User Research: Making a Business Case for Point of Sale
Point of Sale Checkout, 2021
By adding Point of Sale as a Commerce App feature, Squarespace makes it easy to keep your inventory and customer data in sync, whether you sell online or in person.
As a researcher, I worked with the Commerce product team on planning their roadmap and provided a business case for creating a Point of Sale product. My research built the case around user needs, use cases, and the types of feature requests.
Research
We sourced email and live chat data from our Support team and identified trends using qualitative coding/tagging. We coded for:
When users wanted to use a POS
Specific use cases
Feedback or workarounds
Third-party POS providers
This identified how and why customers wanted to use a point of sale system for their business.
Takeaways
All-in-one Experience
Customers wanted a single place where they can manage their inventory and purchases. The main concern was easily syncing the inventory in their physical store (or at an event) with their online store. Some customers see a Squarespace POS as the solution to this inventory management issue.
3rd Party Integration
Since we didn’t previously offer a POS service, customers expected us to integrate with a company that does, most commonly Square. They wanted to keep their current in-person workflow and set up while syncing inventory with their Squarespace online store.
Other Trends
Inventory Syncing Concerns
These customers mentioned wanting to easily sync inventory from a location with their Squarespace online store. This trend illustrates how the primary issue is being able to maintain their physical and online business in the same way.
Using POS at a Physical Location
Customers were wanting to use an integrated POS at their brick and mortar location that syncs their inventory with their Squarespace store.
Using POS at Events
These were customers who wanted to process credit cards at conferences, farmer’s markets, pop-ups, or vendor events.
Conclusion
With our research, the Product team was able to meet customer needs and they prioritized features that met those needs. Point of Sale was launched to General Availability in November 2019 using the Squarespace Commerce app and an integration with the Square payment processor.