Vend

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.