We were delighted to speak at Retail, Reimagined alongside Kubix about our experience implementing Shopify POS for OKA.

Over the last nine months, we have worked closely with the OKA team, Kubix and Vervaunt to implement Shopify POS across OKA’s 15-store estate. With a comprehensive set of integrations between Shopify POS, NetSuite and Salesforce, the new EPOS system delivered a range of multi-channel functionality from launch.

The system has been positively embraced by store teams and is already showing signs of commercial and operational benefit.

Shopify POS in a multi-channel retail environment

Shopify POS offers outstanding value for money if you can work with its current capabilities and limitations. For retailers with established store processes, ERP dependencies and customer data requirements, that means careful planning across configuration, training and back-office integrations.

The OKA project was a good example of where the POS implementation itself and the integration design had to move together. Store teams needed a practical in-store experience, while the wider business needed reliable data flows across Shopify, NetSuite and Salesforce.

What the integrations supported

For OKA, we were pleased to deliver integrations that supported:

  • In-store sales, returns and exchanges
  • Web returns in store
  • Endless Aisle: ordering in store for delivery from the warehouse
  • A unified view of customers and order history across stores and web
  • Pre-order and backorder from web or store
  • Product and inventory data synced from NetSuite in near real-time
  • Trade customer sign-up and ordering processes
  • Trade draft order processes, split across Shopify and NetSuite
  • Bi-directional customer sync between Shopify and back-office systems
  • Stock taking and stock adjustments
  • Stock transfers

Lessons from the launch

Successful Shopify POS projects depend on more than switching on a till system. The value comes from making the store experience, e-commerce platform and back-office systems work as one joined-up retail operation.

For OKA, that meant aligning store workflows with Shopify POS capabilities, designing the right NetSuite and Salesforce integrations, and supporting teams through the operational change. With the platform now live across the estate, it is exciting to see the early benefits starting to come through.