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I have a client who wants to do a POS in a 'bricks and mortar' setting and eventually a full-blown online store.

I am looking for a way to have an ecommerce extension that also includes a POS capability (especially to handle cash transactions).

Are there any Joomla! extensions that have both ecommerce and POS capabilities tied-in?

(I'm not looking for a solution that requires a RESTful style integration between two extensions - rather a single extension with both capabilities).

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  • While not a Joomla integration, both Square and Shopify have a cash drawer, print receipts, etc.
    – user1749
    Aug 7, 2014 at 2:18

3 Answers 3

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This is one of those occasions when, as a web professional, it's probably better to concede that Joomla is simply not the right tool for the job.

Given that there are already e-commerce solutions that will allow this, with zero effort, out-of-the-box then it is almost certainly in the best interest of your client to recommend such a solution instead. Personally, I'd be recommending:

http://www.shopify.com/pos/

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    @codinghands - Thanks for the answer - 'Joomla is simply not the right tool for the job' - I would add 'yet.' There is a big negative to using 'disparate' systems which later need to be integrated - hoping for a 'Joomla!' solution. However, you may be right that a solution such as Shopify might be needed.
    – NivF007
    May 2, 2014 at 17:12
  • Why would you need to integrate other systems? Nothing in your stated requirements suggests that anything other than a dedicated e-commerce solution is required.
    – Seth Warburton
    May 2, 2014 at 17:41
  • @SethWarburton - you cannot extend Shopify in the same way you can extend Joomla! Ideally, we should have one user account and profile per person for all assets (i.e. web site login, ecom login, social media - etc.) The OOP/MVC architecture of Joomla! provides for each application to extend the user profiles - so the foundation is there for 'one integrated app' instead of several 'disparate' apps which become difficult to manage and track. A simple example could be that a visitor/user/consumer changes their email on one app (Shopify), but that change doesn't carry to the web site forum.
    – NivF007
    May 3, 2014 at 4:17
  • I would recommend you look into using Shopify + their API for user integration. Seth's right that Joomla isn't the right tool for this, and you're right it would be great to share user data and keep things consistent. So use both systems to the best of their ability and use the API to keep data synced across those systems.
    – Chad Windnagle
    May 3, 2014 at 13:14
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Have a look at this extension for Virtuemart: https://store.webkul.com/Joomla-Virtuemart-Point-Of-Sale-POS-System.html

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If by "includes a POS capability" you mean does things like:

  • trigger the cash drawer to open
  • prints to receipt printer
  • interacts with the POS credit card machine

Then I doubt you will find one, all of those things would require the extension to break out of the browsers sandbox and interact with the end-users computer.

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    Point is generally valid but just FYI PHP running on Windows, using some specific Windows libraries, can have access and print to a receipt printer (and more).
    – Valentin Despa
    May 2, 2014 at 7:52
  • @yup aware of that, but the question was about an extension running on a site not a server running on the POS desktop. There are also solutions that integrate Virtuemart with MYOB Retail for example but that wasn't what was asked for, so I kept it on point.
    – Craig
    May 2, 2014 at 8:01
  • @cppl - YES to points 2 and 3 / point 1 is 'nice to have but not a necessity.' At Valentin a solution would also have credit card / cash capabilities.
    – NivF007
    May 2, 2014 at 17:15
  • A CMS is the wrong way to do this, because, as mentioned the whole design of browser is to sandbox them from the users computer and devices attached to it. As mentioned there are ways for PHP to access these things on Windows by running the PHP server, i.e. the website on the users computer, which then means that if it's also to be the business website that it has to be accessible via a ISP grade line, needs firewalls etc. It will be cheaper, safer and more reliable to use a POS that integrates with a web shop solution.
    – Craig
    May 3, 2014 at 1:09

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