Operational efficiency, advanced insights and seamless interoperability in retail – here’s the step-by-step guide to integrating your POS with e-commerce platforms and online sales systems
Is your point of sale (POS) integrated with your digital channels?
Unlocking Amazon-level omnichannel capabilities allows you to use data to boost customer experiences and advanced future-first retail technologies to grow, become more profitable and secure your future success.
It all starts with integrating online and offline channels, though, and as we’ve shown in these POS integration case studies, connecting your point-of-sale and inventory with digital channels and e-commerce platforms is the key to successful digital transformation in retail.
So, with that, we bring you a step-by-step guide to integrating POS with digital channels…
Understand Your Needs: Identify the key reasons behind the integration. Are you looking to synchronise your inventory, unify customer profiles, streamline online and offline checkout processes or all of the above? Clearly defining what you want to achieve with your integration helps guide the process.
Set Specific Goals: Using your objectives as a guide, establish clear, measurable goals for what the integration should achieve. This could include:
Then, decide on the key metrics you’ll use to measure your integration’s effectiveness and build those into the plan.
Assess Your POS System: This is where you re-examine the capabilities and limitations of your current POS system, specifically whether it can support integration with your e-commerce platform. If not, you may need to consider upgrading or switching to a more compatible system.
Review Your E-commerce Platform: Similarly, evaluate your e-commerce platform’s features, focusing on its ability to integrate with POS systems. Some platforms offer built-in integration capabilities or plugins that make the process smoother.
See where why you need retail technology integration and get some inspiration from these POS integration case studies.
Platform Compatibility: Confirm whether your POS system is compatible with your e-commerce platform. This includes hardware, software, and operating system compatibilities.
API Availability: Check if both your POS and e-commerce platform provide accessible APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for integration. APIs are essential for enabling the two systems to communicate with each other.
Real-time vs. Batch Updates: Decide whether you need real-time data synchronisation or if batch updates at intervals are sufficient for your operations. Real-time updates are crucial for inventory management and customer experience but may require more complex integration.
Data Types to Synchronise: Identify which types of data need to be synchronised between your POS and e-commerce systems. You need to develop a data mapping strategy, to help ensure that the data fields in both systems correspond and have a plan for how to deal with any data discrepancies.
Common data types include:
Data Security: Next you need to create a plan and system for securing the data sent and received from both systems – sensitive customer data is protected by law during transmission and storage. Remember you are connecting two separate systems, so you might need to develop encryption protocols and secure authentication methods as needed.
Compliance with Regulations: You also need to ensure your data comply with regulations such as POPI, GDPR as well as payment security requirements.
System Scalability: Very important is taking into account potential future growth. If you’re planning on reaching a million customers in the next few years, you need to ensure your systems and integrations can actually handle that load in the future – or else you’ll have to redo everything at that time.
Scalable systems should be able to handle various loads without performance degradation, especially during peak sales periods. And you should also be able to add more capability to it cost-effectively.
Performance Metrics: Determine performance metrics and benchmarks for the integrated system, including:
These are the metrics you will use to monitor the performance of your system – if anything falls below the expected/allowed error bars, you need to get your techs on it to fix and focus on optimising the system until it performs as expected.
Also learn about using cloud computing for scalability and more effective collaborations.
Omnichannel Features: Ensure the integration supports all the omnichannel features you’d like to offer or explore, such as:
User Experience: Consider how the integration will affect the user experience on both the front end (for customers) and the back end (for staff). The integration should aim to streamline operations and enhance the shopping experience, not detract from it.
See how retailers are using tech to solve the challenges in grocery delivery and learn to get the best from custom software solutions.
Depending on your POS and digital platforms, you might be able to use an off-the-shelf (plug-and-play) software solution. These are pre-built software solutions with predefined functionalities and compatibility with popular systems.
They’re often cost-effective and quick to deploy but can be severely limited in terms of customisation – the basic features might not be what you need from your system, limiting what you can do with it.
Custom software solutions are developed specifically for your business, tailored to meet your unique requirements for integrating POS systems with e-commerce platforms.
While a little more expensive and time-consuming, it’s by far the most customisable and scalable, since it’s built 100% to fit your business’s needs. What’s more, the provider normally also offers support and maintenance, making it a more ideal long-term solution.
Partnering with a software service provider means you employ a tech consultancy to handle the entire integration process for you.
The benefit here is that, with the right partner, you get access to expert knowledge and experience in developing custom software specifically in your industry. What’s more, you normally get access to a full-service package that includes ongoing maintenance and support.
See why you need a digital consultant in today’s market.
Cleanse Data: Using your data mapping strategy from point 2.2 above, do a thorough cleanup of your data to ensure its quality:
Develop a Testing Plan: Outline specific tests to verify that:
Pilot Testing: Implement a controlled, small-scale test of the integration to identify any technical or usability issues before your full-scale launch. This is also the time to allow a select group of users to test it – both internally and from an end-user perspective. See it in action in these MVP examples for retail.
Rollout Strategy: Based on the size of your business and the complexity of the integration, you could choose to roll out the new integration all at once, or in stages. Think of it this way: If the first integration has issues, how big a risk will the potential operational disruption be?
A smaller retailer might be able to roll out all at once and handle complications quickly. But if your integration has many moving parts that could impact operations in many regions, you’d want to do it in phases instead.
Monitoring: After deployment, set up monitoring to track the system’s performance, focusing on critical functions like inventory updates, order processing, and data accuracy. Identify any disruptions in service or inaccuracies in data to minimize impact on operations and customer experience.
Ongoing Optimisation: A vitally important part of every big tech integration is to have ongoing maintenance and support on the system. This could be handled by an internal team, or, if you’re using a service provider, they should be able to provide it as part of the service.
See how long development takes and the entire development process, including costs, timelines and what to expect.
Identify Your Training Needs: Different team members may require varying levels of training based on their roles. Sales staff, for example, need to understand how to process transactions using the new system, while inventory managers must know how to update and monitor stock levels across platforms.
Conduct Hands-on Training Sessions: Interactive sessions where staff can practice with the new system under guidance are invaluable. These sessions should cover common scenarios they'll encounter in their daily tasks.
Choose Solutions with Strong Support Options: When selecting your integration software or service provider, consider the level of customer support they offer. Ongoing and responsive support can be crucial for resolving critical issues that may arise during non-business hours.
See the guide to outsourcing development and how much it costs to build a new app.
Are your online and offline sales connected? To get the biggest benefit from digital in retail, integrating your Point of Sales (POS) and even inventory systems unlocks true omnichannel capabilities for better intelligence.
See real-world examples of how actual retailers have implemented point-of-sale integrations for better e-commerce, inventory and customer experiences in these 3 POS integration case studies.
Need help integrating systems?
Let our team of digital consultants help you make good decisions by getting in touch right now.
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