POS Review: ConnectPOS and AmberPOS

Christmas is already around the corner. It’s about the busiest and most profitable time of the year for retail businesses. With that being said, retailers are spending heavily on a POS system that can help them improve their business performance and boost sales during the holiday season. That’s why we are here today. This article’ll give you an early Christmas present: ConnectPOS POS and AmberPOS POS review for your business success. 

Overview ConnectPOS and AmberPOS

ConnectPOS

ConnectPOS is a cloud-based POS software. This POS system is deemed a leading POS in the market and is famous for its wide range of features and advanced technologies facilitating the omnichannel experience. It can fulfill the distinct needs and demands of all kinds of businesses of all sizes. ConnectPOS covers various industries, such as Fashion and Accessories, Footwear, Food & Drink retail, etc. ConnectPOS is making transactions in both physical and digital stores easy and automatic. Most ConnectPOS clients are from Asia, the Middle East, America, and Australia. 

AmberPOS

AmberPOS is developed and owned by Pacific Amber Technologies Inc. This POS offers POS software solutions to various retail specialties, ranging from small to medium size, in the United States and Canada. It is best for retailers looking for a fully functional POS solution in terms of inventory management, reports and analysis, and customer relationship management. Additionally, this POS is famous for its ease of use and fraction of the price, yet it still ensures essential functionalities. Keep reading for more details about the AmberPOS review. 

Compatibility

Compatibility with multiple platforms is one of the most favorable traits of a great POS system. The more devices that a POS can run on, the more flexible that POS is. 

ConnectPOS, a robust and versatile POS software in the market, prides itself on being compatible with multiple devices. If you wish your POS system to run on desktops, laptops (macOS, Windows), or smartphones and tablets (iOS, Android), ConnectPOS can fulfill them all. Particularly, mobile POS is technologically advanced and fully supported. There are 3 easy and convenient ways for merchants to access mobile POS:

• Download the ConnectPOS iPad app from the App Store
• Install the PWA that is compatible with both iOS and Android.
• Through web browser in your mobile devices

AmberPOS, on the other hand, is a Windows-based POS system that runs on Windows 7, Windows 8, or Windows Server 2008/2013. That means that unless you only use a PC-based POS system with Windows as the operating system and don’t have a demand for a mobile POS, you, unfortunately, can’t adopt AmberPOS. 

So, in terms of this indicator, ConnectPOS appears to be the winner here thanks to its diversity and flexibility when it comes to compatibility with multiple devices. As AmberPOS doesn’t offer either software that can work on macOS-based devices nor mobile POS, it restricts retailers a lot in business operations. So the AmberPOS review here is not as decent as ConnectPOS. 

Integration

E-commerce platforms

Integrating with e-commerce platforms facilitates a frictionless and safe online business operation for merchants. Thus, the capability of being compatible with multiple e-commerce platforms is a great feature that business owners and operators are looking for in a POS. 

Fortunately, ConnectPOS is partnering with various e-commerce companies to facilitate a seamless and secure business operation. There are 3 popular e-commerce platforms that ConnectPOS works well on, which are Magento, Shopify, and BigCommerce. Additionally, the collaboration with BigCommerce, one of the favorites among businesses, is expected and worth expecting very shortly. ConnectPOS is gaining a lot of love and trust from retailers on all 3 platforms. Its rating is 5/5 on the Magento marketplace, 5/5 on BigCommerce, and 4.6/5 on Shopify.

Not as decent as ConnectPOS, AmberPOS has integration with only BigCommerce. If you wish to integrate e-commerce with other e-commerce platforms when using AmberPOS, you need to seek services from third-party companies, which can be time-consuming and costly.  

Payment integration

Payment integration in POS is decisive to ensure transparent and secure transactions for retailers. Additionally, integrating with many payment providers helps businesses offer customers their go-to payment options at the very last stage of their shopping. 

With that being said, ConnectPOS is trying hard to partner with many payment processors supporting a wide range of payment methods. From cash, credit cards, debit cards, and even gift cards, you can offer them all with ConnectPOS. Some payment gateways worth mentioning are Paypal, iZettle, Authorize.NET, Moneris, etc. 

Meanwhile, Amber POS also partners with some payment solution providers like Chase Paymentech, Global Payments, and Vantiv Integrated Payments. 

In terms of this criteria, both these POS systems are decent as they offer their customers payment integration built-in right in the POS. However, ConnectPOS seems to outperform a little bit for retailers who wish to have integrations with many famous payment solution providers like PayPal. You can use the ConnectPOS review and AmberPOS review about payment integration for your preference. 

Features

Check-out process

Split tender and Layaway

These are 2 payment options that are handy for both sellers and buyers. They offer buyers more choices to pay for their purchases depending on the situation. Additionally, they also help retailers with up-selling and cross-selling. 

Split tender allows customers to divide payment for a sale in many ways using any combination of cash, credit, and other tenders. Meanwhile, layaway allows you to take a deposit from a customer for an order, set the order aside, and allow the customer to pay it off later. 

And the good news is that ConnectPOS does have both these 2 features in its POS system. 

With AmberPOS, retailers like you can also utilize the layaway functionality. However, this POS hasn’t come with the split tender feature yet. 

Integrated barcode scanning

A POS with integrated barcode scanning optimizes and fastens the check-out process. 

ConnectPOS offers great compatibility with almost all of the commonly-used hardware like barcode scanners, receipt printers, credit card readers, etc. Therefore, barcode scanning in this POS is at your fingertips. Having integrated barcode scanning in POS, store assistants can easily locate a product simply by scanning the item’s barcode. With that being so, store assistants can get rid of manually typing the product name into the searching bar, which, obviously, costs a lot of time. Instead, they can put their whole heart into improving customer satisfaction by a quicker check-out process. 

In terms of AmberPOS review, this system acts as a full inventory management system allowing you to attach barcodes to products. With that being so, you can manage your inventory easily by barcode scanning. Implementing barcode tracking of your inventory can significantly improve the accuracy of your inventory tracking. Additionally, this feature helps get rid of any possibility of a clerk invoicing the customer for the wrong item at the check-out process. 

Self check-out

This feature is exclusively offered by ConnectPOS with its robust PWA consumer app. Buyers can access the PWA consumer app simply by scanning a barcode and opening up to many handy functionalities. The most outstanding one is self check-out which helps customers skip the counter and save a lot of time. Besides, this feature also speeds up the check-out process for stores, resulting in better business performance for merchants. 

Configurable sales tax

ConnectPOS works well in synchronizing tax settings with the retailer’s platform’s settings. Taxes are calculated in ConnectPOS even when the internet connection is down or unstable, thanks to its powerful offline mode. 

ConnectPOS fully integrates with e-commerce platforms (Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento) to calculate tax based on product tax class, customer tax class, and address for calculating tax (shipping address, billing address, or shipping origin). 

This POS software pulls the product tax class and customer tax class data from e-commerce platforms automatically with real-time synchronization functionality. Therefore, all merchants need to do is configure the address to calculate tax. That makes work so much easier and less complicated for them.

AmberPOS comes with advanced tax tracking features:

• Automatic tax calculation
• User-definable sales tax rates
• Tax override capability
• Out-of-state shipping tax calculations
• Canadian GST / PST / HST Support
• US Federal / State tax support

In summary, according to our ConnectPOS review and AmberPOS review, the check-out process in ConnectPOS is optimized for a quicker and smoother business operation. ConnectPOS seems to do a little better in comparison to AmberPOS thanks to its diverse features that are right in the hand. These include layaway payment and self-check-out, which can’t be found in AmberPOS. 

Order management

Offline mode

This is such a powerful POS feature that every merchant searches for it in a POS system when considering one. This ensures a frictionless working flow for businesses even when the internet is down or unstable. And this can only be found in ConnectPOS. 

With ConnectPOS, when the app detects that you lost your internet connection, it will switch automatically to offline mode and pop up a notification on the screen, you don’t have to do anything. Even better, almost all features can function normally when the offline mode is on, only except for the real-time synchronization feature. When the internet is back, it turns off offline mode and synchronizes offline orders to the whole system. That’s why there’s no need to worry about misinformation or data loss. 

Draft order

Just imagine you are handling a transaction and something suddenly happens to prevent you from completing the order. What would you do? Would you abandon the whole cart and go on with the next customer, or wait to finish it? What about adopting a POS with a handy and helpful feature in such a situation, the so-called ‘draft order’. 

ConnectPOS offer this feature. From a draft order, you could add items discounts to that cart so the order could be completed without having to enter all of that information again. 

In AmberPOS, retailers can have the parked transaction feature. It puts a transaction on hold while a customer leaves. Parked transactions don’t allow you to take payments on them, and will only allow you to turn the parked transaction into an invoice once it is recalled. 

Refund & Exchange

Refund and Exchange are a retail business’s 2 fundamental and crucial elements. In fact, over 81% of customers say that they are more loyal to retailers that have reasonable refund and exchange policies. That’s why having a POS with a well-functioning built-in refund and exchange features are fruitful for retailers. 

Conveniently, ConnectPOS and AmberPOS both allow refunds in their POS. This feature in both systems is fast-working and easy-to-use. 

You can issue a refund simply by finding the original sales transaction and refunding it, or replacing items for exchange. Particularly, with ConnectPOS, customers can have their refund in the form of various payment methods, including credit cards, gift cards, cash, etc. Others can also be supported. However, bear in mind that some payment requires specific rules for refund. Even better, ConnectPOS also facilitates retailers to process a refund or an exchange without receipts. 

In terms of AmberPOS review, on the other hand, although it also has the refund feature, note that debit returns cannot be processed due to the type of integration with elements. And unfortunately, this POS hasn’t offered the exchange functionality yet. 

In terms of order management, once again, ConnectPOS appears superior. This POS offers a powerful offline mode, handy draft order feature, and robust refund and exchange functionalities.

Customer supports

Retailers can easily report a bug to ConnectPOS 24/7 in 4 ways:

• Submit a ticket via the ConnectPOS help desk. 
• Can also find this link by navigating to the menu bar on the top of the ConnectPOS website and click “Support”. When you submit your ticket, you can set the priority of your problem as Normal/ High or Urgent.
• Directly send an email to [email protected]. 
• Talk to ConnectPOS Solution Managers who have been in touch with you. They will summarize your problem and send it to the Developer team.

AmberPOS provides its clients with 3 ways of support:

• Knowledge base
• Client billing portal
• Live support via helpdesk

Pricing plans

When it comes to pricing, ConnectPOS always takes pride in providing simple and straightforward plans with no hidden fees. There are 4 plans you can choose from, starting with Standard one at US$39 per device per month if you pay annually. Retailers get more benefits as they upgrade their plans including Advanced and Premium. Even better, ConnectPOS also lets their clients customize their own plans so that they can “DIY” a POS system that suits both their business and their pocket. Want more good news? Shopify retailers can enjoy the Free plan with various features, including:

• Synchronize products with online stores
• Scan barcodes to add products to cart
• Print receipt with ConnectPOS-powered text
• View up to 50 orders

Meanwhile, with Amber POS, retailers have 2 options:

• Full license purchase option: This is a one-time purchase. Retailers can purchase and own AmberPOS software licenses outright based on a one-time investment with no further licensing costs. 
• Monthly subscription option ($149/month): Merchants can purchase AmberPOS software based on a low monthly investment. This option is perfect for businesses without the large up-front investment to own software all by themselves. 

Which one to count on?

So, as we’re reaching the end of today’s POS comparison, ConnectPOS review and AmberPOS review, we hope that we brought you valuable information and answered all your questions. The remaining one now might be: Which POS system to count on? Well, if you’re still wondering, how about taking a closer look at the one right in front of you right now? ConnectPOS, a leading POS software for omnichannel retailers, takes pride in developing a technologically advanced and feature-rich POS system. This POS is a bang for your buck and won’t disappoint you! So, don’t hesitate to contact now, or book your 14-day free trial below to let your businesses thrive in this holiday season!