Shopify POS Customization: 3 Use Cases from Top Retailers

Every retailer has different needs. But not every point of sale system is customizable enough to accommodate their unique business requirements—or adapt to today’s rapidly changing market. Unlike rigid, one-size-fits-all systems, Shopify POS technology flexes to ensure your in-store experiences are as differentiated as your brand. 

Shopify POS is extensible by design, so retailers can quickly and easily add custom functionality, features, and workflows best suited to their retail strategy. Whether you want to create in-app surveys, track staff commission payouts, or build loyalty workflow that captures customer attributes—Shopify POS makes it possible.

As a retailer, you can choose from an extensive marketplace of plug-and-play apps built by vetted Shopify partners—or you can develop and deploy your own solutions. Since May 2023, Shopify retailers and partners have published over 1,200 user interface (UI) extensions for Shopify POS. And that’s just the beginning. 

The world’s best retailers build, deploy, and leverage custom functionality in Shopify POS every day. In a recent webinar, Shopify retail experts Nichole Dyer and Ayat Dekis explored three of the most creative customizations we’ve seen from top businesses like Tecovas and Tomlinson’s. Ahead, you’ll get a closer look at how leading brands use Shopify POS extensions to deliver one-of-a-kind customer experiences that drive growth. 

POS UI extensions: Building blocks for customization 

Go beyond limitations with a point of sale system that’s ready to adapt to your needs. Retailers using Shopify POS can maximize functionality, while also saving staff and developer time by avoiding complex workarounds. Shopify POS gives you the power to tailor your POS to your business—whether you have an in-house development team or not. 

Retailers can build custom functionality using POS UI extensions. As the name suggests, POS UI extensions allow businesses to customize the app interface across all surfaces within the Shopify POS system using pre-built UI components and APIs. Retailers can build their own custom apps using Shopify Functions or install pre-built partner apps available in the Shopify App Store. App extensions look, feel, and perform like native Shopify workflows. 

POS UI extensions are fast, so you can get your customization up and running right away. Nichole Dyer, product marketing lead at Shopify, notes that speed of implementation is a top reason why retailers love using POS UI extensions. 

“POS UI extensions can be built, debugged, deployed, and released using the Shopify CLI pretty quickly,” says Nichole. “This rapid prototyping is one of the best reasons to build using UI extensions. You can go from scoping to feature-ready and have an app extension deployed in less than a week.” 

Nichole adds: “Once you have your app extension in your local development server, you can preview your extension in Shopify POS from the developer console by generating a QR code. This way, you can instantly see and test changes as you make them.”

You can go from scoping to feature-ready and have an app extension deployed in less than a week.

 

Types of POS UI extensions

Choosing the right type of extension depends on your businesses’ use case.

Shopify POS offers retailers three types of UI extensions: 

• Smart Grid UI extensions
• Action UI extensions
• Block UI extensions 

Let’s look at each type of extension and how retailers can use them.

Smart Grid UI extensions 

Smart Grid extensions appear on the Shopify POS home screen as clickable tiles. These extensions launch modals that guide store staff to complete actions or workflows. 

For example, let’s say you’re a brand with a customer loyalty program. You can use a Smart Grid tile to surface the app you use to track loyalty points. Store staff can use that tile to quickly see a customer’s point balance at checkout, allowing for a more personalized experience. Staff can also use the Smart Grid tile to send a customer a templated email informing them about how many points they earned with their latest purchase—and how they can use their points toward new purchases. 

Action extensions 

Action extensions display on the post-purchase checkout screen, as well as Order, Customers, and Product index pages in Shopify POS. They surface a full-screen call-to-action modal, which allows staff to complete workflows or perform background tasks. 

Let’s say your brand runs a birthday promotion where each customer gets 10% off an order during their birthday month. So you want to email customers reminding them about their birthday discount. You can do this directly from Shopify POS by using an app extension like Endear CRM and Clienteling, which allows you to send that customer a templated message about their discount offer. 

Block extensions 

Block extensions are in-line extensions that render instantly and surface more information on the page. Some common examples of block extensions include loyalty points earned, customer birthdays, and customer surveys. Like Action extensions, you can add block extensions to the Order, Customers, and Product index pages in Shopify POS.

Block extensions can help your business both display and collect more information. For example, you can use a block extension to add a brief customer survey widget to the checkout screen in Shopify POS. Your survey could empower store staff to ask a quick question like “How did you hear about our brand?” This extension allows staff to easily gather more first-party customer data—so you can build out their customer profile, understand their shopping behavior, and deliver even more personalized shopping experiences in the future.  

3 ways top brands customize Shopify POS

• Tecovas and custom UI extensions for clienteling 
• Tecovas and RFID inventory management
• Tomlinson’s and membership discounts 

Tecovas and custom UI extensions for clienteling 

Tecovas is a western-wear retail brand based in Austin, Texas with more than 30 retail locations and counting. They’re known worldwide for their high-quality cowboy boots. And if you’ve ever watched the hit series Yellowstone, you might also know that Tecovas was a sponsor and partner to the TV show.

The Tecovas brand was born out of an opportunity to disrupt the Western market. Specifically, Tecovas’s founder, Paul Hedrick, wanted to modernize customer experiences in a market that hadn’t traditionally seen much innovation. 

One of Tecovas’ brand mantras is “radical hospitality.” And it’s clear they take that to heart. For in-store guests, the brand offers special perks like complimentary alcohol and boot shines to further enhance the shopping experience. 

To continue elevating its modern take on Western shopping experiences—Tecovas uses custom UI extensions in Shopify POS for clienteling. Here’s a look at how.

Tecovas uses their retail stores to both acquire net-new customers and serve loyal customers. The company knew the key to attracting more customers and building long-term relationships was delivering highly personalized, memorable, and authentic in-store experiences.

And in Tecovas’s mission to be the most hospitable brand in western wear, they needed their store associates to understand their customers deeply, from their buying habits to new products they might be interested in.

So the brand focused on empowering its store associates to better understand their customers by surfacing customer details in real-time, available directly in Shopify POS. With POS UI extensions in Shopify, Tecovas sales associates can get more information about customers right when they need it—like when a customer is at checkout about to make a purchase.

When store staff have customer information available to them in real-time in the POS, staff can improve the shopping experience in a variety of ways. Here are three key examples of how surfacing customer information in POS benefits brands like Tecovas improve clienteling:

1. Providing personalized product recommendations: Staff can inform customers about products they might be interested in, based on purchase history. This not only makes the shopping experience more tailored for the customer but also increases the likelihood of additional sales.
   
   
2. Running effective upselling and cross-selling initiatives: With customer details available right at their fingertips in the POS, store staff can better upsell higher-end products or cross-sell related items. For example, if a customer frequently buys a particular brand of boots, the staff can recommend a new arrival or a complementary accessory, like socks or shoe care kits.
   
   
3. Tracking loyalty program participation: Store staff can use POS UI extensions to help track customers’ loyalty points and purchases across both online and in-store channels. This makes the shopping experience more rewarding for store staff, brands, and above all, customers. 

With POS UI extensions, we’re now able to integrate [clienteling] information natively, right into the POS.

Tecovas and RFID inventory management

Effective inventory management can be a challenge for even the best retailers. And it can be especially difficult when you have 30+ store locations in the US, like Tecovas. The western-wear brand was on a mission to get an accurate picture of inventory across all their retail stores and online channels.

Instead of using standard barcodes to manage inventory—Tecovas deployed RFID technology to improve inventory accuracy and get a clear picture of product stock. Here’s how they did it. 

RFID technology provides highly accurate tracking and inventory data. Unlike barcode systems, RFID does not require line-of-sight scanning. Each tag can be read from a distance and through various materials, which can reduce human errors significantly.

With RFID, inventory can be counted in a fraction of the time it takes with manual counts or barcode scanning. This efficiency can lead to significant labor savings and faster response times in restocking and order fulfillment. Plus, RFID delivers real-time inventory data, so the business can track stock levels with precision.

By switching to RFID tracking, Tecovas increased inventory accuracy to 99.5%—ensuring they know exactly where and how much product they have on hand at any given store at any given time.

Tecovas can also integrate their RFID inventory data into Shopify POS, so they have one clear source of truth for accurate inventory data across all stores. The brand also reaps other benefits of RFID inventory tracking including: 

• Avoiding losses from shrinkage 
• Avoiding stockouts to meet customer demand 
• Increased operational efficiency 

Now with RFID, we're running more than 99.5% [inventory] accuracy in all of our [30+] retail stores.

Tomlinson’s and membership discounts 

Austin, Texas-based pet supply retailer Tomlinson’s also extending the power of Shopify POS. The family-owned-and-operated business was founded in 1946, and runs 18 storefronts across Central Texas.

Tomlinson’s builds customer loyalty through its Pet Club Annual Membership program, a core part of their business that provides discounts and other perks to members. Here’s a snapshot of how Tomlinson’s took their membership program to the next level with Shopify POS customization.

Tomlinson’s faced a challenge: Their old POS system didn’t allow them to create the unique discounting functionality they needed to build long-term customer loyalty with Pet Club members.

Tomlinson’s owner Kate Knecht knew the company needed more bespoke options to engage and reward Pet Club members. So they turned to Shopify POS for its extensibility through Shopify Functions.

Tomlinson’s enlisted the help of a web design agency to build a custom discount app using Shopify Functions, which allows developers to directly customize Shopify’s backend logic. 

Here’s how Tomlinson’s custom Pet Club Discount app works: 

• Tomlinson’s web agency created a webhook that listens for new orders containing the defined SKUs for the 2 types of Pet Club memberships. 
• The app will add/remove the tag(s) for the memberships using REST API. 
• The app will check which tags the customer has, and apply the discounts accordingly.
  
  

This customization enabled by Shopify Functions ensures Tomlinson’s’ Pet Club members always receive the omnichannel membership discounts they’re entitled to—whether they’re shopping online or in-store. 

he app [created with Shopify Functions] gave us discounting functionality we didn’t have with our former POS.

Extend the power of Shopify POS today

Tecovas and Tomlinson’s are both great examples of what’s possible with point of sale. And there’s plenty more customization where that came from. You can unlock a world of possibilities with Shopify Point of Sale customizations—so your in-store experiences can evolve alongside market conditions and your business goals.

Learn how you can deliver one-of-a-kind shopping experiences with Shopify’s one-of-a-kind POS system.