Vend Reviews

Pros

The system is very easy to learn, the report capability is what we like the most, having the ability to run report to analyze the sales and patterns, is very helpful in planning , buying inventory, since it is capable to also hold inventory, to send emails to alert when inventory is low, is amazing, we love the system for our small store.

Cons

Not much, we had some issues in the beginning with credit card connectivity, but not for any of the system fault, it was the way our store is set up with our internet, once all that got squared away, the system worked perfect.

Pros

Vend has one of the most easy to use cloud point of sale that I have tried and tested over the years. As a business owner, Vend has been useful for my day to day work.

Cons

The customer support team is atrocious. I have been trying to speak to someone from the Vend support team since 24th April due to some billing issues that could have been easily resolved in 1 or 2 days. Up until now, the issue is not solved and no one has responded to me on this issue. Speaking to the live chat guy and he kept me waiting for over 3 hours with no reply when he told me that he will be transferring me over to the billing time for assistance. Emails went unanswered and the support team even closed the ticket without giving me a reply or resolution to the problem. I'm not so sure that Vend is a system that caters to the small and medium business owners because we business owners and managers, we don't have all the time in the world to be waiting for your reply and chasing you for answers. I will definitely not recommend that anyone takes up this system unless you think you are ready to work with a support team that does not attend to you when help is needed.

Alternatives Considered

Pros

Ecwid integrates seamlessly with vend. I wish we could use Ecwid as our main POS instead of Vend, but it is only a website shopping cart plugin or tablet app, and we need something that runs on a PC. We don't like Apple products, and wanted a PC interface instead of a tablet, due to our volume of products.

Cons

1. The cloud sync isn't accurate. Their database will overwrite changes a users makes if your internet isn't "fast" enough AND you have to clear site settings daily or hourly (depends on volume).
2. The reporting and ordering functionality is limited to your Excel skills. Advanced Excel knowledge is a must: Pivot tables, vlookup formulas, concatenate, lots of files to save and track. You cannot do this through the system easily UNLESS you order the same product from the same vendor every time, lucky you!
3.The product export actually can come in handy when the system goes down on Vend's end, because when it goes offline, the only way to find a product in the sell screen is by SKU (so know your SKUS!)
4. This is one of the only POS's that doesn't have both a UPS and SKU field! Duh guys, this is a POS 101 feature!
5. You can't do a mass upload to change products like they say you can. I've tried it multiple times. It has never worked.
6. When you create a product, it creates a "handle" based on the name you created, so don't make any mistakes when you create a product or it will permanently impact the handle of that product.
7. Their search feature is a 3rd party provided feature, which fails to provide any results unless it is an exact match. For example, a product named TFV16 will not populate when you search V16, or vice versa. It's an exact match (word order, spelling, exact!)
8. My staff can't use the program, our inventory is a mess due to difficult contrast, laging!

Pros

Inventory tracking features. Being able to see all outlets inventory at the same time. Inventory transfers are very intuitive and easy to perform, same with stock orders.

Cons

Pricing and sale discount features aren't easy to apply for a membership type of system. Updating Price Books is a hassle as its current layout for each price book is not easy to navigate if one product's price needs to be changed inside of a price book with hundreds of products.

Pros

We've been using the Vend POS system for just over a year and recently upgraded to Vend Ecommerce (integrating our website/online store with our POS system). We're really happy with both systems; the POS is very intuitive and training of our staff, even those without any POS experience, was a breeze. The Ecommerce solution saves us a lot of time and effort (and eliminates the possibility of errors in pricing) as we now only need to enter/ammend product info in one database to keep our records all up to date.

From a service POV Vend's team are fantastic. They respond quickly (usually within a matter of minutes) to any tickets we submit thru their online service center, and the staff always follow up to make sure whatever issues we raised are resolved. When we set up the Ecommerce system, they provided several sessions of personal, live training over the phone and skype which enabled us to create a new website from scratch, even though we had no prior experience in doing so.

Being a cloud based solution also gives us a lot of flexibility - we can process sales or access our backend thru laptops, iPads and even our phones. We also necer need to worry about backing up or losing our data.

Cons

Being a standardized solution, the Ecommerce platform doesn't yet have all the features you would get with a custom designed website/online store. However the cost is a small fraction of what you would pay for a customized site.

Pros

For our retail clothing business, we have been using Vend POS in our shop to manage inventory and run in-store sales. The integrations we rely on are Shopify for e-commerce as well as Xero for accounting. Vend POS has been a generally pleasant experience and they have improved the web-based POS platform tremendously over the course of the past five years and continue to do so. The Vend Register iPad app allows for simple commerce with an integrated credit card processor solution. The Vend web-based UI allows us to add and manage inventory with relative ease. Vend is a flexible POS solution that is used by foodservice, construction, and all kkinds of industries. Their variant setup is flexible enough to handle different types of products. The reporting suite is fantastic and allows us to analyze actionable data to make good decisions.

Cons

There have been various bugs, issues, and UI inconveniences over the years. Generally customer support is very responsive to tickets we create however it is usually a long turnaround to actually address any software improvements we have asked to be made.

Pros

This is the most bulletproof POS for the money. Everything that works, works better than other platforms.

Cons

They kept raining the price of the pos until they were sold to Lightspeed. Lightspeed is making changes so quickly that their own documentation is pretty worthless. Vendors they work with will call you with sales calls.

I also don't like the continued removal of features (sorting by qty, eccomerce, sales ledger)

Pros

Great product for running a retail store! The product works very well and set up is quite easy.

Cons

Depending on merchant account, the software doesn't always allow refunds to be performed at the till (iPad).

Pros

Vend has a very versatile and flexible workflow, with lots of features and options to work for most any retail scenario your business may face.

Cons

With all the features and options, many of them are tucked away in submenus, and therefore provides a steep learning curve if you lack someone to tutor you.

Pros

It connects with our calendar and we can take a payment right from there & it populates their information automatically. Its easy to add products and services

Cons

The register has to be manually closed. Wish there was an automated close feature if it's not closed by a certain time of the evening

Pros

Great easy to use systems on the front end, stable data base that despite having over 6,000 items with in it doesn't miss a beat. It professional looking. Elegantly handles discounts by either % or by dollar value. Great reports. Integrates well with Xero and my website.

Cons

Beware Employers, anyone who can enter in new stock will see everything, sales history, reports, you sensitive business data, your business health. Download load it try it for yourself. I have raised this with Vend, and my response back was "Is this really a problem?".
For me it is.

Pros

Simplicity (or so it seemed), multi-outlet.

Cons

It's simple because it doesn't work. We literally have buggy issues every week, and it's been a year of using it. And we're not attempting difficult or creative issues. Very basic retail tils, on hardware recommended by Vend, setup according to their specs. It just constantly has problems. Dropped sales, problems with software, reporting issues... you would think these are our issues (Vend blames everyone but themselves... that's a BIG IF you actually connect with someone from Vend - we've waited 3-4 weeks for a response from a person). Their system is great at auto-response - happy, you're the most important, etc... but never get a call (even when scheduled and agreed).

What do we like least? Constant bugs and ZERO support. Also tired of Vend blaming everything else except themselves (we had no troubles with previous POS before we switched to them, great IT on our end, huge internet package, etc.).

Pros

Shopify integration, bar code scanner integration, Quick Keys, reports, ability to list detailed product info.

A big thing is remote login. I can check to see how my employees are doing at any time from any computer. I can also edit any part of my Vend information from any computer.

Cons

While Vend recently updated the way one enters product information by reducing the number of screens needed to enter or edit a product, there are still some areas of Vend that could use the same type of update. For example, after I'm finished entering a new product, there should be a button to click on that says "Enter New Product." Instead, I have to go back to the main Product Menu and go through a couple of screens to start entering another product. Not a major difficulty but this is one example where you have to go back to the main menu to access other parts of the software.

Pros

Neat, simple and easy to use, starter price was competitive. Good inventory management features, which feeds into the POS system, simple reporting and it has the capabilitiy to link to Xero.

Cons

I have had similar problems with others, when VEND update or upgrade the program, which seems like every 2 months, it plays havoc with the data inputting and adding new product, and with VEND, it is imperative that you input the data accurately when you add a new product. Plus, they are not good with communicating that they will be doing an upgrade or making changes to tariffs, which might affect the functionality of the program. I have been trialling the system for a year, and I am rather nervous of enabling the xero integration, as it might not be accurate information that is being fed thru.

Pros

Ease of use, cloud based for remote sales and access as admin. Simplicity in design and development. iOS based applications allow for quick learning at all levels from tech novice to advanced. The reporting is powerful, flexible, and captures financials and inventory in an easy to read and understand manner, again for all levels of knowledge and experience. The Products sections simplifies Inventory management in a very visual way, simplifying management and POS interfacing. Vend is constantly developing new applications and integrating processes that advance the power of the software. The notifications of these new apps is easy to read and activate.

Cons

I was a bit disappointed in the change of entering a new product, as a keyboard dominant user, the new application slowed the process by removing a few of the tab functions. Slows data entry. Yes, there are still power users out there. :)

Pros

Reporting features
Product variants
Dashboard
Self Generating SKU
Layby methods
Customer accounts
I love the gift card concept !

Cons

Error Sales

Rigidity in creating new users

Wish the register had a options to limit use more for newer employees not to view all the sales history and to be able to open and close. I think that's more of the store manager's responsibility than everyone being able to do so.

Pros

Very Easy to use. I like that you can run your inventory of your store though it and that you can add frequent customers that come by the store. When they come in and buy something they can get loyalty points which can go towards one of their purchases. I also like the on account tab - this is very handy especially for us since we live in such a small town and everyone knows everyone.

Cons

I don't like how the system just decides that we are not gonna listen to what you say. For example if something is on sale say for $2.99 and it was $3.99 sometimes it won't change the price. This is very frusterating so you have to watch extra carefully with sale items.

Pros

This POS system is easy to use and easy to teach new employees. I love being able to access it from anywhere and being able to get information I need for planning and ordering.

Cons

None as of yet. We have been happy. We have had no real issues and anything that has come up has been easily solved.

Pros

This software is very user friendly, and makes it extremely easy to enter in new products and keep track of said products.

Cons

A fair amount of bugs pop up regarding the new product and stock control sections of the program. There could also be ways to further refine the stock control portion, like making scanned items organize themselves by a specific attribute automatically.

Pros

It integrates well with Xero our accounting software. It is very user friendly and easy to learn how to use.

Cons

The stock order process is very time consuming and cumbersome. I would like to be able to adjust the date on stock orders, so that it can be matched to the invoice/payment date in the event that the stock order is not received in VEND until after the invoice/payment date. Also it allows you to receive items that have been marked as inactive, it should pop up to make them as active again.
When scanning product through, unless you are watching the screen, you can't tell when a product scans up with an error/bar code not in the system etc, the beep tone needs to be different.
I wish it was integrated with Moneris merchant services.
It would also be nice to be able to have more control over what users have access to more individually.

Pros

It is fairly simple to learn and use on a daily basis. It can handle a lot of SKUs. The customer phone support is very good. It integrates with our online store that uses Shopify.

Cons

It doesn't sort sales by payment method. We cannot get all of the historical reports that we would like to access. It is not easy to print reports directly from Vend.

Pros

It was easy to set up the system. It works with our website thru Shopify app. The system is user friendly for the staff, so learning curve is brief.

Cons

Not good for tipped services, did not have untaxable sales calculation for first year i used it, does not sync well with QBO, delay in customer service response time.

Pros

Vend is an excellent and fail-safe POS for small businesses. While data entry and inventory search functionality is generally a breeze, depending on the nature of your business or inventory, you may run into difficulties keeping categories of products isolated from one another. Stock orders are a breeze and staff is very helpful.

Cons

I only wish the interface was a little more malleable and user customizable as it seems that it's slowly being tailored to best suit its most standard applications, rather than oriented towards creative retail pursuits with singular demands.

Pros

There really was no learning curve. Super easy to put in new products and very easy for my salesmen to use.

Cons

Few things that I would like to see: better functions to help organize clients and give my salesmen tasks to contact people. Also, I would like for there to be a way to force entry of the clients name on each sale. (probably just need people who do what they are supposed to do....). Customer service is not accesible by phone and this is sometimes difficult.

Pros

Vend has the ability to do almost anything, it just is not intitutive in many ways. Vends inventory entry method worked well. They gave a discount for paying ahead.

Cons

Their Layby program(Lay a way)it just was not good. We asked for help and did not get it. Also it would lose sales tickets from time to time. Also the drawer check out did not give all the info you would expect. There were many ways to make things happen and that would confuse people as to how to do something. I think it is good software but just did not fit us as we were at odds with it many days. We never did get it to interface with Quick Books online.