osCommerce as store POS

[e69acf]

I have several kiosk's in malls and I'm looking for a POS system. I've used osCommerce for online stores in the past, and I feel it would be perfect for my kiosk setup. Has this been done in the past for other physical stores?

 

What I need to help streamline this: (this may be done, I just haven't found them yet)

- ability to open a cash drawer on checkout (should be basic enough with a VB script)

- ability to print off receipt automatically (I should be able to knock this out easy enough)

- add a clerk # to the sale (if i add a col in the db how bad is the effect going to be?)

- a cash payment module where you enter the amount the customer gives and it tells how much to give them back

- discounts determined by items being bought (ex. item 1 & item 2 = $10 discount )

- ability for clerks to override pricing at checkout time

- more canned or custom reports (no issues to build myself, just wondering what's out there already)

 

I think that osc is the perfect solution to small physical businesses, and with a few minor additions it can work great. For me with kiosk's all over Canada and the US i can manage inventory, sales, pricing and just about everything from anywhere in the world .. how cool would that be coming from an open source solution.

[kgt]

There are a few other open source solutions which I think will probably work better. OSC is truly intended as an online shopping cart, whereas there are other systems designed more for point of sale. Take a look at the following two projects:

 

http://www.sql-ledger.org/

http://www.opentaps.org/

 

SQL Ledger has a sales form that does most of what you want already. Open taps has both an online shopping cart and a true POS application. There are plenty of others out there, but these are two that I remember being very impressed with.

[e69acf]

Thanks for the feedback

[e69acf]

I've figured this one out ... almost

 

- The customer account is now my sales person account. This way I can keep their personal information, along with all their sales.

 

- I changed the shipping section into the discount section. Now you can pick which option you want and it adds a negative dollar amount to the final order. (thank you osc guys for allowing - values)

 

- on the payment page I created simple payment types for visa, mc, debit, etc. (for straight cash I'm working on a simple popup window that can let the sales clerk enter the given amount and find calculate the exact change, for now a calculator is perfect).

 

This takes care of almost everything to setup a basic instore POS by using OSC.

 

 

Things I need to do now are:

 

- find away to have OSC open a usb enabled cash drawer (for now a lock and key are fine)

 

- hook up a recipit printer and modify the invoice to fit nicely on there (not sure what the temp solution for this is going to be yet. The cc and debit give their own slips, but cash is the problem .. hand writen maybe lol)

 

Any comments or input on this setup would be awesome. My reason for using OSC is mainly for the ablity to find items i nthe inventory by image and search. Also, because we have kiosk's from the east coast all the way to the west and osc is awesome for tracking invenoty from anywhere.

[johnson4]

Im interested in hearing about how things are going with this project.

I would like to have similar features.

 

HAs anyone tryed this http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contri...h,point+of+sale

Or can anyone comment on how well it works?

Thanks

[e69acf]

I'm still working out the final details before going live. I think it's going to work. Right now I'm working on the receipt printer and cash drawer. I had to make a hack for the receipts, but hey it works.

 

receipts: I built a C#.Net web app for my local host which execpts the order id then connectst o MySQL to get data, then through sending commands to dos (Echo "something" >> lpt1) I print the receipt. My only problem now is that the cash drawer goes through the printer and I can't send the right codes from dos to the printer to open the drawer.

 

- I use customers as my clerks

- I use shipping as my discount section because I have negiatve values in there

- For payment methods I have simple Visa, MC, etc. there. I'm working on a simple text box for cash value and printing return change on the receipt. One issue here is customers that use two payment methods.

 

 

I'll post back once I go live and give an update to how all is going. Wish me luck and lets hope this is a step to bringing osc beyond the web.

[johnson4]

Sound great.

I think I'd be content to use a desktop printer in my situation, but it will be seamless when you finish it up.

I look forward to hearing how it goes.

sj

[Gil_e_n]

I just wanted to say that this sounds like a really interesting project. Good luck.