Vend

Avantages

The ease in setting up an online store and having the actual inventory be available is amazing. Being able to set if you want items available online or not is a plus, as being able to set a product with unlimited inventory so that it is still available to order online, even if you physically sell out of the item. This is great for quick to order in products.

Inconvénients

It would be nice to have better integration between my POS system on the iPad, so that I could use a receipt printer and auto-cash drawer without using a PC setup.

Avantages

I LOVE the fact that I can see a photo of the product, since my DIY store is very visually based. I like that it is so easy to add or delete users. This helps when I have staff change and I have to take off employees to add new ones.
I am a very organized person, so the folders really help, along with the color coding of each folder as well.

Inconvénients

I would really like to have more features for the Admin position. I would like to be able to customize the features for what an Admin position would be. I want my manager to be able to add products and be able to do inventory. Also it would be really nice to be able to void out a transaction that has been closed if a mistake was done, but it seems like I have to refund the items first. Sometimes, customers just decide they don't want to do a project after we have done the transaction. It's rare, but it happens.

Avantages

Easy to use, has lots of functions that other software doesn't come with out of the box. A great start to get your business going. It looks clean and the UI is the nicest looking one so far we've seen. They have a free front display app for a second ipad so you can have a customer facing screen.

Inconvénients

Lacking crucial functions to actually run a business. No real reporting, often system goes down. The system lacks any mass editing features unless you export the database into csv and re import it. Not efficient if you need to adjust tags in large batches because the exported CSV file, all the tags are in a single cell.

The system lacks stability, we have been using this system for more than a year and it's been going down on crucial moments. Right now the system is slow to sync to Vend server causing sales screen and transaction not to be processed. This has costed us many sales specially at crucial times.

Their customer service is great, nice and friendly but virtually useless. Not once has any of our issues been resolved. It was either an issue that resolved itself over time I guess they fixed it on their back end or we have learned to just live with it.

You have to pay for individual cashiers. So if we were to want to do an event and have an additional cashier it would cost a lot more than what it's worth to have an additional cashier.

Reporting is very basic. If you need numbers that for example compare data points of last week's sales vs this weeks sales by day vs by hour to know which day of the week is your strong day and which hour of the day is your peak you can't do it. Unless you do everyone stat as an individual data pull then you can get the stats but there is no clean visual display to arrange the data neatly so more work is to be done.

Very simple reporting such as what do we have in our inventory of type A vs Type B to know what we're lacking in inventory is a many step process to pull which results in more work.

Avantages

I like that you can do everything on Excel as I have very good knowledge of excel and CSV file format. As I upload files nearly every day, as our shoes change daily.
Works with Sku well.

Inconvénients

Pricey. Someone who does not know excel well he is in trouble unless he sells the same products forever. No manual provided so no employees cannot look up something they have never done before. Adding products takes for ever as you have click edit to do it. Loss prevention if you add someone on manager role, he or she can steal cash after a sale and receipt given to customer as they can undo cash transaction with no record. I lost several 100 dollars before I discovered this on camera. So now all my employees are cashiers only.

Avantages

What I like about vend its is well designed user interface. But perhaps the most important is the ease of use, you can get the gist of it in about 20 minutes, and for more complex tasks it still would not take long to learn

Inconvénients

I guess it's that for more detailed accounting id have to connect it to another software. so for example i have other expenses like utilities dont figure in the vend reporting, so the GP figures for instance are not fully accurate.