Do-It-Yourself Point of Sale Hardware

Did you know that Drupal has a Point of Sale (POS) module that pairs with the widely used Commerce module? That's right, Drupal Commerce is now the full end-to-end platform for a complete omnichannel ecommerce experience. Whether you're running an online store, a physical store, or both, you can do it all with Drupal Commerce!

One of the great things about a web-based POS is that all you need is a web browser for it to work. This opens the door to new POS hardware options. You can use an iPad, a laptop, or anything that has a browser. You don't need any expensive or specialized hardware from Moneris, nor do you need a branded solution such as Square. Instead, you now even have the option to build your own POS hardware for very little cost. Today we're featuring a Raspberry Pi-based prototype that WE built! The whole setup cost about $250 CAD.
Watch the video below, or keep reading to learn more.

As mentioned above, we bought a simple touchscreen and mounted a Raspberry Pi on the back. Once up and running, all you have to do is plug it in, connect it to the Internet, and it will automatically boot up into the POS login screen. If your staff have a problem, all they have to do is unplug it and plug it back in. There's no messing with settings or anything. Just reboot. Easy!

Once you get the hardware working, the display can be used in three different ways depending on how you need it:

Three display views for Drupal Commerce POS

• The administrative view – This view is what the cashier would use.
• A customer display view  – This view shows what the cashier has added so the customer can see the products and prices entered in real-time. Remember: all you need is a browser and something that can display a browser. The customer display is especially easy because it doesn't have to be a touchscreen; you could just use any monitor, a TV, etc, and run it off of the cashier hardware.
• A kiosk view  – This view is basically just running the front end of the site like your customers would do on their home computers. You could set that out in your store and let customers browse products and make purchases.

So, we created a working point of sale for a shoestring budget that could be used in a store (see the video above). Aside from looking a little silly, our example is perfectly fine and works great. Plus, there are endless options for inexpensive enclosures to make it look better. You could even build or 3D print your own.

The do-it-yourself (DIY) route is a lot cheaper and gives you the freedom to do whatever you want. We will post further details soon on how to do all this yourself, including specific links to our components. And remember: it's Drupal, so it's open-source, and all the software is free.