Integrated Epos/website

[Waddy]

I'm looking for an integrated Epos and website solution.

The main thing that needs to be included is the ability to take a large number of products with a number of variables and apply multi buy discounts at different volumes.

E.g 100 different products across multiple brands each with size and colour variants, but then all of those products be on a deal say 1 for £4, 2 for £7, 3 for £10, 4 for £12, 10 for £25 etc.

The other thing that is necessary is the ability to break down boxes of products while keeping the stock up to date.

E.g We have products that come in an outer of 100 pieces, with 20 packs of 5 pieces inside. We would need to be able to sell these at say £2.50 for 1 piece, £10 for a pack of 5 pieces and £175 for an outer of 100 pieces.

The stock would need to be updated so only the right number are available for each option.

These are the main requirements that we have found it difficult to implement on the past.

 

[fisicx]

All of that is possible. But you are unlikely to find an off the shelf package that does everything you want. There will be some customisation required.

EPOS is normally a card reader. Do you mean online payments? If so there are a whole range of options to choose from.

You need to talk to @antropy as he is our resident OpenCart expert.

 

[Waddy]

All of that is possible. But you are unlikely to find an off the shelf package that does everything you want. There will be some customisation required.

EPOS is normally a card reader. Do you mean online payments? If so there are a whole range of options to choose from.

You need to talk to @antropy as he is our resident OpenCart expert.

I mean an Electronic Point Of Sale system that we can use for in store sales, but integrated with an e-commerce site so the inventory is kept up to date between the two.

 

[fisicx]

that becomes a whole lot more complicated. I got involved in a similar project a few years back that integrated an inventory system, website, e-commerce, and epos. They also had label printers and other features like email marketing, address look up and courier integration.

Cost was around £15k. You might get it a bit cheaper if you trim back the specifications but it’s not going to be cheap.

 

[Waddy]

that becomes a whole lot more complicated. I got involved in a similar project a few years back that integrated an inventory system, website, e-commerce, and epos. They also had label printers and other features like email marketing, address look up and courier integration.

Cost was around £15k. You might get it a bit cheaper if you trim back the specifications but it’s not going to be cheap.

I'm happy to put the investment in to get the functionality. The amount wasted over the last few years on systems that haven't delivered plus the amount lost in orders easily dwarfs that figure many times over.

 

[lesliedocherty]

I'm looking for an integrated Epos and website solution.

The main thing that needs to be included is the ability to take a large number of products with a number of variables and apply multi buy discounts at different volumes.

E.g 100 different products across multiple brands each with size and colour variants, but then all of those products be on a deal say 1 for £4, 2 for £7, 3 for £10, 4 for £12, 10 for £25 etc.

The other thing that is necessary is the ability to break down boxes of products while keeping the stock up to date.

E.g We have products that come in an outer of 100 pieces, with 20 packs of 5 pieces inside. We would need to be able to sell these at say £2.50 for 1 piece, £10 for a pack of 5 pieces and £175 for an outer of 100 pieces.

The stock would need to be updated so only the right number are available for each option.

These are the main requirements that we have found it difficult to implement on the past.

Look at Citrus-Lime, they do a really good combined Epos/WEb option, one of the only truly combined systems

 

[fisicx]

Look at Citrus-Lime, they do a really good combined Epos/WEb option, one of the only truly combined systems

Does it integrate with stock management systems? That seems to be one of the main criteria.

 

[lesliedocherty]

Does it integrate with stock management systems? That seems to be one of the main criteria.

Yes, we almost bought the system, had demo's etc, some training, but decided the risk of moving systems was too great. But the only system we found where the Epos system & Website were integrated, we loked at maybe 10 systems.

 

[Waddy]

Look at Citrus-Lime, they do a really good combined Epos/WEb option, one of the only truly combined systems

I've got a call booked in with them tomorrow, thanks for the suggestion, I'll see if it meets my needs.

Does it integrate with stock management systems? That seems to be one of the main criteria.

It doesn't need to integrate with anything else, we would be using this solution for stock management, it's just the integration between the epos and the website. The main problem I've had with everything I've looked at so far is the ability to handle the price matrix/multi buy pricing across both epos and e-commerce and/or the handling of stock when selling items by piece, pack, carton etc.

I've found solutions that can do one or the other, but never both, solutions where the epos or the e-commerce side can handle it, but they can't integrate properly.

Yes, we almost bought the system, had demo's etc, some training, but decided the risk of moving systems was too great. But the only system we found where the Epos system & Website were integrated, we loked at maybe 10 systems.

I'm all in now on starting with a fresh system, I know it's going to cause headaches while we get it up and running, but it's got to be better than the constant headache of selling stuff we don't have.

We waste so much time having to manually update website stock levels and working out what we need to reorder.

 

[fisicx]

I’m confused now. If the citrus-lime platform doesn’t integrate with a stock system you will still be updating everything manually.

 

[Waddy]

I’m confused now. If the citrus-lime platform doesn’t integrate with a stock system you will still be updating everything manually.

I haven't spoken with them yet, but from what I've read they have stock management built in.

My impression was that this was pretty much the case for all epos or e-commerce systems.

 

[fisicx]

I haven't spoken with them yet, but from what I've read they have stock management built in.

My impression was that this was pretty much the case for all epos or e-commerce systems.

That’s sort of correct. But when new stock comes in you will have to manually update everything. And when you sell something in store you will have to manually update everything. Same as when you get a return.

But if you use a proper stock control system it can integrate with the website database - no more manual updating. For example when stock arrives you scan the bar codes and the inventory updates. Get a return, scan the barcode and everything updates.

Stock management becomes the core of the business and the website the add on component.

 

[Waddy]

That’s sort of correct. But when new stock comes in you will have to manually update everything. And when you sell something in store you will have to manually update everything. Same as when you get a return.

But if you use a proper stock control system it can integrate with the website database - no more manual updating. For example when stock arrives you scan the bar codes and the inventory updates. Get a return, scan the barcode and everything updates.

Stock management becomes the core of the business and the website the add on component.

In terms of stock in, stock would just be added by raising purchase orders and putting it into stock once a delivery had arrived and been checked.

As for stock out, it would pretty much just be when sales are made.

From what I have seen, most e-commerce/epos solutions can handle this.

As for returns, we don't have many, but that could be handled manually, sometimes it will need to go back into stock, sometimes it won't.

 

[lesliedocherty]

That’s sort of correct. But when new stock comes in you will have to manually update everything. And when you sell something in store you will have to manually update everything. Same as when you get a return.

But if you use a proper stock control system it can integrate with the website database - no more manual updating. For example when stock arrives you scan the bar codes and the inventory updates. Get a return, scan the barcode and everything updates.

Stock management becomes the core of the business and the website the add on component.

1- Returns automatically get added to the system and the refund is done at the same time, Shop sales are auto-deducted as well.
2- Deliveries can be added by downloading, Scanning in the product, CSV, or just manual entry. (You can accept stock files from suppliers to update the system)
3- It has a connection to Amazon/eBay that allows you to push products straight onto these multi-channels.
4- It has email marketing built in.
5- You can accept stock files from suppliers to update the system
6- It can generate supplier orders based on stock parameters.
6- If you want to dropship from some suppliers, it will auto-send emails etc.

It's a good system, just at that point we didn't feel comfortable moving

 

[WebDesires]

What you need to do first is find an EPOS solution that works for you... there are many out there such as EPOSNOW which seems to be popular.

Then you can approach a developer to integrate your EPOS

Although because you also want qty based discounts this isnt available in OpenCart off the shelf and so would need to be custom integrated along with the EPOSNOW integration (if you went with EPOSNOW that is).

 

[lesliedocherty]

Having 2 different systems has issues, we have this just now, so at present, a customer has an account with us instore on EPOS and a different account on the website, we can't marry them up, and if we could the website wouldn't know about sales made instore and in reverse also etc.

With Epos/Web integrated (kind of) systems, there is always a delay in sales, as they need to talk to each other, ie you can sell all 5 items instore in minutes before your website has caught up and the same in reverse, we've had this issue, you can make the website poll more often from the epos system, but it just slows things down.

They all integrate to an extent, but not truly as they will have a web database and an epos database, citrus-lime has only 1 database

 

[antropy]

These are the main requirements that we have found it difficult to implement on the past.

We build sites with custom requirements like these all day long because we use OpenCart which is very easy to customise. Feel free to get in touch to discuss further: [email protected]

Paul.