Point of sale (POS) systems can help you keep in sync inventory in your brick-and-mortar and Online Store. Here's how to connect the POS system to your Online Store.
Connecting Online Store with Square
With Online Store's application for the Square point-of-sale solution, you can start selling anywhere. If you are an offline business entering into ecommerce, you can easily transfer product data from your Square POS to your Online Store and sync the data automatically. In case you’re an online business, you can import products from your Online Store into your Square POS with one button-click and start accepting orders in-person, too. Online Store and Square will automatically update your inventory and order data across online and offline channels so you don’t have to track your digital and physical sales separately.
Note: Square POS integration is available to merchants in the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, and the United Kingdom.
You can connect your Online Store with a Square POS system to track both online and offline inventory and sales. Using this sync can help prevent discrepancies and overselling.
To connect your Online Store with Square POS:
- From your Dashboard, go to Other Channels > POS.
- Click Connect Square:
3. Online Store will redirect you to the Square Dashboard. Sign in to your Square account.
4. Click Allow to provide the required permissions to the Online Store app. Now your Online Store and Square POS are connected.
To populate your Online Store catalog with inventory from Square, click Import Catalog from Square. If you wish to sell offline with Square, you can add your Online Store products to Square by clicking Export Catalog to Square.
5. If you need to change a Square account your store is connected to, disconnect your store from Square in your Online Store dashboard → Sales Channels → Other Channels → POS, then remove Square as payment method in your Online Store admin → Payments, and connect your store to another Square account.
You can import catalog updates from one system to another manually.
Manual catalog updates can be used when you need to sync:
- New items
For example, you’ve added new items in your online store and need to export them to Square POS to start selling these items at your retail outlet. - Remaining products
For example, you’ve upgraded to a higher plan to increase the number of categories that can be synced and need to bring over the rest of your products to your online store.
To manually transfer new products from Square to Ecwid or from Ecwid to Square:
- From your Ecwid admin, go to Other Channels → Square (POS).
- Click Import Catalog from Square to transfer catalog changes from Square POS to your Ecwid store or click Export Catalog to Square to transfer catalog updates from your Ecwid online store to Square POS.
To ensure accurate stock count and prevent overselling, product stock levels are automatically synced between Online Store and Square when both the following are true:
- The function Inventory and sales sync with Square is enabled in the Other sales channels > POS section of your Online Store admin.
- Products have matching SKU numbers in both systems.
When you sell products through Square POS, Online Store updates your product stock levels (for matching SKUs) in your online store within a few minutes. The same happens the other way round - when products are purchased from your online store, their stock in Square gets updated, too. This keeps your product stock levels up to date.
Orders created with your Online Store will automatically sync with your Square POS if all of the following are true:
- The option Inventory and sales sync with Square is enabled in the Other sales channels > POS section of your Online Store admin.
- Order was paid for with Square payments.
Orders created with Square POS will not appear in your Online Store admin but the system will automatically update the stock of the purchased products.
Connecting your Online Store with Vend
With Online Store's application for the Vend point-of-sale solution, you will be able to sell your products via both online and offline channels. If you are an offline business entering into eCommerce, you can easily transfer product data from your Vend POS to your Online Store and sync the data automatically. In case you’re an online business, you can import products from your Online Store into your Vend POS and start accepting orders in-person, too.
Note: Vend POS integration is available to merchants in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the United Kingdom, and many other countries around the globe. To get to know whether Vend operates in your country, contact the VendHQ sales team.
To connect your Online Store with Vend POS:
- From your Online Store admin, go to Other sales channels > POS.
- Scroll down to the Sell offline with Vend section and click Learn more:
- In the next screen, click Go!
- On the opened page, choose your option: Yes, connect my store to Vend (if you have already created a new Vend account) or No, create a new Vend account.
- If you chose No, create a new Vend account, follow the link to create an account on the Vend registration page, then go back to your Online Store admin and click Done, connect my store to Vend. Please check Vend Help Center to learn more about the configuration process.
- Log in to your Vend account and complete the store connection. Your Online Store is now connected with your new Vend POS account. Now it's time to select the products that you want to sell offline with Vend.
Synchronizing inventory and orders between Online Store and Vend
Once you have linked your Vend account with your Online Store, the products are not imported automatically. This means that you need to select the Online Store products that you want to upload to Vend (and vice versa, Vend products to upload to Online Store). You can upload all the products or configure separate product lists for your online store and your physical shop.
Please note that product import is performed and set up in your Online Store dashboard.
Before you import your products for the first time, you need to check and define the synchronization settings. You can do it on the Vend synchronization settings page that becomes available after the accounts are connected.
To change the synchronization settings:
- From your Online Store dashboard, go to Other channels > Vend.
- Click on the arrow next to your store name.
- In the dropdown menu, choose Vend settings:
4. On the opened page, click Edit.
5. Edit the synchronization settings you want to change:
- You can set whether the sales made in Online Store will be sent to Vend and whether the changes in price and inventory settings that are made in Vend will be synced for the same products in Online Store. By default, all these settings are enabled.
- Click Save settings.
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