8 Best POS Plugins for WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the most popular e-commerce solutions out there, and that’s not by accident. It’s user-friendly and versatile enough to satisfy all your e-commerce needs. But what if you also want to use your WooCommerce store for doing business offline? Well, you can do it! With a WooCommerce POS plugin, you can equip your online store to deal with offline traffic, making sales and managing your offline store from your computer or mobile device. And we are here to help you choose a plugin that fits the bill.
But before we sink our teeth into the list of POS plugins for WooCommerce, let us take some time to talk about what a POS plugin is and what it does. If you are confident you know all you need to know about the general workings of a WooCommerce POS plugin, feel free to skip right down to the list.
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What Does a POS Plugin for WooCommerce Do?
The main purpose of a POS plugin is to, unsurprisingly, provide you with a POS – a point of sale – in the physical realm. If you have an online store, you might also have a brick-and-mortar one. Even if not, your store might be physically present at events, as a booth, or a market stall. A POS plugin makes it possible to make online sales in person. In simpler terms, a WooCommerce POS plugin turns your computer or mobile device into a cash register, taking your online store physical, opening up more payment avenues for your shoppers.
A POS plugin works by connecting with your online store and providing you with an interface which allows you to manage your orders in your physical as well as your online store. On the functionality side, you will ideally be able to print receipts, scan barcodes, read cards and cheques in your brick and mortar shop and then sync the sales data with your online store. The exact mechanism of integration, and the exact set of functionalities provided, depends on the plugin.
Being the most popular ecommerce platform, it should come as no surprise that WooCommerce has its own premium solution for a POS extension: Point of Sale for WooCommerce. It allows store operators to sell products from your online store in brick-and-mortar stores. With this extension, you can create multiple registers, as well as store departments and outlets. The extension also supports bespoke goods, coupons, discounts, and unit of measurement- or percentage-based fees, such as for gardening or painting services. It works well with any card terminal and barcode scanner. In short, a one-stop-shop for your shop.
WooCommerce POS is a free and simple plugin which provides you with an interface for taking orders for your online store at a physical location. The plugin syncs inventory, orders, and customer data automatically, making sure you don’t oversell your stock. It is very basic, but that’s a feature, actually: the operator has to be familiar with the operation of a cash register rather than know their way around the potentially complicated functionalities of a WooCommerce online store.
If you want to see it in action, the developers have provided an online demo. Type demo for both the user name and the password.
A premium POS plugin, Point of Sale System for WooCommerce provides shop operators with a front-end management system for their physical stores. A sysadmin can assign an agent to each store, and the agent then manages all the sales for that particular store. It can be run using Google Chrome or using a desktop app. The plugin supports discounts, inventory management, bar code scanning, split payment, and refunds. The plugin is also equipped to work offline, making it easy for operators to run, say, a street stall where they have no internet access, and only syncs with the centralized inventory once internet access is restored.
Openpos is a premium plugin which provides you with a complete solution for your POS needs, regardless of the type of business you are running. It can run inside a browser, but it comes with a self-contained app which runs independently of your browser. The plugin also boasts ready-made solutions for retail, restaurants, and rent businesses. This means you can easily manage tables, rooms, cars, as well as retail orders and stock.
You can use the plugin to create multiple registers with one single installation. It supports a large number of bar code scanning devices, and even camera scanning for mobile users, printing of receipts and labels, split payment, refunds, discounts, coupons, and many other amenities.
ConnectPOS is a complete solution which allows you to add POS terminals to your online business, automatically synchronizing orders, inventory, and tax, on PC and mobile devices, and works with many bar code scanners and printers. Also supported are discounts and gift cards. It is equipped to work without an internet connection, making it a good choice for market stalls and pop-up stores in areas where steady internet access is not available. As is usually the case with premium plugins, the exact specifications vary with regards to the pricing plan you choose, but the developers express readiness to create custom, one-of-a-kind setups at a price.
WePOS is a POS plugin for WooCommerce which allows you to take orders and track your inventory. The plugin also sports a broad gamut of customization options which allow you to personalize it the better to fit your brand. It is a single-page, easy to use, fast and safe application which allows you to manage multiple outlets and multiple registers with different securely logged in cashiers assigned to each, for easy monitoring. WePOS uses an AJAX search when checking inventory for best results. The plugin has a limited free version, as well as several yearly plans.
If you want to see it in action, you can check out the developers’ demo here.
FooSales promises to help you scale your ecommerce business to all-commerce. It is available as a web application as well as a self-contained desktop application, and can run on Apple and Android tablets with equal ease, not even needing internet access. It functions seamlessly with many scanners, printers and other devices, for easy receipt printing. It also works well with card readers and boasts Square integration, working easily with Square hardware. The exact list of features depends on the pricing plan you choose, and if you want to check out the plugin‘s look and feel, there‘s also the live demo.
While not explicitly made as a WooCommerce plugin, Hike POS is nonetheless a POS service designed to integrate, among other solutions, with WooCommerce as well. Hike automatically updates inventory and orders, allowing your operators to manage both online and in-person sales from a single platform. It has apps for PC, Mac and the iPad, but sadly no support for Android tablets. All the apps are fully customizable in terms of layout, but also product options, receipt content, tax rules, and more. And in case you are not sure that Hike is for you, you can book a demo with the developers themselves.
In Conclusion
As you have seen, POS plugins come in many forms. It‘s up to you to find the one that fits. If you are looking for a free solution, you can‘t go wrong with WooCommerce POS. You may be unsure if you need registers at all. In that case, it‘s worth bearing in mind that some of the more advanced, feature-rich plugins offer free trials or a limited free version, such as ConnectPOS and wePOS. You may prefer using dedicated apps for desktop or mobile devices, such as those offered by Openpos and others, though if you are particular about using Android devices, give Hike POS a pass.
