Opening a small retail store - do I need Square for Retail or can I use Square Point of Sale?

[Lorin]

The title of this thread has been edited from the original: Opening a small retail store 

I’m wondering if I can avoid the $60. Monthly fee and just use the free POS version?

I had planned on printing bar codes for easy pricing and scanning purchase. But that monthly fee is had to accept.

Is they a good option? Anyone have advise? 

[VanKalkerFarms · Accepted solution]

It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish and how you are trying to run your business and what you are selling.

We use the free Square POS and run well over a million dollars thru Square in less than 3 months in our seasonal business.  We only use inventory tracking on less than 500 items and I don't need the extra features of Square for Retail inventory tracking and cost of goods etc as I do all that in spreadsheets.  You can still use a barcode scanner in Square POS, though I don't.

Square for Retail is almost a completely different app as it is all barcode based and does not have the grid item layout for the user interface.  there are definitely reasons to use Square for Retail as it has many features Square POS doesn't.

As for the cost of Square for Retail, $60 is nothing to get the data and information you need that is vital to running your business.  Frankly, if $60 a month can make or break a business then there are larger issues.  It is $2 a day or 20¢ an hour and you will run your entire business thru it.  your electric bill will be 5 times that or more and other things like insurance and leasing etc all are way more costly than the monthly charge.

you can see the comparison between Square POS and Square for Retail here.

Personally, I think to start with Square POS and see how that fits you and then you can always decide to change.  Square POS is constantly improving and I'm quite happy with it, is it perfect no, but it gets the job done.

[TerriLHall632]

What is the difference between standard and retail options?

Is retail only for brick and mortar stores?

[Joe]

Hi there, @TerriLHall632 👋 Thanks for reaching out to us here on the Seller Community! Happy to have you join us here.

I've gone ahead and merged your post into an existing thread of Sellers who were also looking for information regarding the differences between Square for Retail and regular Point of Sale. Take a look at this Best Answer from VanKalkerFarms!

In short, Square for Retail is for Sellers who need organizational resources for hundreds of items. The majority of most brick & mortar stores use our normal Point of Sale software.