Is Vend POS right for my business?

Choosing a Point-Of-Sale can be challenging, confusing and hard. There are so many POS systems to choose; how do you know you are picking the right one? In this series of blog posts, we hope to answer this question for you, and we will be starting with one that we get the most questions about Vend.

Vend is an industry leading, cloud-based POS software, and inventory manager. With over 20,000 customers all over the world, Vend equips independent retailers with powerful tools to run and manage their store. But, as you probably know by now, it’s not a one-size-fits-all thing when it comes to retail inventory systems. The right question should be,  “Is Vend right for YOUR business?” Let’s talk the good, the bad and the ugly for Vend POS.

What You’ll Love

There’s a lot to like when it comes to using Vend. The software is easy and intuitive to use but isn’t lacking in robust features that allow you to get the most value out of the software. One of our favorite things is the native integrations with some of the best tools on the market such as Xero for accounting, and Shopify for e-commerce. One of the more robust capabilities of Vend is the ability to have both negative inventories as well as fractional quantities. Beyond those features, here are some other features we love:

• • Offline mode: Allows you to sell in the event of an interruption.

• • Online/In-Store Gift Cards (Only works with Vend eCommerce): This is one of the hardest things for retailers to find and this can be a huge upsell to your customers.

• Sell fractional quantities (.5): This is useful for weighted items or bulk things like dog treats.

What You Might Not Love

As you can see in the paragraph above, Vend has a lot of great features for an independent retailer. However, like all POS software, Vend has some weaknesses. The most glaring weakness of Vend is their lack of complex retail workflows. This includes workflows such as special orders, work orders, or serialization of products. For those of you with multiple locations, Vend struggles in a multi-store environment. Lastly, Vend relies on 3rd party integrations to accomplish several basic features such as a time clock for employees.

So is Vend right for you?

So now for the big question, is Vend right for you?

No: If you have a complicated inventory workflow such as special/custom orders then Vend might not be the right tool for you. You might be able to find workarounds but if it is at all a major piece of your business, then you’ll want to start with something that accomplishes those task out of the gate.

Yes: Vend is right for you if you’re a one location independent retailer looking for an easy to use software that accomplishes the standard retail process. Basically, if you just need to receive quantities of inventory, track your cost and received dates, and then sell those items to your customers (and want some decent reports around all of that) then Vend can be a great tool.

A note: If you are an online business using Shopify, Vend can be a great system for beginning to track your purchasing and sales. Even if you never plan on using the POS side, the plans Vend offer are competitive with comparable inventory plug-ins and you’ll now have a system for your seasonal pop-ups!

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Streamline Retail is a consultancy based in Houston, Texas. We help retailers across the country with retail operations, inventory planning, and eCommerce strategy (+ design!).