LS Retail and Shopify Plus: Now Together for the First Time

LS Retail and Shopify Plus join forces to provide the best on ERP and POS. This partnership provides a unique strategic value to LS Retail and Shopify Plus merchants. Consequently, LS Retail merchants will now have access to Shopify’s unmatched scalability.

With 37 years under its belt, LS Retail has become one of the leading providers of POS systems and management software solutions. Their solutions are used in a variety of different vertical specialties including retail, hospitality and forecourt businesses. LS Retail has extensive experience providing ERP retail solutions and matching them to customers’ processes through a world-class consultative service.

So, what does this mean for merchants on either platform? Read on!

The Value For Merchants

Picture it this way: over 5,000 businesses trust Shopify Plus’ ecommerce platform to grow bigger and faster. With over 100 billion dollars in total sales on Shopify Plus, it’s no wonder that the biggest brands worldwide continuously chose Shopify Plus. Shopify Plus handles all the technical legwork of managing your large online shop meanwhile helping you expand your business.

The Power of Shopify Plus for Enterprise

Shopify Plus provides a large variety of solutions designed for high-growth merchants, meeting the unique needs of this subset of eCommerce and multichannel retail businesses including complex multi-touchpoint customer experiences. Some of the features unique to Shopify Plus that meet enterprise needs include:

• More online stores in more countries and currencies: The core of Shopify Plus is the online store. With Shopify Plus, high-growth and high-volume merchants grow faster and bigger and are able to do so much more. From highly customizable digital store fronts, to improving customer experience by creating unique user interactions, to selling from anywhere in the world in many currencies, Shopify Plus is quickly becoming the standard for brands looking to accelerate their growth while working with the best ecommerce tools and Partners on the market.
• Multi-Channel: The multi-channel Shopify Plus solution allows you to launch your products across a variety of marketplaces and social platforms natively, and with just a few clicks, making it easy for merchants to connect with customers through a variety of standard channels.
• eCommerce Automation: This unique solution allows you to automate workflows with Shopify Flow. Shopify Flow simplifies tasks by managing operations within a central place without using third-party tools. It also allows you to increase efficiency by automating complex processes and is used by data integration and automation experts like VL OMNI in junction with our own technology.

Special Features

But there are features to Shopify Plus that specifically attract some of the biggest names online to Shopify Plus—some of the same things that attracted VL OMNI to the platform as a partner:

• Unlimited Bandwidth: Merchants benefit from unlimited bandwidth, fast and furious servers, and 99.98% uptime.
• Insightful Data: Shopify Plus provides you with built-in analytics and reporting on your business performance, no matter how many countries and/or currencies your brand might operate in.
• Ongoing success consultation: Shopify Plus and its dedicated merchant success teams have years of experience managing risks and ensuring long-term project success.

Shopify Plus provides the whole package: The reputation sitting wholly on their cutting-edge ecommerce technology designed specifically with the Enterprise merchants’ needs in mind. In fact, its ecommerce platform and affiliated monthly fees make it very easy* to replicate ecommerce storefronts while maintaining brand unity. Marking Shopify Plus a perfect fit for many franchise models, a currently emerging market for ecommerce (re-)development.

*Compared to other ecommerce platforms that serve a similar market

Shopify Plus and LS Retail were made for each other

“Alone we can accomplish a little, but together we can do so much” – Dadi

Merchants on either platform have been asking for the two powerful platforms to come together to empower merchants via a high-quality Connector to do more.

An Introduction to LS Retail

LS Retail lives by their motto: making business easy. 

LS Retail provides a powerful all-in-one POS (point of sale) with management software systems for a variety of markets, but at its broadest, fulfilling POS and loyalty functionalities layered within an ERP (enterprise resource platform) based on Microsoft Dynamic NAV, Microsoft Dynamic AX and .Net technology.

It’s no small wonder why the brands on LS Retail were attracted to the platform in the first place, and why they continue to sing the praises of LS.

LS Retail Solutions:

LS Retail provides a variety of targeted solutions for specific verticals, including retail, restaurant and food services, forecourt, and pharmacy. With the guidance of specialty consultants world-wide, merchants can feel confident that the right solution will match their needs. Some broad categories that various LS Retail platforms serve include:

• LS One: LS One is easy to learn, customized POS software most commonly used in retail. Businesses of all sizes use LS One as it promotes fast customer service, easily implements promotions and loyalty programs, and can continue to serve your customers even when you’re offline.
• LS Central: LS Central provides a more unified view of the holistic commerce system. Merchants using LS Central can track productivity, sales, stock, and much more, all from one central portal.
• LS Express: LS Express is a POS System designed around the needs of small retailers, and is built on Microsoft Dynamic 365 Business Central. Overall, this platform serves as a POS extension that is natively integrated with many Microsoft Suite products. Its system is serverless and can be used from a variety of locations and countries.
  

With more than 77,000 stores on an LS Retail solution globally, it’s a powerhouse application endorsed by some of the biggest household names in commerce. Many of the brands using LS Retail are fully global and hold to a franchise model where brand identity is carefully maintained, and growth is encouraged and fostered.

Introducing the VL OMNI LS Retail-Shopify Plus Connector

On one hand, you have a powerful ecommerce platform that handles enterprise-level commerce needs effectively and includes tools that power internationalization and brand unity, no matter where and how you sell. And on the other hand, you have a powerful POS and ERP platform that enables brands to provide the best customer service no matter the channel, industry, country, or currency.

One can cost-effectively spin up digital storefronts that are easily unified. The other serves brands with many physical store locations. Together, both are a veritable enterprise-level powerhouse suite of tools for commerce.

“Together in a seamlessly integrated environment for the first time ever. The VL OMNI Connector brings the powerful suite of LS Retail tools to Shopify Plus Merchants—and vice versa”.

Features of LS Retail Shopify Plus Connector

As a trusted serverless platform for agile and scalable eCommerce integration, VL OMNI was presented with the challenge of integrating Shopify Plus to the LS Retail technology ecosystem. While it was a complex and interesting challenge, we’re proud to announce the VL OMNI LS Retail-Shopify Plus Connector is ready for prime time!

Already tested and successfully implemented with an international retailer (more on this to come!), this Connector unifies the strategic and consultative approaches of all three application partners to pool our genuine mission to help multichannel merchants reach new heights.

Merchants on LS Retail, Shopify Plus, or both applications can now integrate LS Retail to Shopify Plus with VL OMNI’s fully elastic and scalable Connector. Merchants can now move data in real-time from a single point to one or many target applications, including both Shopify Plus and LS Retail. Likewise, they can apply business rules directly to data as it moves, and more—all in the cloud and built on cutting-edge technology.

Key features:

• Serverless
• Agile to change
• EU-GDPR compliant
• Business rules engine
• Real-time data movement
• VL OMNI Dashboard

Data movements:

• Orders (warehouse/click and collect)
• Loyalty, including points balance and usage
• Inventory
• Price
• Product Create, Product Update & Product Images