I am opening a resale/thrift shop in a small rural town, after years of success with EBay and a booth. I outgrew my home space, needed an office/warehouse/studio situation, and ended up falling in love with a spot that had room for that in the back, and allowed for a small retail storefront in the front. So my brick and mortar will be an extension of what I do now, and is more or less an experiment. I’m continuing EBay (which is the main “pay the bills”operation) and then possibly having my own website (depending on POS options).
I have no idea what this store will do in traffic or sales. I would assume average individual tickets from $10-100, and under $5K a month in sales. It’s a very small town that gets a lot of traffic - so hard to know. It’s also a very laid back uncomplicated place and will be …I could probably get away with cash only sales and handwriting tickets. 🤣
As of now, I will be the only one working the store or operating the POS and will only have one counter. So I don’t need a bunch of advanced employee features.
I will have hundreds to thousands of items - all one off unique items (not like a boutique with same item in every size and color), but I would like the potential to use barcodes and have basic tracking, possibly with the online integration so that a website and eBay inventory was synced. But I can also just keep the store and EBay completely separate. I’d like to have a register that is more than just a tiny terminal or reader and something more “pro” level, but also cost effective. Same on monthly and processing fees - lowest costs as I’m just starting out and will not have high dollar items. Again, average pricing might be $5-100 on items. I haven’t committed to Square or Shopify or their equipment, because I’d prefer to have something more fluid. So I’m leaning more toward tablet/computer based or something that works across the board. I’ve been considering just using (free) Square to start and just buying their terminal, but…I’m also not super impressed with things I’ve read. And then it just seems like buying an older iPad for $300 is better than getting a Square specific unit.
I know that the easy answer is Square or Shopify. But I also understand that on low dollar items, the fees would really add up. I’m completely new to a brick and mortar and POS systems or how any of this works, so I am a novice, but not an idiot - I can handle something more complex than the easy answer. I just don’t know about this subject.
Is there a better, more cost effective option for a tiny business start up? Or do I just stop complicating it, get started with Square or Shopify and expect to eventually want something else long term?
Any advice is appreciated.