Hike POS Review

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Pros

• Highly customizable
• Designed for mobility
• Excellent reporting and analytics

Cons

• Purchase ordering process can be clunky
• Gift cards and loyalty not included in start up plan

Overview:

It’s a testament to how far we’ve progressed as a society that many of us, in the comfortable first world, actively seek out things that challenge us for enjoyment. We pretend that we enjoy the taste of black coffee or bitter IPAs as opposed to simply being conditioned to enjoying the feeling that comes shortly after they are consumed. We fawn over dissonant indie rock music or acclaimed films where the awful and privileged try and figure out why they’re sad.

And we hike. We deliberately take long ventures over difficult terrain, not because our food source has dried up or to escape a predator, but to look at something for 10 minutes before turning around, or to simply fill up an otherwise idle Saturday. A hike is never something I’ve appreciated as much as I’ve felt I should—until now, that is. Hike, a relatively new POS on the market, is a terrific and ultra-modern program that can function as well for your single-location food cart as it can for an extensively franchised clothing operation.

Hike was founded a little over two years ago out of Australia (which, for whatever reason, has become somewhat of a POS hotbed). In a short amount of time, the company has expanded their customer base to more than 75 countries. The cloud-based system is quick to set up and simple to get the hang of all while offering some extensive inventory and reporting features to aid larger companies.

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Pricing:

You can take advantage of a free 14-day trial. Afterward, if you want to proceed, Hike offers 3 basic pricing systems along with some available add-ons.

Start Up plan:

• $49/month
• 1 outlet
• Unlimited products
• 1 register license included (additional registers are $29 per month)
• Inventory control
• Customer profiles
• Integrations
• Standard reporting

One Store plan:

• $79/month
• Includes everything from the Start-Up plan along with:
• Gift cards
• Loyalty
• Advance reporting
• Advance user performance

Multi-Store plan:

• $129/month
• Includes everything included in the One Store plan, plus:
• Multiple outlets
• 2 register licenses (additional registers are $29 per month)
• Central dashboard
• Central products and customers list
• Multi-location inventory
• Consolidated business reporting

Cloud-based or locally installed:

Hike is entirely cloud based and is compatible with iPads, Macs or PCs. The POS can function online and offline. Offline transactions are synced in the cloud and stored securely

Specific Industry:

With its mobility and ultra-modern layout, Hike has the ability to fit in with virtually any retail store. I could see it working ideally in a clothing or furniture store format with a solid and intuitive inventory system but it’s versatile enough to handle the food industry as well.

It would not be a good fit for a large-scale, multi-store restaurant, but for cafes, food trucks, or smaller, independent restaurants where employees have the ability to interact with customers, bringing the POS directly to the table for easy ordering and payments, Hike could be a very nice option.

Specific Size of Business:

Small to mid-sized businesses would probably be best-suited for Hike. The website claims that the POS can handle up to 100 locations but I think Hike would thrive in slightly more intimate locations. That said, while it is an affordable option for a single-register small business, it could certainly handle franchises, especially given how easily its data and reporting are synced in the cloud.

Hardware and Operating System Requirements:

Hike can be used on any iPad (via the Hike app) or on any Mac or PC computer (through a web browser).

Ease of Use:

Setting up your own store through Hike is a snap. In just minutes, after submitting your email address and the type of business you are operating, you will get to the dashboard where you can start to add products or access your pre-loaded inventory. You can select your language and time zone here as well as the currency you’re using. Drag and drop your logo, and you’re good to go.

On the same screen, you can also add your social media links, add multiple registers, and edit hours of operation. Click on ‘Sale’ and you can easily search and select a product or scan the barcode. Then select ‘Open Drawer’ and select the payment type on an intuitive screen. Here, you also have the option to put the item on a customer’s account or select it for layaway.

The back end is easy to pick up as well. The inventory has simple-to-view tabs for purchase orders, deliveries, and items which may be running low. There is also a convenient tab on the left where customers can be searched or added and then grouped for marketing campaigns.

Features:

As a newer and continually evolving program, Hike offers all of the features you would expect in a strong POS. Here are some of the highlights:

• Mobility: While it’s not entirely unique, the ability to move with your POS around your establishment is a nice option and helps employees interact with the customer base. Hike allows employees to easily display inventory and options on the floor of a business or, with a restaurant, allows for tableside ordering and payment.
• Loyalty rewards: Hike offers custom loyalty set-up. Customers can gain loyalty points by signing up for mailing lists or by reaching pre-set spending goals. Hike’s loyalty program is highly customizable, allowing for certain products to be worth different amount of points for promotions; it takes just seconds to make adjustments to how many points can be earned on the dollar. Customers can easily see their loyalty points and rewards on the screen and these points can be immediately redeemed either in-store or online. It is also easy to track customers and their preferences.
• Employees: Employee management is relatively simplistic with Hike but easy to understand and operate. Hours are easily tracked and can be revised with the click of a button by a manager. It’s also possible to access the schedules around the clock. You can click on an individual employee and instantly see how many hours he or she has worked in a variety of ranges.
• Customer Management: It’s easy to track customers through a simple search system. If you click on the name of an individual customer, profile with basic information on that person will appear. You can easily see how often they visit, what they routinely purchase and how many loyalty points have accrued. All customer records are stored in one system.
• Marketing: Hike has its MailChimp integration built into its system, making email and marketing campaigns efficient and effective. Customers can be grouped and targeted (without excessively trolling them with offers and promotions that don’t apply). It’s also easy to import and/or export a customer database.
• Reporting: Hike’s dashboard for reporting is a highlight of the product. All of the basic analytics for your store are shown on one screen and are updated in real time. Hike offers a wide variety of reports that can analyze customer trends, displaying sales ratios by age, gender, and so forth. Sales reports are customizable and tracking top employees by week, month, or year can be done with a click. It’s also easy to see which individual products or group of products are top sellers for a given time period.

• Inventory: Hike offers a fairly robust inventory management system. The software can handle an unlimited number of products and can be sorted based on virtually any number of variants (size/color/cost, etc.). Hike also offers custom barcode creation for receipts. It’s easy to make adjustments to product lines by simply sorting them and adding pricing changes or promotional information. It’s also easy to track inventory over multiple locations. Tracking and stocking products are also convenient as counts can be scheduled in advance. Hike allows for automatic re-ordering based on inventory levels and shows items that are selling quickly. There is also an option to set up automated reminders and updates. If you need to send items between stores, that information is automatically updated and reported.
• Purchase Orders: This took a few minutes to get the hang of, but the POS system is fairly intuitive once you’ve used it once or twice. You can select suppliers to email and also print the orders to mail out copies if necessary. It’s also easy to track orders online.

Integrations and Add-ons:

With as modern as Hike is, it offers most of the integrations you could come to expect from a strong POS including:

• QuickBooks
• Xero
• MailChimp
• Magento 2.0
• BigCommerce
• Shopify
• WooCommerce
• ePages

There is no additional charge for these integrations as well.

Compatible Credit Card Processors:

Hike is integrated with both Vantiv and PayPal but it also offers a unique custom payment setting that allows clients to sync with nearly any existing card system they might have.

Customer Service and Support:

• Customer Support Channels: Hike has a strong customer support team that can be easily reached by phone, email, or by 24/7 live chat. Their LiveChat reps were responsive within a few minutes each time I pestered them with questions. The company also has a blog with some useful articles although it doesn’t appear to have been updated in over a year.
• Social Media: Hike is active across all forms of social media including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. They appear to be most current on Facebook, offering a few videos and links to articles. There are multiple videos on YouTube (generally under three minutes) that plow through some of the POS’s basic features with an extremely friendly narrator.
• Free trial: Hike offers a 14-day free trial which is easy to set up. Under “What kind of business to you operate?” there is an option to select “I’m just playing around” which I appreciate. It also tells you “You’re Awesome!” every time you complete a function. A sales rep will also personally call a client who has signed up for the free trial at the beginning and the end of the period to answer any questions and/or walk someone through the set-up.

Negative Reviews and Complaints:

With just two years under its belt, there hasn’t been a lot of time for negative reviews to rack up. However, it was truly difficult to find anyone with much criticism for Hike. One comment I found in an otherwise 5-star review was that the purchasing process was a little complicated, a common refrain in many POSs until you get the hang of them.

Positive Reviews and Testimonials:

Along those same lines, while there aren’t scores of reviews online, the ones I found were effusively positive with clients really appreciating:

• Breadth of features
• Inventory functions
• Functionality
• Customer service (a common comment was how willing Hike employees were to answer any and all questions via the phone and chat, which is something that I would echo in my own experience.)
• Appointment booking
• Reasonable pricing

There are also a handful of testimonials on Hike’s website:

“I set up Hike in five retail locations for my client Mattress Barn. After spending a year struggling with a well-known but overly complicated POS software, we luckily found Hike. Hike is intuitive, simple to set up, easy and their customer service is second to none.” – John Pavlakos.

“I would recommend Hike POS to anyone who is looking for an effective inventory and point of sale software that integrates seamlessly with Xero. When I chat with the staff at Hike, they always respond promptly and courteously.” – Greg Hills

“Really like Hike POS. Looked at several systems before deciding and Hike stood out as the best mix of features and simplicity.” – Darren Clarke

Security:

Hike offers some standard security options.

• User Pin: User Pin allows each user to have an individualized number for logging in.
• Open Drawer: There are also Open Drawer options which record information each time the drawer is open, allowing managers to go back and match up the time and amounts in the till with each transaction.
• Monitoring triggers: Hike will send out notifications for specific scenarios that are customizable.

Final Verdict:

The beauty of Hike is that the company is not only expanding rapidly but also evolving at a similar rate. Hike claims it is committed to staying on top of the latest trends in the industry and is routinely updating its product.

Hike’s customer service representatives are quick to respond, knowledgeable, and have the ability to make sure each customer is using the product efficiently. I found Hike’s layout to be sleek and uncomplicated. While its inventory and reporting capacities are as robust as those of most other POS systems I’ve seen, they are also very easy to navigate. With this in mind, Hike could easily emerge as a top contender in a very competitive market.

Our Top Picks for Point of Sale Software 

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