Three words get used as if they mean the same thing. Store. Pickup point. Stockist. They do not mean the same thing, and treating them as one is behind a surprising number of headaches: the location cap you hit too early, the stock number that turns out wrong, the checkout button someone told you to switch off.
Sort the three out and most of those problems disappear.
A store
A store is your own shop. You own the lease or the inventory, and Shopify tracks the stock in it. This is a real Shopify location, and it is what native in-store pickup was built for. A customer buys online, picks that store in checkout, and collects the order there.
If it holds your inventory and you fulfill from it, it is a store. Put it in Shopify as a location.
A pickup point
A pickup point is somewhere a customer collects an order, but the stock did not live there. It arrived from somewhere else: shipped in from a warehouse, moved from a store, dropped at a partner counter or a locker.
The customer experience is pickup. The inventory reality is transfer. The thing to get right is that the stock is accounted for where it actually sits, not pre-counted at the point where it is only ever collected.
A stockist or dealer
A stockist is an independent retailer that carries your product. The customer buys from them, in person, with the dealer's own money at their own register. You are not taking the order. You are not fulfilling anything. You hold none of that stock.
This is the one everyone gets wrong, because it looks like a location and it is not. A stockist is a pin on a map that says you can get it here. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Why lumping them together breaks things
Treat all three as Shopify locations and three specific things go wrong.
- Your location limit. Dealers hold none of your stock, but as locations they still eat slots, and you hit the cap over map pins. More in the 10 location limit on Shopify.
- Your inventory honesty. You cannot show a real count for a dealer's shelf you do not control. Try, and you send customers to empty stores. More in the honest way to show dealer inventory.
- Your checkout. Forcing a pre-purchase picker for places that do not need one is how merchants end up disabling express checkout. More in why your pickup app makes you turn off Shop Pay.
A quick way to tell which you have
Ask two questions about each place.
- Do I hold inventory there that Shopify should track? If yes, it is a store. If no, it is not a Shopify location.
- Does the customer pay me, or pay them? If they pay you and collect, it is a store or a pickup point. If they pay the shop directly, it is a stockist, and it belongs on a map.
What to do
- List every place tied to your brand and label each one: store, pickup point, or stockist.
- Put only the stores and pickup points in Shopify as locations.
- Put stockists and dealers on a map, as pins, where they cost you no location slots.
- Match the inventory and checkout treatment to the type, not to a one-size-fits-all setting.
ShopBOPIS keeps your stores as Shopify locations with native pickup and real inventory, and puts your pickup points and dealers on one Google Maps locator, each treated for what it actually is.
Common questions
What is the difference between a store and a stockist?
A store is your own shop, holding inventory Shopify tracks, where you fulfill the order. A stockist is an independent retailer that carries your product and sells it themselves. The customer pays the stockist, and you fulfill nothing.
Should stockists be Shopify locations?
No. A stockist holds none of your inventory and fulfills none of your orders, so it should be a pin on a map, not a Shopify location eating a slot against your plan.
What is a pickup point?
A place where a customer collects an order that arrived from somewhere else, rather than a store that held the stock all along.
How do I know which one my business needs?
Ask whether you hold trackable inventory there and whether the customer pays you or the shop. Those two answers tell you whether it is a store, a pickup point, or a stockist.