Bernie Garrido in his store, Bernie's House of Fun
By Ed Avis
When Anne Dorsey, owner of McCabe’s Costumes in Winterville, North Carolina, opened her business five years ago, a key characteristic she looked for in a POS system was that it helped manage inventory.
“We needed one that married our online and in-store inventory,” Dorsey explains. “So if you ordered something online, it would automatically take it out of the inventory, and the same if you bought it in the store. That way we wouldn’t oversell things.”
She settled on Shopify. The system is well known for its online sales abilities, but it also provides the hardware and software needed by a bricks-and-mortar retailer. By a narrow margin, Shopify is most popular POS system used by NCA members, based on a survey taken the third week in September and answered by 14 costume shop owners.
Shopify meets a lot of the needs of a costume shop owner, but there are lots of choices. We interviewed four costume shop owners, each of whom use one of the four most popular systems: Shopify, Clover, Square and Lightspeed.
We asked them about the key characteristics of a POS, including inventory management, integration with online sales and external accounting systems, hardware and software dependability, tech support and training, and quality of reports. Below is just a sample from their replies – look for more details about each system in a future NCA report.
Shopify
Dorsey uses Shopify on a tablet for her POS. She likes the fact that she can take the tablet anywhere, such as if she runs a pop-up shop, and still have a functioning POS system.
One inventory feature that she particularly appreciates is that some costume vendors integrate with Shopify directly, which means her inventory automatically updates when she places an order. When the goods arrive, she confirms everything and the inventory becomes available in the system.
Another valuable feature she likes is an add-on called Search and Discovery. “It tells me if somebody comes to the website and searches for something, and if we don't have in the stock, it will say, ‘Keyword searched for, but no results found.’ So that kind of tells me, oh, maybe I should carry some more of X, Y, Z, whatever they were searching for.”
Other add-ons that Dorsey takes advantage of are an SEO tool that optimizes her pictures and adds meta tags so they are better identified by search engines, and an integration with QuickBooks Online so all of her sales data automatically goes into her accounting system.
Another thing Dorsey likes about her system is its ease of use: “I always tell people, if you can use your smartphone, you can use Shopify. We have a very technologically challenged person what works with us and he struggled a little bit, but if he can learn it, anybody can learn it.”
Square
Amy Cartwright opened The Costume Shop in Russells Point, Ohio, four years ago. She chose Square POS because it appeared to be economical and some of her friends who worked in retail recommended it.
For hardware, she selected Square’s cash register with cash drawer, receipt printer and scanner, and she’s been happy with that equipment.
She adds inventory somewhat manually, though she says that’s because she has not taken the time to learn how to do it otherwise. Once that’s done, Square keeps track of inventory in real-time, and it can be set up to send an email when inventory on a particular drops too low.
Cartwright likes Square’s reports. For example, she appreciates a report that tells her how quickly inventory is turning over and how many days of inventory she has left.
Sometimes she discovers new features of Square that are especially useful. She recently learned about the “favorites” feature, which allows her to hit one key to register the sale of an impulse item that doesn’t have a UPC code.
“So now if somebody grabs this little 3D-printed pumpkin that I sell by the register, I just have to click it and it’s on there,” she explains. “I don’t have to search for it in the system.”
Another thing she likes is that Square is available wherever she is.
“I can also use it on my phone,” Cartwright says. “So if it’s after hours and somebody messages me on Facebook, I can look the product up, get them the total price with tax, and they can either Venmo me payment or I can invoice them right from my phone and they can pay for it right away. And the next morning I have it ready for them.”
Lightspeed
Narda Saunders, owner of Hocus Pocus Halloween in Cibolo, Texas, uses Lightspeed, another popular POS system. However, when she chose her POS system 12 years ago, she selected ShopKeep. That system was acquired by Lightspeed three years ago, so she’s using a version that is different from those who select Lightspeed now.
The fact that she’s using a hybrid system may explain why she’s not 100 percent satisfied with her POS. For example, she inputs new inventory entirely manually.
“You’re going to laugh, but I sit here and put in every item by hand,” says. “I have imported inventory with the CSV file, but the problem is I have too many items alike, so it kicks a lot out.”
However, once the data is entered, the system does manage inventory well. It removes sold items in real time, as expected.
She’s also somewhat unsatisfied with how the system integrates with her internet sales, which she blames on the fact that she created her website using Wix. The connection between Wix, Lightspeed and Google is not optimal.
“I’m looking at Google right now and out of my 3,800 items, 3,100 of them are ‘Limited Access,’ which means they’re not even showing up,” she says. “Google won’t approve it because they don’t like the way it links up with our merchant center from Lightspeed.”
On the other hand, Saunders is satisfied with her in-store POS system. She uses an iPad with a stand that hooks up to her cash drawer and the receipt printer.
She also likes the reports she gets. “For example, it tells me the last five years’ sales we did during that week, so I can get a comparison of how we’re doing daily. That’s all fabulous.”
Clover
Bernie Garrido, owner of Bernie’s House of Fun in Brownsville, Texas, uses the Clover POS system. He has two locations, and likes how the system coordinates sales and inventory between them.
“I can say, ‘What is a Store A doing for me?’ or ‘What’s Store B doing for me?’ and I can see that,” he says.
For hardware, he has stationary POS equipment at the counters and handheld devices. This gives him the flexibility to handle sales and manage inventory whether he’s in the office or on the sales floor.
He also appreciates that the system integrates with his QuickBooks accounting system through a third-party app. And the reports from Clover are worthwhile, he says. He runs reports that include sales by item, sales by employee, and overall sales.
Finally, he says Clover POS is easy to use.
“It’s super user-friendly,” he says. “Plus Cover has tech support to assist. Most issues get resolved within 48 to 72 hours.”
Do a Demo
This article touched on the experiences of costume shop owners using four popular POS systems, but there is a lot more to check out before you make a choice. One tip made by several owners: Get a demo of the systems you are considering. That will allow you to see first-hand how well they will work for you.
Do you have an experience with a POS that you can share with other NCA members? We want to hear it! Please email Ed Avis at executivedirector@costumers.org. Also, stay tuned for more resources on this topic, such as a webinar and report.