Lots of people have been emailing me about Point of Sale systems for osCommerce – my good friend Jared Call owns and runs a company which specialises in POS – his product is called “ocPos”. I approached Jared and asked him to write me up some information for this blog…enjoy!
OllaCart (ocPOS) is geared specifically toward folks that have osCommerce (or derivative) web stores who want to sell in a physical store. The website is already populated with customers, products, etc. Why have to re-create all that just because you’re opening a store? Enter OllaCart Point of Sale; a web-based POS solution that helps you leverage the data you already have to sell to a new class of customers.
Here’s a little history: ocPOS was born because my wife and her employees were sick and tired of having to run all website orders through our in-store POS to have a semi-realistic view of how much inventory we had overall. Doing inventory counts at year-end for over 10,000 different products wasn’t any fun either. When they started using ocPOS, their order processing time dropped by about 80%. Not only did they have quicker order processing, but also had consistently accurate inventory levels both in-store and online. The staff loved it.
Traditional Point of Sale solutions do not have any idea what osCommerce is. Not only do you have to give the new POS all the product information that you’ve already entered into your web store, but now you have an inventory problem — how are you going to keep track of product levels when some sell in-store and some sell online? Some POS solutions offer expensive or bulky tools to perform periodic batch uploads of order and product data to your website. This is better than nothing, but leaves gaping holes in the effort to keep a consistent inventory.
ocPOS uses your osCommerce database natively. No hourly or daily sync-up. Product levels are always up-to-date. Orders are always synchronized. ocPOS takes care of that.
Online customers already have accounts set up when they shop in-store. Create a customer in-store, and they’re already there to place web orders. Don’t want to have to ask customers for personal details just to sell to them? No problem — ocPOS takes care of that too.
Since ocPOS runs in a browser, you can print receipts on receipt printers or on any other printer. Barcode scanners work as well. Get a cash drawer that opens when you print a receipt on your receipt printer, and you’re in business!
Some features you might find handy are things like:
1. The Non-Inventory Item: Sell your customers anything you like, even if it’s not already in your database. Mark it as a non-inventory item, add a description, price, and sell it! It’ll show up in the order reports just like a regular product.
2. One license covers as many web terminals as you want. No need to pay for multiple checkout counters — just one license per web store is needed.
3. Edit product names, descriptions, weights, prices, sale prices, right from the Point of Sale. When you make product changes in ocPOS, they are automatically made in your web store.
4. Add barcodes to your products, add a barcode reader, and ocPOS will find your products when you scan them.
5. No barcode? No worries! You can search for products by their model number or description.
6. Run Windows? Macintosh? Linux? You access ocPOS from your browser, so it will work with any modern operating system.
The current full release is 1.6, though we expect to release 2.0 within the next few weeks. We have added dozens of bug fixes and new features to 2.0. It still needs some more testing, so there may be some rough edges, but we’re close to release!
The 2.0 BETA includes new features like:
1. Multi-language support
2. Order discounts
3. Larger buttons for improved touch screen usage
4. Store owner notification when items sell out
5. Automatic percentage markup for product when sold in-store
6. Optional inclusion of osCommerce sales in the ocPOS sales reports.
ocPos have a 2.0 BETA demo available at http://www.ollacart-pos.com/demo-message.php. The database resets every hour, so feel free to change prices, create orders, create users, etc. Have a look!
Thanks, Gary!
Thanks for sharing this Gary. I sell at conventions a few times a year and found that I really wish I had something web based that made sense, and could possibly update my inventory. The possibilities are great, especially if they can email a receipt…tee hee
Hi Janet – contact Jared directly…
http://www.ollacart-pos.com/
You betcha, I think this is great, I looked at this an it might very well solve my inventory problem. When I sell at conventions a few times a year, I never know how much stock is going to get wiped out. If it is tied in with the main web page, and becomes one inventory accountable system, I will know real time what I have in stock when I get back.
Great possibilities, will give it a spin for sure.
Shame it doesn’t work properly. The tax functions is broken and causes prices to be displayed incorrectly (and charged incorrectly). Jared admitted this but told me he only works on it part-time, can’t fix it and suggested I pay a freelance to solve “my” problem. It isn’t “my” problem, it’s a problem with OllaCart – a program I paid for. Can’t recommend this product at all.
John, it has always worked OK for me, sorry you can’t say the same.
To be more specific, osC supports display of products with tax included. ocPOS not include this feature. It may be included in a future version, but it’s not yet supported.