Retail Reinvented: Inside Shopify’s Game-Changing POS 10 Launch with Ray Reddy

0:01Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, the only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we'll be breaking down retail reinvented inside Shopify's game-changing POS 10 launch. To drop these vibe bombs, I am brought to Ray Reddy and the EO Fire Studios. Ray is VP of retail at Shopify, leading the company's retail business and cheering on local entrepreneurs. With a career focus on leveraging technology for commerce, he previously co-founded Ritual, a mobile commerce platform supporting local restaurants. Ray is passionate about building products to simplify complexity and create new opportunities to help local entrepreneurs win.

0:41We'll talk about what inspired the redesign that became POSX. We'll talk about the ship and carry out feature. We'll talk about how POS helps serves retail staff better and sell smarter, a mistake the retail entrepreneurs make and owe so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Shopify and our sponsors. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20 % off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and use promo code EOfire at checkout. Ray, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:30what's up fire nation I'll say something cliche here just good old-fashioned hard work I was lucky I actually heard it I heard it from maybe another entrepreneur I still remember the line it was something along the lines of you know you can even if you're not like the smartest you know person or team working on something if you just work twice as hard as everyone else you can get really really far and that really like stuck with me and that's that's always how I how I've thought about it like I I really you know there's many things that that triangulate to the same point. The other one is like 10 ,000 hours is the practice that you need to get really good at something.

2:07So I kind of believe all of those things. And I think that's always been my mantra, which is if you're willing to outwork other people, you just tend to get there. Well, Fire Nation, we're talking to the right guy when it comes to retail reinvented. And we'll be really doing a deep dive inside Shopify's game-changing POS 10 launch. Now, take us back, Ray, to the spark of this idea. What was the pain point that inspired the redesign that's now become POS 10? I think we believe that products can always be better. And one of the, I guess, exciting things about working on products is that your work's never done.

2:48And I think customers are wonderful because no matter how good you think something is, they'll always tell you the challenges, the problems, and how it could be better. So I think really this was us taking a look at our product, looking at the feedback from customers. And I think that's what we focus on is like ultimately the North Star is like, how do we make it simpler? How do we make it easier for staff and for stores to run their commerce operation and just make it simpler, make it better, and ultimately help them succeed and win? And I think that's what drives us. Now, I want to talk about specifically the ship and carry out feature, because I want to know what the biggest merchant frustration was that this feature actually solves.

3:36And how do you actually see it changing the way that retailers are fulfilling orders? Historically, staff had to choose between ship to customer or pick up in store at the cart level. And it just kind of forced a very awkward workaround for these mixed baskets. Because, you know, when you go into a store, quite often you might want to buy a few things in store. Maybe there's a few things that are out of stock. And rather than losing the sale, it's actually really powerful for the staff to be able to just add the other item and have it be shipped directly to your home. Now, this was possible. You just couldn't do it as part of just a single transaction or cart.

4:16And so it was awkward. The new flow lets them split fulfillment methods line by line. And so you can ship the bulky lamp and carry out the light bulbs, all in the same order and payment. And I think we see the early users and adopters of this feature just see a lot of benefits. Checkout time for mixed baskets is down meaningfully. That's something we always track is how many clicks, how long does it take for staff to complete these kinds of workflows. So we love to see that time going down, simplicity going up, and just flexibility. And so I think that that's really the goal. And yeah, I think the feedback has been great.

5:07Now listen, Shopify is known for bold moves. I mean, they've been doing it now for decades. So creating a branded in-store experience through POS, I mean, let's be honest, it's a bold move. How can small to let's even just say midsize retailers use this to stand out in a crowded market? It's a really small feature, but I think like the addition of many small things like this matters. It just compounds and it matters. So the way we think of it is like visual trust. When shoppers see the same colors, logos, and topography that they recognize from a merchant's online store, it just builds trust in store.

5:50I think what we hope is and I think anecdotally what we hear is that trust means hopefully better ability to upsell with prompts because the UI could feel more native. And just overall, when you think about the things that stores and staff are trying to achieve, you just think one part of this is some brands care very deeply about just their brand showing up in all of the places and touch points that matter with a customer. So I'm glad that we could do that for those brands that care about that. But I think even for the ones who are less like brand sensitive, just building trust with customers is always important.

6:30And, you know, anywhere we see an opportunity to help retailers build more trust, we try to seize the opportunity. Now you shared a good example with lamps and bulbs earlier, but walk us through another real life example of an actual merchant using POS 10 in a creative way. I mean, in that example, like what happens, what was the outcome? One big one is the upgrade to search. It's faster. It supports fuzzy search. You know, one quote from a home goods chain that has about 47 ,000 SKUs is that search feels like like Google search now. Fuzzy matches work. Fragmented SKUs just work. So I think that's something that stores and staff really appreciate is like, you know, you don't have to type the exact characters to get the match, and you can just find the things you want more easily.

7:27The new navigation, I think, is another large improvement. There was a summer pop-up apparel brand that have a number of seasonal staff. And historically, you know, when navigation and features are a bit more complex, it can take, you know, training and cheat sheets and all sort of stuff. And I was really, really glad to hear that their seasonal staff was able to pick up the new nav in one shift with no cheat sheet needed. So that just kind of speaks to how intuitive it is. And I think that this is something that, you know, stores, staff have a lot to do. and so I think naturally store managers and store owners just you don't want to overburden them with you know new changes and and complex unnecessary complexity and so I think that's another goal of ours which is how do we simplify navigation workflows for staff so so I was really I was really glad to hear that feedback and the last one you know this is another like small one we upgraded the left-hand rail to be able to jump very quickly between orders and products without losing card context.

8:37And, you know, there's another regional toy store that during over the holidays, your staff would have to do this a lot. And, you know, the fact that they can now do that is really awesome. So I think that we also have some telemetry. So, you know, those are like anecdotal sort of feedback from merchants. but the telemetry we have also just shows that search is now able to like surface collections and customers and past orders by almost 40 % that in, in ways that typically would have been these like dead end searches because you, you typed in the wrong character or didn't, um, you know, exactly type in the thing, the thing you were looking for.

9:14Uh, and so that's another thing we look at is like, you know, how many, how many successful searches do you get where you actually get results. And it's great to see that just people are being more successful with what they're trying to do. Fire Nation, we have a lot to talk about. We're going to be talking about a mistake that retail entrepreneurs make with their point of sale systems. We'll be talking about tools and metrics you should be paying attention to when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Online safety and security is more important than ever. And as business owners who market and promote online, we need to be hyper aware.

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10:19Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20 % off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and use promo code EOfire at checkout. The only way to get 20 % off is to go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and enter code EOfire at checkout. That's joindeleteme.com slash EOfire, code EOfire. Ray, we're back and let's be honest. retail staff, they are the front line of any in-store experience. How does POS 10 help them? And how does it help them serve better and also sell smarter? If you really boil it down, I would say for POS 10, I'll say that there's like four big themes that emerge.

11:05One is it's faster everywhere that it counts. And what I mean by that is the navigation just gets out of the way. There's a persistent action bar. So, so common workflows, you know, initiating common workflows like find, add, discount, or exchange just happen with like muscle memory. This is, you know, this is something we really focused on is like, you can just remember where these things are and you don't have to even think about it. And so combined with some big upgrades to rendering and animation optimizations, I think that staff really just feel the speed spike when, you know, those long Saturday lines start to form because you can just see all the items in a cart without having to scroll around and, you know, managers, I think we see that managers just notice that new hires like learn the flow in minutes, not in hours.

11:59So that's one big thing. um the other is just giving staff like more control uh as opposed to feeling like uh you know the ui is in a bit of a maze and so this is this is the the big deal about the left side rail on the on the tablet and the bottom center cart um you're never more than like a thumb or finger stretch away from accessing the cart or products so so context you know is is better and and again one of the most common complaints previously, it's like a very large number of orders actually happened via search, not barcode scanning. And so the big upgrade to search just means that, you know, it's so easy to just find the SKUs that even if you half remember the product name, you can still find it.

12:48And so I think that floor teams, you know, tell us that the app just feels like a competent coworker in the room, as opposed to something that you have to really contend with. Yeah. So I think those are, you know, those are the two things that I think were really like staff focused. And then I think what, you know, what was store focused was again, like getting, getting the branding right on checkout, building that trust and, and just helping, I would say giving more fulfillment flexibility, right? So those are the, those are the two other things that, that were really directed at, at the store level.

13:24Now I want to talk about a mistake that you are seeing or hearing retail entrepreneurs making with their point of sale systems. And how does PS10 help avoid these mistakes? Probably the biggest mistake I see just zooming out is not having a, I'll use a loaded word here, a unified system between your online and your in-store operation. And the reason I kind of, the word unified bothers me a bit is it's going to become one of those words that everyone uses. and I think that there is a difference between things that are sort of like jammed together and they kind of work together versus things that were built from the ground up to work together.

14:17And I'd say this is very unique to Shopify. I think literally every single line of code in the PLS has been written by Shopify employees built to work with a common commerce engine that spans offline and in-store. And I think that, you know, I would say the single biggest mistake is not unifying your operation. And we obviously, we believe that, you know, Shopify is the best platform to do that on. But even if it wasn't, I think that that is a mistake to have these be separate things it's just so much complexity when you don't have a unified customer model. It's not beyond the complexity to your business and your staff.

15:08There's just things that you can't unlock. There's value you can't unlock. And I'll give you an example. One of the most powerful things that the POS can do that leverages online capability is something that we call live lookup. And what that means is when customers come into your store and shop with you, you can actually pull or get access to their personas from online. And the insights that that gives retailers in terms of how to market to customers, their preferences, it's just like a win on both sides. Customers get a more personalized experience. What that means, for example, is imagine that a customer needs to provide their address for a carryout order.

15:56Well, it's part of their profile and a retailer can just access that. So it saves the customer the annoyance of having to repeat information over and over again. But it also means that the retailer can get very significant insights that are coming from their in-store operation, but that are powered by a much bigger platform that understands that a customer doesn't just shop in-store. They shop online in-store. The journey can really vary on how someone discovers products and buys. So to me, that's like, I would say there's one thing that retailers should not do. It's have this like fragmented system.

16:35And I think really unifying has just so many benefits. Now, one quote that I love is what gets measured gets improved. So what tools or metrics should these merchants be paying attention to after they switch to POS 10 to know that it's actually working? you know, staff churn in retail stores, maybe more frequently than other places. And so there's constantly this like, training of new employees problem that happens. And so I think one thing is like, how long does it take to like ramp up a new employee and, you know, train them on the system such that they're using it very effectively. I think that's an important thing overall to measure.

17:14And then the other is, is one of the things that the, you know, POS 10 does is just provides these kinds of metrics around the most common daily actions and how long that takes. So, for example, what we measure, we've seen like a 5 % improvement across the board and cart building time. Now, while 5 % might seem like not a large number, you know, across hundreds of staff, thousands of staff every day, it just matters. It means you're getting customers through quicker. And where it matters is at peak times when your store is really busy. And that's where these 5 % to 10 % gains actually really translate into a difference in the customer experience.

17:57We've also seen about a 3 % improvement across the board in what we'd call complex cart building, which means carts that have multiple 2-plus modifiers, 2-plus products. And then in some extreme cases, we've seen like a 10 % improvement in cart building for some of these very complex carts. So that's kind of how we think about it is, you know, how long does it take to train new employees on being able to use the system? And then for employees who just, you know, this is their everyday workflow. They're checking out tens, maybe hundreds of customers. It just matters that they're able to do it like very effectively.

18:35The last might be the customer experience. Like ultimately, it's that, you know, do customers feel like they get good experience in store, that it's efficient, that the staff have been able to help them find the things they need? We don't fully measure all of that, but that would be another important thing, I would say. Now, Ray, I want to bring the heat as we close up here. Give us one bold prediction that you have for the future of in-store retail and how POS 10 is going to help merchants get ahead of it. It'd be a missed opportunity to not talk about probably the impact of AI and how we're thinking about it.

19:12Ultimately, our belief is that AI is just going to make building software easier. um i i think of it as um in the same way that maybe 20 years ago uh publishing uh or recording a radio segment or uh publishing or creating a video demo required like expensive agencies and expensive equipment and now you can just do that from your phone like anyone can publish a podcast anyone can can can make a you know a video demo of a product and and put it on youtube the tools have been made available to millions to use. And we think this is a great world. It's great for content. We've seen just the proliferation of content in every niche, and this is good.

19:59And I believe the same thing is going to happen with software. What's very clear is that it's just on the same arc. The tools are getting better. It's getting easier. We're seeing people who've never, maybe we're not formal programmers or developers, all of a sudden, they're not able to build complex software. And I think building complex software, you know, big platforms and things like that, that'll always be difficult. But customizing your workflow, changing a UI, building an extension, these things are going to be like uploading a TikTok video. That's what we believe. And so I think that's really the direction, I would say, you know, the aspiration that we have is today, in spite of, even for probably a platform like Shopify that is very, very customizable, probably one of the most customizable platforms in retail, it's still not easy and accessible for the average merchant to be able to do that.

20:59Another way of saying that is often businesses today, just if I were to make a general comment on software, I think businesses today feel like They kind of have to pretzel themselves around the way that rigid software workflows are designed and built. And we're really excited for the world where software adapts to the way that individual businesses run their operation. We think this is a really, really good world, a really powerful world for businesses. So I think that's kind of the direction that we're really, really leaning into. And so when I think of POS 10, the thing that excites me the most is all of the investments we've made in the platform and extensibility.

21:42There's, I don't know, over maybe approaching 10 ,000 UI extensions that, you know, that developers and merchants have built, which is incredible. It just shows, and it's just a growing number, it just shows how easy it is to build and customize your entire POS workflow to your store operation. And we think it's still not easy enough. And I think that's really what we're investing in and trying to make better. How can this POS be the most customizable software that you have for your store that you can really tailor to your operation? Well, Ray, if our listeners are fired up to learn more, maybe even take the next step, what's your call to action?

22:29How can they find out more about POS 10? Shopify.com slash POS, and it'll all be there for you. Fire Nation, you're the average. of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with RR and JLD today, so keep up the heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com, type Ray in the search bar, and the show notes page will pop right up. Also, shopify.com slash POS. Ray, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Awesome, thanks, John. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Ray for sponsoring today's episode.

23:09and Fire Nation. Over the last decade, I've interviewed more than 4 ,000 of the world's most successful entrepreneurs and created a revolutionary 17-step roadmap to your financial freedom and fulfillment. I put it all into my first traditionally published book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, which is a step-by-step guidance that you need to achieve the lifestyle of your dreams. Visit UncommonSuccessBook.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Take control of your data it and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Today, get 20 % off your Delete Me plan when you go to joindeleteme.com slash EOfire and use promo code EOfire at checkout.