Square vs Shopify

[RR2014]

Hello everyone!  I have a retail location where we use Square POS.  I also use Quickbooks.  Prior to growing, I used QB for bookkeeping AND inventory, but then as I grew and used Square more and more, the daily transactions added up and I had to manually adjust inventory in QB from the Square sales.  I checked into QB for POS, but it's not good.  So, in trying to work smarter and not harder, I wanted ONE system that does everything.  Unfortunately, QB is king of the bookkeeping, and I kept that for only bookkeeping; migrated all my inventory to Square, so now square is my other platform where I sell at markets, my B&M, and maintain inventory (albeit not the best for inventory UNLESS you move to Square Retail that allows for more details).  My next growth is this.  I have an Etsy shop where I sell well, but again, have to manually delete inventory on my Square.  All these are synced with QB (deposits, etc).  So my big question is:  I want to GROW and use my website that I currently have (I have WooCommerce, which I haven't used or activated yet, but paid for and migrated inventory into THAT) so I need to either (1) keep WooCommerce and my current website (2) go to SHOPIFY, which apparently has better ecommerce platform and website...but I already have a website, so I would have to change (3) Use Square online, which can work with WooCommerce, or as a standalone website.  I would prefer to keep my website if possible, and if I use Square online then my inventory is already on there and works with my POS at my shop.  Any suggestions?  Looked at several articles who put Square and Shopify Head to Head, and say both are good, but Shopify reigns king with online and Square is better with POS.  EDIT/ADDENDUM:  If using Square online website how do you "email".  Currently my business email is attached to my current wordpress website (Host:  GoDaddy).  Can we get emails/transfer current email from this to Square Online?

[keicollective]

Hi there! A lot of ground to cover, so sorry if this is long, and feel free to ask follow up questions! 

I have a retail shop with over 5K item SKU's in inventory, so I know how important it is to keep track of everything. I highly recommend using Square and Square Online as you grow into e-commerce. The inventory sync has saved us from over selling items numerous times, and the website builder is clean an easy to use. Shopify has a few features that Square Online doesn't yet, but they are improving all the time and I personally was ok giving up some customization on layouts in order to have better POS experience. 

You can browse my shop's website to see an example of Square Online in action: https://www.keicollective.com/ 

You should also look into the QuickBooks app integration with Square! I don't personally use QB anymore, but there is an app that looks to connect your QB and Square accounts for you. Log into Square and find App Integrations in the main menu, then click Visit App Marketplace to see all the apps. There's a free app for QuickBooks Online! 

My shop has also made the upgrade to Square for Retail and I would recommend it if you can! Barcodes are such a blessing to keep track of inventory. It's also made training staff way easier. But out of curiosity, what was the reason you said Square wasn't great for inventory unless you upgrade?

We didn't have any issues with inventory management prior to upgrading, we just wanted to streamline with barcodes.  

Hope this helps! 

-Andrea 

[RR2014]

Thank you, and yes, it does.  I know SHOPIFY is all the buzz, but honestly I am more a brick and mortar shop, that wants to expand some of my online ecommerce capability.  And I really hate to have to ditch my current website that has all my Etsy, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, shop information, blog, and all the connectivity PLUS the money and time spent into it.  I also hate to have QB PLUS Square POS, Plus another ecommerce, or not liking switching everything like the POS and Inventory and all the sync/connectivity if I switch to Shopify.  Square online or perhaps integrated with my WooCommerce may be the answer I suppose...I just also hesitate to do all the work for setting up and then to do it AGAIN if Square doesn't work out.  Ugh.  Yes, my QB syncs with Square (not inventory...so my inventory is in Square) and by not being inventory optimal I mean it is the basic inventory (so you can't input cost of goods, etc)..I would have to upgrade to Square for Retail.  So...prior to me making a decision and potentially a HUGE change I want to ensure I have all the information to work with.  Thank you for your help.  I think I am leaning Square for the moment...I just have to decide on what "package".  🐵

[NeonLilly]

Very nice website. You did it with Square? I guess I need to spend more time. Or is it a help with set up exist I missed ?

www.neon-lilly.com

[keicollective]

Yes! Our whole website is done with Square Online. We try to spend a little time every Friday making a small improvement here and there, but it adds up over time! Our website has grown a lot over our 3 years.

I don't think there's any setup help where someone will work on your website for you, but @AdamB often does a feedback thread here in the community where you can get suggestions from a website expert on what changes they think would help you the most! I'd keep an eye out for one of those 

[RR2014]

Thank you!  Do you have your email connected to the Square Website?

[AdamB]

Yes! I'm hoping to do another round of feedback in the next few weeks - stay tuned.

[RR2014]

Hi there.  No ...my current website is wordpress, and I have website help (even though they say it's easy for the layman, it is not).  I then had WooCommerce added, but not activated yet.  Plus I have Google Ads (passive income).  And email.  I have to determine if it is worth the continuance or just start over with an easier platform (Square or Shopify).  

[David-BG]

I suggest that you might want to change your strategy a bit, then. Your focus could be to use your website more for pick-up and for online shopping before a visit.

You might not be aware that there is a free service from Pointy (who is owned by Google) that can integrate your POS date (from the cloud) to make your catalog available for viewing. I found this very helpful during pandemic lockdowns to allow customers to effectively browse the store before they placed their order. It allowed my in-store business to grow over 20% during the pandemic and resulted in long term repeat customers.

Also having the ability for customers to order against your in-store inventory (and pay) and then pick up their order (in-store or curb-side, as appropriate) can allow you to be better prepared for a quick visit and just hand over their bag of goods or give them a chance to shop for more.

The mail-order type business is worth considering, but it is difficult to compete with the likes of Amazon with their free shipping and reduced shipping costs. When it comes to that, you might be better to just use Amazon's FBA and have them do that work. You just ship some of your inventory to them to do the fulfillment.

[WildCreators]

I'm sorry but Amazon will bury your listings, overcharge for their cut of the sale, charge you for storage, and handle returns in a less than honorable way (dare I say criminal).  You will likely lose money selling on Amazon, I've been doing it for 2 years, and the return rate is abysmal, and criminals purchase products and return junk that Amazon REFUNDS them for!  AVOID selling on Amazon at all costs.  They don't respond to sellers with a live person.  While they rule the roost, the online "Mall" that you would be operating in steers people away from your business and toward themselves.  They just want to sell you the space on their platform, Amazon doesn't care if they drain you of your last dollar, so long as they win.

[RR2014]

Thank you...a lot to consider and none of which I am familiar with.  There is SOOO much.  We are primarily and brick and mortar, but offer online sales as well.  

[repopgifts]

There are square plug-ins for woo commerce that will sync your inventory and use square to process payments, I'm having a web designer work on mine so I'm not super well versed in it, but it loads all your products for you so you won't have to set it all up if you have it organized well in square. It also seems like you have invested a lot into this site and it might be good to just keep things there. 

As for quickbooks, you can sync your inventory with square very easily, you will just need to make sure the listings are the same in both square & quickbooks. 

I do believe there are also other 3rd party apps that will work to track your inventory across different platforms and should be able to integrate the Etsy shop, but I haven't sold on Etsy in several years since my focus has been on my brick & mortar.

I do know if you integrate the woo commerce with your square inventory, and your square inventory with quickbooks inventory, then you will only have to manually adjust the Etsy transactions.

[RR2014]

Yes, we have done the square sync initially for woocommerce on my current website.  It's just difficult to work this.  I've given up with Quickbooks maintaining inventory.  It is solely my bookkeeping to which square DOES sync the financials, just not the inventory. 

[Ginger_Bauer]

I've used Square for Retail and Square online for my web site for almost 3 years now at my B&M shop and at events. I've been happy with the integrated inventory management, especially using barcodes, the sales reports, etc. Where it falls very short is when you set up discounts for a sale, the discounts do NOT sync with Square online. You have to set up coupon codes for online sales, then customers have to input a coupon code for each type of sale item. For example, if I wanted to offer 25% off tops plus a quantity discount on earrings, I'd have to set up two different discount codes that the customer would then have to enter manually, separately to get their discounts. Imagine if you had several types of discounts running at the same time. It's ridiculous. We've been asking for this ever since I've been using it, but especially when we were all trying to cope with Covid shutdowns and trying to garner more sales with our online shopping sites. Other than a repeated response that they would pass it along to the development team, this request seems to have fallen on deaf ears. For this reason, if I didn't have a severe staffing shortage right now I'd be migrating everything off Square to another platform entirely.

[RR2014]

Good to know.  We don't plan on migrating our entire inventory online since our brick and mortar is our baby and our primary focus.  We just want to compete and keep up with online sales/demands and do it well and efficiently.  I could see if I had clothing or a ton of smalls to deal with coupons/sales....this is good to know, though.  Thank you.

[Hatfsh]

So I have your exact same set up. I use QB for bookkeeping and square for my website, my B&M and I sell at outdoor markets daily. I sync my inventory using an app called trunk. It will only sync the inventory counts it will not sync customer info or sales information. If you are simply looking for a way to keep your inventory count in sync across platforms this is the way to go. You can also connect trunk to QB if you manage the inventory there. Trunk is an app in the square marketplace btw. Good luck!!!

[RR2014]

Thank you.  Will check into it...never heard.  All these new apps are so hard to keep track of.  I am trying to minimize work and streamline efforts (work smarter not harder)!

[PM1973]

I have been using Quickbooks since there 1999 Release. I do not mind having to copy and paste invoices from my email to QB. Ive been doing this for years. Not hard to do.

[RR2014]

That's another thing.  There are several artisans at my shop and when they handle a sale for me, they give me an excel spreadsheet and send me the $$.  So this is another MANUAL entry but it is minimal and I don't mind.  I have to manually delete the inventory in Square, and then do a sales receipt in QB to reflect the income.  

[DLRosenberg]

OK- so we are both brick and mortar and online and we keep it all native to square. For us it's the inventory thing. I would ask of your sales channel, which is your most profitable. if it is in-store sales, then I would keep your e-commerce native to Square. 

[RR2014]

Yes, B&M is the primary and focus.  Just want to streamline the online (and website) and minimize effort/apps/devices and maximize capability