With the technology growing rapidly leading to the ubiquity of the internet and electronic devices, e-commerce and POS are no strangers to almost everyone, especially to business owners and operators. However, many people still might not understand fully the integration between these 2. With that being so, in today’s article, we will present you with all of the knowledge needed to understand e-commerce, and find the answer to the question “Why should integrate e-commerce platforms and POS systems?”.
What is an e-commerce platform?
Definition
An e-commerce platform is a software application that helps online businesses manage their website, marketing, sales, customer relationships, and operations.
With powerful e-commerce features and some business tools, e-commerce platforms empower businesses to centralize their operations and run their business fruitfully.
Benefits of e-commerce platforms
Whether you’re expanding a brick-and-mortar store, looking to find an enterprise-level solution, or building a business from scratch, an e-commerce platform can greatly affect how your business is operating and developing. An e-commerce platform will ensure scalable, long-term growth as it assists you in more than one way:
- Create an omnichannel shopping experience while customers are still getting the product they need.
- Make sure your employees have all the tools they need to complete their tasks in effective ways.
- Protect your bottom line in terms of sales growth, in addition to the cost of maintenance and installation.
Why integrate e-commerce platforms and POS systems?
It is a fact that businesses that don’t integrate their e-commerce platforms and POS systems put their customer experience at huge risk. They won’t see accurate product data, will experience slow shipping times and will see wrong inventory levels.
With that being so, integrating your e-commerce platform with your POS system is worth all the costs or risks of business disruption caused by the need to change existing systems as it benefits your operations and the customer experience in many ways:
- Get rid of manual entry of data to save time, so that both human errors and labor costs are reduced
- Provide real-time and accurate inventory levels to avoid overselling
- Enable click-and-collect
- Sync data among stores and warehouses in real-time
- Maximize return on investment by identifying dead stock, slow-moving stock, and best-sellers
- Be flexible enough to add more sales channels and handle the growth
Popular e-commerce platforms
BigCommerce
The platform offers small business and start-up plans, with many built-in features and SEO control. The integration options, like the headless WordPress plugin, make the platform a frontrunner across headless commerce solutions.
Magento
If you have already established demand, as well as the time, manpower, and skill to build your own site, then Magento is best for you. The platform works best for small-to-medium businesses. It is a fact that Magento requires a long development time and a large budget, yet is worth it as Magento is very powerful and offers over 5,000 extensions.
Shopify
Shopify is suitable for beginners and small to medium-sized businesses that need a hand with setting up their stores. It has everything you need that is already integrated into the platform, from the storefront design to content marketing to performance analytics. Once you finish setting up the basics, it’s up to you to select which third-party extensions to upgrade your stores.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce, a free and open-source e-commerce platform, is one of the most popular options on the market and accounts for approximately 30% of all stores on the internet. It is developed and owned by WordPress as a cart plugin. WooCommerce is the ideal e-commerce platform for small businesses that already have a site on WordPress, or who operate on a tight budget but still want a robust online store. There are thousands of third-party themes and plugins, giving it a great deal of flexibility to accommodate most needs.
Top POS that can be integrated with multiple e-commerce platforms
ConnectPOS
ConnectPOS is one of the best cloud-based POS software that can be integrated with multiple leading e-commerce platforms which are Magento 1 (1.8+) and Magento 2 (2.2+), Shopify, and BigCommerce. Besides these 3, ConnectPOS is planning to expand its integrations with more e-commerce platforms, in the near future is with WooCommerce – the world’s most popular open-source solution in the market. The POS is receiving a lot of love from the retailers on the platforms, as the rating is 5/5 on Magento and 4.7/5 on Shopify.
ConnectPOS is technology-advanced and can work well on many platforms from desktops, and laptops to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. With such POS software, businesses of all types and all sizes are greatly benefiting from plenty of handy and meaningful features, such as:
- Great compatibility with hardware
- Real-time synchronization
- Click-and-Collect
- No transaction fees when using third-party payments: Partners with reliable payment gateways such as PayPal, Authorize.Net, iZettle, Moneris, etc.
- Multiple payment methods
- Comprehensive reports system providing more than 20 in-depth sales analysis
- Offline mode supports the check-out process even when you’re offline. The data will be updated when the Internet is back.
- AI Facial recognition
- PWA consumer app
- Interactive consumer screen
- Magento POS App for iPad
Vend POS
Vend is a cloud-based POS and retail management platform for brick-and-mortar retailers that lets them run their business in-store, online, and via mobile devices. Retailers using Vend have access to many powerful and intuitive tools at a fraction of the cost. It is compatible with popular e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce, BigCommerce and, Shopify and the retailers on all 3 platforms love this POS thanks to its wide range of features, such as:
- Inventory sync
- Wide range of payment gateways
- Omnichannel inventory
- Order sync
- Product Import
- Product management
- Customer updates
- Reporting
- Flexible business growth
Hike POS
Hike is a POS system integrated with commonly used e-commerce platforms such as BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Shopify. Not only does it work well on multiple e-commerce platforms but Hike POS also offers a wide range of software like cloud-based POS, iPad POS, Android POS, mobile POS, etc. to meet the distinct needs of all business types.
This system supports single-location retailers up to those with more than 101 locations and integrates multiple locations with a central inventory. With Hike, all orders from business places are automatically synced to the Hike register. Similarly, e-commerce stores supported by Hike automatically sync with existing inventory, order management, and customer profiles.
Key features:
- Great hardware compatibility
- Inventory sync
- Select products sync
- Auto import/export
- Order sync
- Central product management
- Central customer profiles
- Reports & analytics
- Log reports
- Real-time sync
- Absolutely free for retailers of BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Shopify.
Lightspeed POS
Lightspeed POS is famous for its pyramid of integrations, offering businesses with numerous additional features other than the already available ones. This helps business owners build an ideal and suitable POS system for their businesses’ needs and demands. Moreover, it’s also easy and convenient for retailers to scale up as they grow. And e-commerce integration is no exception as Lightspeed partners with various third-party companies that connect Lightspeed Retail and leading e-commerce platforms. For example, Accumula unites Lightspeed with platforms like Shopify/Plus and Magento 2, or Kosmos syncs Lightspeed and BigCommerce, Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento and X-Cart.
Key features:
- Catalogs
- Multiple product variants
- Item import
- Real-time data
- Employee tracking
- Accounting integrations
- Show and tell
- Personalized branding
- Inventory tracking
- Payment integration
- Customer relationship management
- 24/7 phone support
Our story
As you have walked through the article, we hope that you find yourself understanding the reasons why business owners and operators like you should integrate your e-commerce platforms and your POS systems. Even better if you have an idea about which kind of POS system is needed for your business’s success. We, ConnectPOS, are proud to be able to provide you with one of the best cloud-based POS software for an omnichannel experience. Partnering with leading e-commerce companies which are Magento, BigCommerece, and Shopify, our POS is rich in functionalities and flexible enough to work well on many devices. Feeling too good to be true? Contact us, or book your 14-day free trial now to experience our globally standard service yourself!
ConnectPOS is a all-in-one point of sale solution tailored to meet your eCommerce POS needs, streamline business operations, boost sales, and enhance customer experience in diverse industries. We offer custom POS with features, pricing, and plans to suit your unique business requirements.
