How to Choose a POS for a Phone Shop

Finding the best POS for a phone repair shop: retail or phone shop POS

There are broadly three kinds of system. A general retail POS or payments app takes payments, tracks quantities and prints receipts. It is cheap and quick to start, and it suits shops where every unit of a product is identical. Repair shop software manages jobs, technicians and parts, and may not have much of a till. A phone shop POS combines both, with IMEI stock, repairs, trade-ins and often an online shop.

Some phone shops use a general retail POS for the till and a separate repair tool for the bench, and live with keying the same customer into two places. Others find that the double entry is the cost they wanted to avoid. Decide which you want before looking at screens.

The checklist: IMEI and serial stock

Ask whether each phone is held as its own unit with its IMEI or serial number, or whether the system only counts quantities. Then ask the questions that show how it behaves:

• Can you scan an IMEI to add a unit to a sale, and does the system stop the same unit being sold twice?
• Can you search any IMEI across sales, returns and trade-ins?
• Does it cost each unit by purchase, so that profit on a used phone is real?
• Can stock be deleted, or only adjusted with a record?
• Can you run a stock check by scanning?

How to keep track of phone stock by IMEI explains the record you are trying to keep.

Repairs and the repair board

If you repair, test it with a real job. Can you take a repair in with the IMEI and the fault, assign a technician, set a priority and an expected collection date, attach the parts you use so that cost and profit are known, and see every open job on one board? Can a repair, an accessory and a trade-in go on one receipt? Can customers be told when a repair is ready, and if so by what means?

Trade-ins and part exchange

Ask how a trade-in is handled. The test is whether it is netted off the sale on the same order, whether the traded-in IMEI goes into stock with its cost, and whether you can report on trade-ins afterwards. Ask what checks the system carries out on a traded-in phone, such as blacklist or lock checks, because many do none, and you will need a separate service. See how to price phone trade-ins and buybacks.

Online shop and booking

If you want to sell online, ask whether the web shop reads the same stock as the till or whether it is a separate system you have to keep in step. Ask whether it takes trade-in quotes and repair bookings as well as sales, who sets it up, whether it uses your own domain, and how payments work. A website that shows stock you have already sold is worse than no website. Can one system run your shop and website? looks at this in detail.

Hardware and printing

Check the hardware you own or plan to buy against what the vendor says it supports: receipt printer paper widths, label printers for IMEI and price labels, barcode scanners, a cash drawer and a card machine. Ask which models they have actually tested, and whether they sell the counter hardware or expect you to source it. Ask what happens if the internet goes down, because many cloud systems cannot sell offline and you need to know how you would cope.

VAT and reports

Ask how tax is set up, whether prices can include or exclude it, and whether receipts show your VAT number. If you sell second-hand phones, ask how the system treats VAT on used goods and what your accountant will need from it. Ask what reports there are for sales, margin, trade-ins, repairs and customers, whether you can export them, and how the end-of-day closing works. A closing report you can trust saves hours every week. See the phone shop end-of-day cash up checklist.

Gadgets POS answers the used-goods question like this. Used and refurbished products are kept VAT-free at the till, VAT applies to products marked new, and VAT can be switched on or off for your business. Gadgets POS does not work out the VAT due on your margin, print margin-scheme invoice wording or keep a margin-scheme stock book, so ask your accountant how to record and report it.

Price, trial and support

Ask for the price in writing, what is included, and what is extra: users, shops, hardware, set-up, the web shop and any card fees. Ask whether there is a free trial or demo on your own data, what the contract length is, and what happens to your data if you leave, including whether you can export it.

Ask how support works, how quickly you can expect an answer, and who you speak to. Where a vendor promises something particular, such as onboarding or support levels, ask for it in the contract rather than relying on the web page.

Questions to ask any vendor

• Show me a repair, a trade-in and a sale on one order.
• What happens when I scan an IMEI that is already in another basket?
• Does my web shop use the same stock as the till?
• Which printers, scanners and card machines have you tested?
• What does it do offline?
• Can I send customers messages, and by what means?
• How do I get my data out if I leave?
• What is not included in the price you have quoted?
• Can I speak to a shop that uses it the way I would?

On that list, Gadgets POS does these things: one order for a repair, a trade-in and a sale; refusal of a unit already in another open cart; a web shop that reads the same stock as the till; printing on 58, 72 and 80 mm receipt paper, A4 and Zebra and DYMO labels. It does not work offline, so it needs an internet connection in a browser or in its desktop app. It does not send text messages to customers, although you can email receipts and share them on WhatsApp, with WhatsApp receipts from your own business number rolling out. It does not check IMEIs against blacklists, it has no accounting integrations such as Xero or QuickBooks, and its web shop is set up with our team rather than self-service. If any of those is essential, choose accordingly. If not, see how it works for a mobile phone shop and read our pricing page.