Everything you need to sell online

Set up an online store in minutes to sell on a website, social media, or marketplaces.

How to Pick a Payment System For Your E-commerce Store

Top 5 Point of Sale (POS) Software for Your Business

10 min read

There is no doubt that the entrepreneurial spirit has taken hold of a generation in a way that hasn’t happened in decades, and part of what makes it possible is the flexibility to take both in-person and online payments. Almost every independent or small business retail seller, regardless of products or services sold, needs to be able to take both types of payments to keep up with the growing trends.

POS software and payment processing is no longer important for small businesses alone. More and more people are eking out a living with their own daily grind, by selling a product or service as an individual rather than a business, or even just by doing odd jobs. In the last several years many pop up retailers have been taking advantage of either a way to swipe cards in person or a way to pay online, usually through a PayPal account (or similar).

An integrated, cloud based POS system allows you to do both in a singular platform synchronized across ecommerce stores, online listings, and linked to the same tools that allow you to take payments in person now. It can even be tied to your inventory and bookkeeping. Because they have become so commonplace so quickly, a complete point of sale software is affordable for all with monthly fee options that can scale up as your business grows.

Being able to process payments from Apple Pay, PayPal, credit and debit cards, and any other payment option your customers are likely to have is necessary if you want to be successful. Many of the options for accepting digital and credit card payments are not this comprehensive, but a full POS that integrates everything together gives your small business the edge you need over your direct competition.

Before jumping into the top five best POS software, let’s talk about what needs the right POS system should include.

How to sell online
Tips from e-commerce experts for small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs.
Please enter a valid email address

What to Look For in POS Software

The best POS systems have tools that integrate every aspect of payment processing and retail or service business sales receipts, but you don’t have to stop there. An all in one mobile pos solution can give you many more tools that you would otherwise get elsewhere. Getting everything you need to automate your business operations so you can focus on the nitty-gritty aspects of your business in one single, integrated package is the way to go.

Here are a few of the other tasks that should be a part of your overall POS system.

  • Integrated inventory management that automatically deducts from your inventory for every sale, whether they buy online or in-person. Small businesses can even use the same system across multiple locations.
  • Customer relations management can be of equal importance, and you should be able to pull customer data into the POS for every sale. The right tools even allow set up and automation of loyalty programs to nurture customer management relationships.
  • Employee management is also important, especially if you will be having them processing payments with an integrated cash register.

Certain types of retail businesses should consider some other needs specific to what they sell or provide to their customers. For example, a restaurant POS system needs to be a bit more comprehensive than that for other retail businesses, particularly because tracking inventory, food costs, server tips, and other processes really need to be automated if you don’t want to hire another person just to run your restaurant POS software.

For a retail business with or without multiple locations should look for systems that gives you a physical cash register or other POS hardware that all employees on premises can use. It should also tie into your online sales, if any, so that you don’t have to worry about selling the same inventory twice. Meanwhile, mobile businesses like craft and hobby sellers — those at swap meets, flea markets, and pop up sales — are going to need a mobile pos that goes with them wherever they go.

Now that you have an idea what to look for in a complete point of sale system, here are our top picks. These options can all be incorporated into your Ecwid online store for an integrated POS and inventory system, as well as many other powerful features for managing every aspect of your business.

#1 Best Overall Complete POS System — Ecwid with Lightspeed

Ecwid and Lightspeed have teamed up to give you everything you need to run your business so that you can focus on what is important — your products, services, and ultimately your customers. Lightspeed is a complete point of sale solution that integrates ecommerce, brick and mortar retail, and mobile businesses the ability to seamlessly and automatically process payments, track sales, and send inventory out the door.

Lightspeed Point of Sale for Retail, Restaurant

If you’re already using Ecwid, adding the Lightspeed POS system is a cinch, and if you have any issues setting it up were are here to help. Once everything is ready to go, you’ll enjoy having more time available for your favorite operations tasks with far less time for bookkeeping required. This app team is great for almost any business, with a lot of customization and features available.

#2 Best for Integrated Retail with Inventory Management — Vend

If you’re running a private label or retail arbitrage business model (selling items made by others), you could have quite a lot of inventory to track even though your business is small. Your POS system should allow for taking payments online at your ecommerce store, on the road at corner pop-up sales or swap meets, and social media or local marketplaces, and that’s exactly what Vend does for you.

Vend POS Systems

Even a one-man-show can keep track of inventory, sales, and payment processing in one place with very little effort once fully set up for your business. (If you need help with set up so that everything runs smoothly, we can help with that too!)

#3 Best for Use with a Cash Register — Square

Square is a great option if you have multiple locations in addition to ecommerce sites and sales funnels. If you try to take advantage of every opportunity to sell your products, having a system that includes POS hardware and mobile POS that syncs across sites is vitally important.

Point of Sale for Small Businesses _ Square

Just as important is your ability to track sales and employee activity. Square allows you to require login to the POS for employees to be able to ring up customers, and the integrated POS system hardware gives them a way to process payments without accessing the primary functions of the system.

#4 Best for Integrated Internal Payment Processing — Clover

With or without accompanying POS hardware that does the job of a cash register, Clover is a great option for small businesses. Regardless of what you sell, either products or services, Clover will work well for you if you have a need for a versatile brick and mortar, online, and mobile POS system. One of the best things about this system is that you can start small and scale up as your business grows so that you never pay more than you need to.

POS Solutions _ Clover

The hardware is reasonably priced, and the plans start at just under $10. You can also use their internal payment processing features so that there is no need for a separate merchant account. That service is provided at slightly higher fees than the average, but it can be worth the cost to have everything in sync and integrated into one system.

#5 Best for Small Businesses — Quickbooks POS

QuickBooks is the most popular bookkeeping software among small businesses and solo entrepreneurs. About 80% of all small businesses in the US use QuickBooks to track their sales, find tax deductions, pay employees, and monitor expenditures. There has been an invoicing feature for some time, but now they have launched a complete POS system as well. You can even get hardware.

QuickBooks Point of Sale

For solo entrepreneurships already using or familiar with QuickBooks especially, using their POS system is the best way to go. It keeps you from having to take the time to learn a new system, while also automatically pulling all of your sales data to populate your general ledger as well. They also offer internal payment processing at standard rates.

Table of contents

Sell online

With Ecwid Ecommerce, you can easily sell anywhere, to anyone — across the internet and around the world.

About the author

Max has been working in the ecommerce industry for the last six years helping brands to establish and level-up content marketing and SEO. Despite that, he has experience with entrepreneurship. He is a fiction writer in his free time.

Ecommerce that has your back

So simple to use – even my most technophobic clients can manage. Easy to install, quick to set up. Light years ahead of other shop plugins.
I’m so impressed I’ve recommended it to my website clients and am now using it for my own store along with four others for which I webmaster. Beautiful coding, excellent top-notch support, great documentation, fantastic how-to videos. Thank you so much Ecwid, you rock!
I’ve used Ecwid and I love the platform itself. Everything is so simplified it’s insane. I love how you have different options to choose shipping carriers, to be able to put in so many different variants. It’s a pretty open e-commerce gateway.
Easy to use, affordable (and a free option if starting off). Looks professional, many templates to select from. The App is my favorite feature as I can manage my store right from my phone. Highly recommended 👌👍
I like that Ecwid was easy to start and to use. Even for a person like me, without any technical background. Very well written help articles. And the support team is the best for my opinion.
For everything it has to offer, ECWID is incredibly easy to set up. Highly recommend! I did a lot of research and tried about 3 other competitors. Just try ECWID and you'll be online in no time.

Your ecommerce dreams start here

By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts.
Your Privacy

When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. More information

More information

Strictly Necessary Cookies (Always active)
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.
Targeting Cookies
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
Functional Cookies
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.
Performance Cookies
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources, so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies, we will not know when you have visited our site.