r/POS

hi everyone, i've been running my convenience store for a few years now and went thru a bunch of pos systems before landing on something that actually works. hope this saves someone the headache

square: easy to set up and great when ur just starting out but once volume picks up it starts showing its limits. payment holds are a nightmare, had my money frozen for days w no explanation. processing fees eat into margins fast and the inventory management is way too basic for convenience retail. no real loss prevention either.

clover: more customizable than square and the hardware options are decent but pricing is all over the place depending on which partner u buy thru. kept having to add apps just to get features that shouldve been included from the start. support was hit or miss and hardware costs more than it should.

lightspeed: reporting is solid and the sales data tracking is good but man its expensive. they push u hard to use their own payment processing and the rates are high. support quality went downhill bad, felt like pulling teeth to get anything resolved. onboarding took forever and felt way overcomplicated for what we actually needed.

supersonic: the camera to pos feature alone is worth it, catches voids and sketchy transactions and jumps straight to the footage w no dvr digging. real time inventory, phone monitoring, tobacco scan data. only downside is its not as instant to set up as square and might be overkill for a tiny single location but for a busy store its the one.

overall if ur running a high volume convenience store supersonic is the most complete. square and clover are fine but once u start caring about shrinkage and margins they just dont cut it. 

Hello! My partners and I are getting ready to open a new concert venue in the U.S. and we are a bit overwhelmed with choices for a POS system.

Between a box office and two bars, we will need at least two cash drawers and 4 terminals. Ideally we would have something that can tie into eventbrite (or any other ticket platform) to manage ticket inventory.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

A Point of Sales that does well managing university student board and meal plans and good overall experience from the system. Thank you.

We’ve been testing self checkout in a couple retail locations and the software side is honestly fine.

What surprised me is how quickly the physical setup becomes the weak point.

It’s not even major incidents… just constant small issues.

Stands getting bumped, cables getting tugged during rush hours, devices slowly shifting over time.

After a few weeks it feels like the hardware matters more than the actual system sometimes.

Curious what people are actually using in real deployments that holds up in busy stores.

I’ve been talking to a few smoke/vape shop owners lately and it’s crazy how many are still struggling with POS systems that were clearly not built for this industry.

Some common complaints I keep hearing:

• age verification slowing down checkout
• inventory nightmare with thousands of SKUs
• barcode mismatch issues
• vendor purchase orders taking forever
• loyalty systems nobody actually uses
• employees giving “friends discounts”
• poor vape flavor tracking
• slow register during rush hours
• complicated compliance reporting

One owner told me they literally keep a second Excel sheet because they don’t trust their POS inventory

Curious what everyone here hates MOST about their current setup?

And if you actually found a POS that works well for smoke shops, what made it better?

Trying to understand what separates a “generic retail POS” from a true smoke shop POS.

I’ve noticed people usually focus on features when choosing a POS system, but reliability might actually matter more long term.

Even small issues like slow syncing, connection drops, or payment delays can affect customer experience pretty quickly during busy hours. Feels like stability becomes more important the longer a business uses the system daily.

Any of you guys are trying Aloha NEXT when it comes out?

Haven't received a lot of info from vendor on this yet. What have you heard on the solution?

"Pei Wei Expands NCR Voyix Relationship to Power POS Across Its Restaurants"

https://investor.ncrvoyix.com/news-releases/news-release-details/pei-wei-expands-ncr-voyix-relationship-power-pos-across-its

What's everyone recommend these days for liquor stores that's processor agnostic?

After they told me they don't give out wifi password I told them they should have a guest network or have a vlan network for the customers of the restraunt to scan the QR code.

ive tried installing it in the past but i get the same error ERC_COMM_ERRO, this is strictly a lab environment as im a big POS nerd so if anyone can help much appreciated

I'm in the process of setting up a boutique play cafe. I'd love recommendations on a POS system to use, is it possible to have something that allows online bookings for clients to use, which will show up on my system/ipad/till, that will also be used in the play cafe for food and drink purchases?

Thank you!

Edit: I got so infuriated finding a legitimate solution i just reverse engineered the app instead of finding an official solution as it was EASIER. I cannot distribute my changes since the code that verifone wrote is probably protected by ip law, but what i can say is that there is nothing stopping you from using dnSpy and claude to reverse engineer and recompile a set of commandline flags into the application. What i cannot tell you is the relationship between ReportManager and the dll in the folder is not important, and it doesn't handle login and you should not decompile that as well to give your model context for how login flow works, so you can generate reports from task scheduler using cmd

OP:

Losing my mind because there doesn't appear to be a way to export automatic end of day reports like i'm used to on Gilbarco systems. Am i boned and the report manager is the only way to get the info out, or is there a way to get any kind of document with department, fuel and plu info automatically at store close?

Some context: I'm designing a bespoke integration for retrieving logs from a couple different POS systems, and then parsing them all to a standard format, then uploading them via api to netsiute. nbd. What i did not expect was it to be nearly impossible to get a daily report out of Verifone Commander systems without using the report manager. which is fine, but management would rather me automate every problem away than train C-Store employees to run reports. Fine, but i don't think i have a way out of automating this one if there's -no- way to get a report

I looked into the online verifone central stuff, and it doesn't have the reports we're looking for there.

Am i missing something? I probably am. Feel free to roast me if it's an rtfm but at least point me to the spot in the manual if you do.

Hey all- bakery owner here in SF, wondering if anyone else has been approached by DoorDash for a POS system?? Wasnt aware this is a product of theirs. Anyone else have a similar experience/tried the product?

Currently using CRE by PC America and honestly there’s a lot that I like, especially the overall layout and flexibility. But one thing driving me crazy is the purchase order/receiving workflow, and I wanted to see what other grocery or c-store operators are using.

Main issues:
When I’m receiving a PO and notice a vendor cost change, I can’t adjust my selling price right there. I have to leave the purchase order section, go into inventory management, pull the item back up (scan or search), and then update pricing.

What I’d love is a system where during PO receiving:
- I can immediately adjust selling prices.
- The system detects cost changes automatically.
- It suggests retail prices based on margin rules.

Other big needs:
- Expiration date tracking/reminders.
- Compatibility with handheld scanners, scales, and PLU lookups.
- Custom barcodes/SKU lookups for produce.
- MUST allow me to use my own processor.

I also want something with a similar layout to PC America, or at least customizable.

Now, another major thing I’ve seen with some systems is that their screens aren’t responsive and they’re slow. Plus, many are too expensive—I just need practical features!

One system I liked best from a demo was Comcash. But can anyone confirm if Comcash allows using my own processor? I also had issues when the power went out—after unplugging the scale and plugging it back in, it wouldn’t communicate with the POS again without calling them. Despite that, Comcash was my top choice if those issues could be addressed.

I’d appreciate any insight or other system recommendations that check these boxes!

Which pricing model makes more sense to you long term?

What was even the point of this premium payment charge rollout? All I’ve seen is pissed off vendors, who were already signed onto eposnow services and might have overlooked a few technical mishaps here and there, who are now saying they will leave eposnow behind.

Has anyone else had any experience with getting eposnow to cancel or defer this charge?