing the same. Its centralized product catalog can be used to add products to multiple channels, eliminate additional data entry while guaranteeing its accuracy in real-time. 

• Customer management

This platform can help store customer data into a centralized location, access customer purchase history, import customer lists and offer relevant discounts for optimum customer management. 

One customer list can be placed at different store locations, ensuring all the detailed information is synced in real-time. The point-based loyalty program is capable of repeating purchases from target customers. 

• E-commerce

Ecommerce stores online can sell goods and services effortlessly with Vend POS. This tool allows users to customize web designs, helping them to create their online presence.  Customers can directly make purchases online or they can order online and pick up the products from the store. 

Besides order fulfillment, it helps to maintain stock levels, notifying users when stock levels fall below the optimum level or new orders are received. 

• Payment processing

This tool offers flexibility in payment transactions, accepting cash, debit or credit card payments besides, contactless wallet payments and gift cards. It also allows split payments for a single purchase. Holds and layaway payments can also be processed since the system allows the acceptance of deposits or partial payments. 

Advantages of Vend POS

• Detailed integrations.
• User-friendly solution.
• Great loyalty package for customers.

Disadvantages of Vend POS

• Some of its in-built features may not hold the competitive ground. 

8. Bindo POS

It is a great choice for small companies having all-around features of a point of sale solution. Bindo POS is an omnichannel payment solution suitable for most e-commerce companies.

Key features of Bindo POS

• Payment processing

Since it has no built-in payment processor, it integrates with third-party applications for processing payments and transactions. Upon choosing the service provider, Bindo assures excellent credit card reader integrations within 24 hours. 

• Online store

For existing e-commerce stores, Bindo POS can quickly integrate with the company website adding a single HTML code. The Bindo storefront acts as the payment gateway, whereas its backend carries out online credit card processing. The system layout can be customized based on the company’ aesthetics. 

• Employee management

Bindo POS offers a PIN-based time clock that allows digital clock-in and clock-out for the employees. View weekly and monthly shift reports of employees in real-time. Employees may make use of Bindo’s cash management for tracking transactions after they clock in and automatically calculate the cash in the drawer when they clock out. 

• Reporting and analytics

It offers detailed insights and analytics on sales far beyond inventory reports, sales reports, details on every transaction, income statement analysis, comparing bestselling and least selling goods. Bindo POS integrates with third-party apps and easily transmits reports to and from the company’s accounting software.

• Customer relationship management

Bindo POS tracks customer purchase histories, creates personal profiles for them, capturing their personal information or buying history. Create customized rewards and gift cards and offer relevant customer loyalty programs. 

Advantages of Bindo POS

• Flexible expansion.
• Innovative e-commerce.
• Engaging user interface.

Disadvantages of Bindo POS

• Still looking for the usual channel.
• Remodeling marketplace.
• Pricing plans are in favor of large operations. 

9. TouchBistro POS

It is a unique point of sale solution integrated and designed with features to meet the fast pacing e-commerce industry. With the help of TouchBistro POS, reinforce sales and customer service attempts, limiting the hassle of multiple company systems. 

Key features of TouchBistro POS

• Payment processing

TouchBistro integrates with third-party service providers to accept payments and make necessary transactions. It offers the benefit of splitting bills, accepting multiple tender forms for a single bill, setting tax and gratuity, automatically calculated at checkout.

• Customer relationship management

Create customer profiles and track their order preferences and purchases. It allows companies to receive permission from targeted customers to set future bills without card details.

• Employee management

Offers clock-in and clock-out options to keep customer work hours and performance in check. Streamline communication between employees with its app in hand. It also helps to calculate employee salary based on working hours and cost of labor alongside sales commissions. 

• Inventory management

Track and manage inventory levels and determine profit margins with TouchBistro. Alongside receiving costing and unit-level measures for determining the cost of the stocked goods.

Advantages of TouchBistro

• User-friendly interface.
• Easy clock-in/clock-out for employees.
• Track and manage inventory and sales.

Disadvantages of TouchBistro

• Doesn’t have an in-built payment processing feature.
• Lacks marketing features that are easy to use.

10. PayCafe POS

PayCafe is a comprehensive point of sale solution, popular in the payment processing industry. It offers varied credit card payment solutions, security, real-time reporting, fraud protection, dispute resolution and customer service. 

Key features of PayCafe POS

• Payment processing

Offers subscription-based, single-time, or invoice payments as credit card processing solutions. 

• Performance reporting 

Provide instant insight and advanced reports on sales, reducing any analytical disputes.

• Shopping cart

Maximizes conversion rate and offers additional payment options to generate higher revenue in sales. 

• Fraud protection

Offers a payment scanning option to reduce frauds, improving the scale of fraud protection systems with the latest technology.

• Dispute management

Takes large amounts of customer and transaction data, customizes dispute solutions for each company type, offering dispute response in a few seconds. 

Advantages of PayCafe

• All-round payment service provider.
• Easy setup.
• Advanced fraud protection and security

Disadvantages of PayCafe

• The pricing plan isn’t very clear
• Better payment processing systems are available. 

To conclude

This article covered some of the best POS systems suitable for e-commerce companies. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of each of the solutions are stated for users to make a choice wisely. 

An advanced POS system must have certain features in common, namely, customer management, employee management, e-commerce, inventory management, loyalty and reporting. Keeping that in mind, the aforementioned POS systems offer their unique takes on the features. 

About the author:

Article made possible by Kate Brown. Kate is a content strategist at Outreacheo. She has been working in social media and content marketing for five years. She specializes in the health, tech, innovation, and travel sectors. When she is not writing, you will find her teaching math, and trying new recipes and listening to audiobooks.