Magestore POS Review: Connect Online-Offline Retail In Real-Time
By LitExtension
To meet the growing needs of the business, Magento retailers might look for a solution to go omnichannel and connect their online website with physical stores. There are many solutions in the market, both native and non-native to Magento. In this post, we’ll examine Magestore POS, one of the most popular Magento-native POS systems that might just help you stay ahead of the competition.
Magento and omnichannel retail challenges
Many retailers choose Magento as their eCommerce platform for its strengths and flexibility. It’s a powerful platform that lets you set up your business exactly the way you want, and customizable enough with a strong developer community.
However, connecting your Magento site to your offline store to build an omnichannel system isn’t easy. You’ll find many challenges in terms of both business processes and technology.
Here are some of the most common problems Magento merchants face when running an omnichannel retail and why Magento-native solutions like Magestore POS exist in the first place.
Delayed and complicated online-offline synchronization
Many retailers use Magento for their online sales channel and another point of sale system such as Microsoft Dynamics for their offline stores. This usually leads to a delay in data synchronization between your outlets and eCommerce sites. Therefore, your sales, product, inventory, and customer information might not be consistent across your system. Needless to say, running your business with outdated information is frustrating for you, your staff, and your customers.
In addition, Magento has very robust settings for product, promotion, and inventory. This requires very complex integration between your online and offline systems to make sure all data flow seamlessly between the two channels. Otherwise, you’ll have to set up everything twice, or deal with unsynced data that requires extra effort to reconcile later.
High setup and maintenance cost
Magento has a steep learning curve, so inexperienced users need to struggle to get its functions. It might take a while for your staff to fully utilize Magento’s capabilities. So if the workflows on your online and offline channels are different, you will need more time to train your staff to adapt and run two systems properly.
In case you want to set up and run a Magento system, you’ll need an in-house development team or an external Magento service provider. If you’re running separate POS and online systems, you might need to hire separate technical teams, one for your Magento site, and one for your POS system.
Needless to say, the costs will grow as your business expands.
Maintaining a Magento website is also something many merchants struggle with. While you can find many Magento extensions and solutions that address pretty much any kind of business needs, they come from thousands of providers. However, working with many solution providers at once can cause conflicts on your website. Without technical expertise and a good version control system, troubleshooting can be time-consuming.
Magestore POS: bring your Magento site to the physical world
For Magento merchants who want to centralize and expand their system, Magestore offers a unified commerce solution:
- Magestore POS is built specifically for Magento platform. Hence, it can connect your online and offline business in real-time without data loss.
- You can customize the POS to fit your specific needs.
- It’s one of the few POS systems in the market that follows the one-time payment model and doesn’t charge extra for more users or devices.
Magestore POS claims to help retailers simplify store operations and gather all data in Magento.
We’ll review how Magestore delivers on these promises and the benefits of their solutions through:
- Magestore POS features overview
- Pricing and policy
- Magestore’s services and support
Magestore POS solution overview
Retailers will use Magento for their online website and run Magestore POS in their offline stores. All operators are available in the Magento Admin backend.
One of Magestore’s biggest strengths is being native with Magento. Magestore POS integrates directly into Magento without any extra addon and utilizes all of Magento configurations. This means merchants can centralize data on:
- Product information
- Inventory
- Customers
- Loyalty program and promotion
- Sales order management
In addition, Magestore POS is compatible with the Open Source as well as the Commerce version. It also works with the latest Magento version including Magento 2.4. Therefore, merchants can stay up to date with the latest Magento technology.
Let’s have a look at the key features of the Magestore solution.
1. Retail POS: Fast checkout, real-time sync
Magestore POS is web-based, using Google’s Progressive Web App technology. It works on any browser, and on both PC and iPad. Hence, you can access the POS screen from your backend, or quickly create a shortcut on the home screen.
By the way, Magestore POS can run without Internet access. So, it will automatically switch to an offline database when you lose connection, which is very useful if you’re running pop-up stores or trade shows.
Plus, Magestore POS has a straightforward user interface and has the same process to create orders as Magento’s, from selecting product options to calculating taxes. This means less time training the staff and faster sales in the retailer’s stores.
However, the biggest advantage of using Magestore POS is its real-time sync:
- POS sales orders are updated to Magento backend immediately.
- All customer information is identical to the POS and online store. Hence, customer’s purchases and loyalty points transfer seamlessly.
- Product attributes, prices, and stock information are always consistent at any point in the system.
Another good feature that comes with the POS is store pickup. Your customer can buy online and pick up their order at any time and day. This feature helps merchants stay open and serve customers safely during the COVID pandemic.
2. Inventory management: Accurate stock, organized warehouses
Magestore POS uses Magento’s Inventory Management system:
- With Magento Stock, merchants can have many sales channels and manage the salable quantity of each channel.
- With Magento Source, merchants can track the actual quantity in their physical warehouses.
- When Magestore POS Location links to a Stock, it will inherit all inventory data.
Having one product catalog across channels seriously reduces errors and data entry.
With barcode management, merchants can manage thousands of product SKUs in a more effective way. In other words, they can generate and print barcodes, scan these barcodes during sales, receiving products, or stocktaking.
For Magento merchants looking for advanced inventory management, Magestore POS also enables:
- Inventory counts to help determine inventory cycle
- Inventory control to track stock on hand, transfer items, and adjust stock
- Stock movement to record stock in and out of every location
- Inventory forecast to purchase products based on the sales velocity.
3. Order management: Create and fulfill orders across channels and locations
Thanks to its complete integration with Magento, Magestore POS lets merchants track the order history of all customers right on the POS screen or in Magento backend. So that you can create orders with out of stock items on the POS (backorder).
This solution divides order fulfillment into 5 steps: verify, prepare, pick, pack, deliver. Hence, merchants can easily follow these steps to handle a large number of orders.
In addition, Magestore POS includes dropship in the Magento admin to help you to save inventory cost. You can give suppliers accounts and listing pages, and process orders with 3 steps: request, confirm, and create a shipment.
4. Procurement: Demand-driven purchasing
Magestore POS covers a lot of back-office operations, so it’s no surprise that they touch on procurement as well.
One particularly useful feature of Magestore POS is creating purchase order from supply need predictions. Based on how fast your products are selling, Magestore POS can forecast how much inventory you need in the future. Whereby, you can quickly convert the supply needs to purchase order.
What’s more, Magestore solution lets merchants complete the purchasing process from one centralized system. So that all activities are available in your Magento backend, including:
- Choosing suppliers and product
- Creating and confirming quotation
- Track purchase order status
- Receive goods and transfer to warehouse
- Return products to suppliers
5. Loyalty program: turn customers into regulars
Magestore POS inherits all of Magento’s catalog and cart price rules. This means Magento merchants can create promotions once in their backend, then run the same program on their online and offline stores without extra setup.
In addition, Magestore’s reward points, gift cards, and store credits also work both online and in-store. Their reward points module lets you set up earning and spending rates based on customers as well as certain actions such as signing up for an account. About gift cards, this feature boosts sales and brand recognition for retailers. And store credits can be used for both sales and refund.
6. POS reporting: real-time and accurate data
Magestore POS offers a basic set of reports that provide real-time information on:
- Store: Magento merchants can check the revenue, profit, and margin of their offline stores. They can also review working sessions with X and Z-report.
- Inventory: You can track inventory performance and movement.
- Employee: The sales by staff report lets you see the contribution of each employee and compare between staff.
By the way, Magestore is working on an AI-powered retail assistant. In other words, we’ll keep you updated as soon as it releases.
Magestore POS pricing and policy
Magestore currently offers 3 packages based on different retail sizes and needs: Basic, Professional, and Enterprise. The more features you need, the higher the prices.
Please note that Magestore POS uses a one-time payment model, so the price is quite high. However, they don’t place any limit on how many locations or users you can set up. Hence, for Magento merchants who look to go omnichannel and expand, this pricing model certainly pays off in the long run.
The Magestore POS installation and 1-year support are free. Plus, Magestore has a 365-day money-back policy, which means you can get a full refund if you’re not happy with their system.
Magestore services and support
To purchase the Magestore solution, you’ll first need to contact their consultant team. In case you want a product demo, they will work with you to define a solution that’s most suitable for your business. Because Magestore has worked with Magento for over 10 years, it can offer in-depth consultation on how to align Magento capabilities with business needs.
Plus, as Magento POS is 100% open source code, you can adapt their solution to fit your special needs. In case you don’t have an in-house development team, you can request Magestore for a customized solution. This solution includes adding new features, connecting with hardware, integrating with other 3rd party add-ons, and more.
By the way, Magestore is a company that follows the agile methodology. It works closely with the merchants to set the scope and milestones. Because it delivers the results weekly, you can actually review and adjust your system gradually instead of waiting for one big package that’s impossible to change by the launch date.
One notable thing is that Magestore POS is an omnichannel solution that can be complicated to install and configure. However, Magestore provides you a lot of support for their POS. Therefore, you will work with one dedicated support team and one contact point (your project manager). They will utilize Slack as the main communication flow, which makes discussion easier for both parties. You can also find product guides on their Help Center.
Final words
Here’s a quick summary of the strengths and drawbacks of Magestore POS: Strengths:
- Native with Magento and inherits all Magento configurations
- Centralizes data in Magento and syncs in real-time
- Customizable to fit specific business needs
Drawbacks:
- High starting price (but one-time payment only)
- Complicated system with many functions and settings
Overall, Magestore POS is a good fit for Magento merchants who want to centralize their system with the necessary resources. If you’re a business owner looking to connect your website and physical stores, head over to Magestore and schedule a talk with a consultant to discuss your requirements. Good luck and stay safe!
