The 8 Best Retail CRM Software Solutions

Customer relationship management (CRM) software for retail businesses offers solutions to manage products and inventory as well as process orders and payments—for brick-and-mortar and ecommerce stores. Retail CRM software is either a point-of-sale (POS) tool that offers customer management features or a standalone CRM that can be easily integrated with a third-party POS system.

We looked at dozens of providers that work best for retail businesses and narrowed it down to the top eight options. Check out our top picks below:

• Square POS: Best overall retail CRM and POS with excellent mobile app for users on the go
• Bitrix24: Great CRM solution for users wanting free ecommerce store capabilities that can be integrated with a POS tool
• HubSpot CRM: Excellent choice for businesses that need robust email marketing tools
• Shopify: Integrated CRM and POS that’s an ideal choice for users who utilize social media to sell to their customers
• Vend: Best user-friendly POS and retail CRM with strong brick-and-mortar store management capabilities
• Lightspeed Retail: Solid option for businesses that use loyalty programs to retain and expand their customer base
• Zoho CRM Plus: Great pick for users who need strong analytics tools to understand customer behaviors
• QuickBooks Commerce: Excellent option for users who need extensive accounting features in their retail CRM

Best Retail CRM Software Compared

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*$23 per month for each additional user
**$69 per month with the use of a payment processing tool

If this list of retail CRMs doesn’t meet your business needs, check out our guide on the best CRMs for small businesses to find a more suitable option. You may also check out our guide on the best POS software for small businesses.

Square POS: Best Overall Retail CRM With Excellent Mobile App Capabilities

Square is a free POS system that offers robust mobile functions—making it a great choice for users on the go. It is available on iOS or Android, has offline payment processing, can send email and text receipts, and adds and syncs unlimited mobile registers. Users can view sales reports from any mobile or tablet device. Square also offers a Square terminal mobile POS with functionalities that include contactless payments and invoicing for brick-and-mortar stores.

However, Square’s support hours are limited to Pacific Time from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Users who want round-the-clock access to customer support should consider Shopify or Vend instead.

Square Features

Square is a beginner-friendly POS tool that offers helpful retail features like inventory management, staff management, and order processing. Below are some tools that help users grow their business and improve relationships with their customers:

• Customer directory: Store customers’ information, view how they interact with your business, and segment them based on their purchasing behavior.
• Invoicing: Send digital invoices through email or SMS, and accept payments through Google Pay, Apple Pay, credit card, and gift cards.
• Email marketing: Run email marketing campaigns using professional-looking newsletters to offer promotions or discounts, and send updates and announcements to your customer database.
• Loyalty program management: Create points-based rewards programs that allow customers to collect points from qualified purchases and use them to avail of products or discounts.
• Team management: Lets you onboard staff, manage POS permissions, and track their store schedule using the app. It also enables your employees to clock in through the system.

Square offers value-for-money and robust POS features to users with limited budgets who are running a retail business. It is easy to set up and has strong order processing, invoicing, and payment functions. To learn more about this provider, read our Square POS review.

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Bitrix24: Best Overall Retail CRM With Free Ecommerce Capabilities

*Based on annual billing. Monthly subscriptions are also available at higher rates.

Bitrix24 lets users create professional-looking mobile and desktop-friendly stores, allowing them to manage an unlimited number of products regardless of their subscription plan. It offers features like a website builder, invoicing, and email marketing. Its sales analytics tool monitors how your website performs, particularly how your customers behave while browsing your pages—giving you helpful insights into the most browsed products and visited webpages.

While Bitrix24 is a solid CRM for managing online retail, it does not offer any solutions for managing on-site sales. We recommend considering Vend and LightSpeed Retail as viable options for businesses that want in-person point-of-service tools.

Bitrix24 Features

Bitrix24 provides users with extensive tools to manage their retail business, track their sales performance, and provide customer service to their customers. Below are some of the key features online store owners find useful:

• Product and order management: Features an unlimited amount of products and processes an unlimited number of orders straight from the CRM dashboard.
• Invoicing and payment processing: Has built-in invoicing and sales tracking tools in the platform and can be integrated with popular payment processing software, like Stripe and PayPal.
• AI chatbot: Built-in artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot tool for auto-messaging customers in live chats on the website if they have questions or concerns about products and services.
• SEO optimization: Provides keyword generation assistance for search engine optimization (SEO) of landing pages, driving more website traffic.

Bitrix24 is a feature-packed CRM that offers tools to streamline a business’ sales, marketing, and customer service activities. Its pricing plans provide excellent value for larger teams, as a subscription plan covers multiple users. To learn more about this provider, check out our Bitrix24 review.

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HubSpot CRM: Best Retail CRM With Excellent Email Marketing Tools

*Based on annual billing. Monthly subscriptions are also available at higher rates.

HubSpot CRM provides users with tools to manage their products, process payments, and market their business. HubSpot CRM’s key feature is its robust email marketing tools that allow users to create and design professional-looking email marketing campaigns through drag-and-drop functionality. Another standout feature is its capability to process orders and payments through ACH with transaction costs that start at only 0.5% per payment.

While HubSpot CRM offers tools for running effective email marketing campaigns to promote their products, its product management feature is only available in the two most expensive plans. Its pricing options are also on the higher side. We recommend Bitrix24 for users who want access to free product management tools as well as affordable pricing options.

HubSpot CRM Features

HubSpot CRM offers a handful of free sales and marketing tools to help users manage their retail business. Below are the features we like best from this provider:

• Live chat: Use a chatbot or live chat functionality to entertain customer queries about your products and services.
• Facebook Messenger integration: Chat with your customers on Facebook Messenger directly from the CRM platform.
• Stripe integration: Lets you expand the payment processing options you offer customers through its integration with Stripe. Users are required to have an existing Stripe account to use the feature.
• Sales forecasting: Get visibility on potential incoming sales and revenues with forecasting tools that analyze historical sales trends based on factors like seasonality, lead quality, and the number of active opportunities.
• POS integration: Integratable with popular POS systems, including Shopify, Toast, and Square.

HubSpot CRM offers tools to manage leads, deals, and opportunities. It also offers sales automation and tracking features to help businesses monitor their business performance. To learn more about this provider, check out our comprehensive HubSpot CRM review.

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Shopify: Best Retail CRM for Social Commerce

*Based on annual billing. Monthly subscriptions are also available at slightly higher rates.

Shopify offers tools to build an ecommerce platform with strong social media integration. Through Shopify, users can connect their online store to social media sites, including Facebook, Amazon, and Instagram. Users can also enable the in-app purchase feature for a more seamless social media shopping customer experience. Shopify provides POS tools, including order fulfillment, inventory management, order processing, and a website builder.

Shopify doesn’t offer a free plan, and third-party integrations can be pricey (an example is QuickBooks integration, which costs $19 per month). Users who want a free plan can consider Square, while those who prefer free integrations can consider Bitrix24.

Shopify Features

Shopify is one of the most popular ecommerce sites that offers retail-specific functionalities to help users process orders efficiently. Below are features we like best:

• Payment processing: Process payments directly from your Shopify account or through an existing account in payment processing apps like Stripe and PayPal.
• Inventory and product management: Shows all the existing products you have in your store as well as the amount left for each product. All purchases automatically sync, so product amounts are updated in real time.
• Social commerce: Apart from selling using your Shopify storefront, you can also access useful features like in-app shopping, catalog management, and order syncing.
• POS hardware: Provides brick-and-mortar stores with POS bundles, including the actual POS device, stand, card readers, and barcode scanners.

Shopify provides extensive tools for users to create professional-looking ecommerce sites with essential tools like an order management system and payment processing tools. To learn more about what it can do for your business, read our Shopify review.

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Vend: Best User-friendly Retail CRM With Strong Brick & Mortar Store Management Capabilities

*Based on annual billing. Monthly subscriptions are also available at slightly higher rates.

Vend, which is owned by Lightspeed, is an easy-to-use CRM with a wide range of built-in POS tools for managing brick-and-mortar store operations. It offers on-site store owners helpful features to manage multiple stores and locations with its real-time inventory management tools, mobile scanning apps for receiving shipments, demand forecasting, barcoding, and integrated purchase order management.

It also offers a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for beginners and experienced users alike to navigate the system. Vend is easily integrable with other third-party apps, so customer data is synced across various retail software platforms businesses use.

Retail management requires strong mobile capabilities, specifically for delivery, mobile selling, and purchasing inventory. Since Vend has minimal mobile capabilities, businesses may want to consider alternatives, such as Zoho CRM Plus or Lightspeed Retail, to manage their retail store better while on the go.

Vend Features

Vend is ideal for brick-and-mortar businesses with fast-moving inventory management tools that easily track and manage the movement of products and goods. Below are some of the standout features of the platform.

• Customer management: Save customer information in the system during checkout to build your customer database. You can also capture customer details with the option to email them the receipt.
• Sales reports: Download sales reports that show your overall store performance, including top products and salespeople.
• Barcode scanning: Its free barcode scanner app can seamlessly integrate with other Vend systems and scan inventory from a phone camera.
• Ecommerce software integration: Can integrate with WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Shopify for ecommerce capabilities.

Vend is an integrated cloud-based CRM and POS system ideal for businesses with large amounts of inventory or multiple locations, as well as those looking for flexible payment processing. If you want to know more, read our in-depth Vend review.

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Lightspeed Retail: Great Retail CRM With Loyalty Program Management

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*Based on annual billing. Monthly subscriptions are also available at slightly higher rates.

Lightspeed Retail centralizes both online and in-store loyalty programs and can automate email marketing to loyal members through drag-and-drop email creation. Once customers’ emails are captured and enrolled into the system, users can start including them in point-based loyalty programs, as well as offer coupons and promotions based on their purchases. There is also an option to send special deals to VIP shoppers.

However, Lightspeed Retail is not the easiest software to operate, and new users can expect a steep learning curve in the beginning. Businesses looking for a retail CRM solution that is easy to set up and navigate may find Vend a more suitable alternative.

Lightspeed Retail Features

Lightspeed Retail offers centralized inventory management and integrations with various ecommerce platforms. Below are some tools that help users grow their business and improve relationships with their customers:

• Omnichannel customer loyalty program: Lets users track reward points across different purchase channels with an integrated loyalty program, regardless of where they make their purchase. You can also track customer spending and send targeted offers from one dashboard.
• Payment processing: Process transactions through swipe or tap using credit, debit, or gift cards.
• Multistore order management: Track and manage multilocation ordering with centralized purchasing and order management.
• Retail store reports: Has over 50 built-in reports, including store performance, inventory, employment performance, and sales performance reports.

Lightspeed Retail helps brick-and-mortar store owners manage their inventory in a centralized system. It also offers extensive reporting tools that provide detailed information on a business’ sales performance. Check out our Lightspeed Retail review to learn more about its features and benefits.

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Zoho CRM Plus: Best Retail CRM With Excellent Reporting & Analytics Tools

*Based on annual billing. Monthly subscription is also available at a higher rate.

Zoho CRM Plus is ideal for retail businesses—online or brick-and-mortar—that need a reliable CRM with excellent reporting and analytics capabilities. It provides users with in-depth insights and analysis into their customers’ buying behavior and patterns, including best-selling products and geographical location. This allows users to design products and bundles according to their customers’ preferences.

However, Zoho CRM Plus users must pay extra to access ecommerce capabilities by integrating the app and subscribing to Zoho Commerce, which starts at $22 per month. If you don’t want to spend more than the base plan, you can opt for Bitrix24, which offers ecommerce capabilities even on its free plan.

Zoho CRM Plus Features

Zoho CRM Plus is a scaled-up version of Zoho CRM, with advanced functionalities for sales automation, pipeline management, and analytics. Below are some of its standout features particularly useful for retail businesses:

• Omnichannel customer support: Universal help desk that pulls data from various support channels, including phone, email, live chat, and even survey responses.
• Mailing lists: Built-in tools for organizing mailing lists, such as the ability to manage subscribers, create sign-up forms, view email list summaries, and automatically remove unsubscribed email addresses.
• Zoho product suite integration: Integrations with other Zoho business management applications such as Zoho Invoice, Zoho Books, Zoho People, and Zoho Meeting.
• Inventory management: Inventory management tools for keeping track of product stock, vendors, orders, quotes, and invoices.
• POS integration: Integrates with popular POS tools, such as Lightspeed Retail and Shopify.

Zoho CRM Plus’ scaled-down version is Zoho CRM. It is a feature-packed and easy-to-use CRM tool that enables users to manage leads, track deals and opportunities, and predict sales performance. To learn more about its rich feature set, read our Zoho CRM review.

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QuickBooks Commerce: Best Retail CRM With Integratable & Extensive Accounting Features

*Based on annual billing. Monthly subscriptions are also available at higher rates.

QuickBooks Commerce offers retail business owners solid accounting features. It helps users with everything related to retail accounting, including automated bookkeeping, inventory management, and purchase order fulfillment. It also can monitor multichannel online sales as it integrates with Amazon, eBay, Shopify, WooCommerce, and Squarespace. While it doesn’t offer POS features, it integrates with popular POS tools such as Shopify and Lightspeed Retail.

However, QuickBooks Commerce does not have built-in email marketing tools, and it can only be purchased as an add-on to an existing QuickBooks Online subscription. If you are looking for an option with built-in email marketing, a free alternative option is HubSpot CRM, whileZoho CRM Plus is a good choice if you want access to advanced features like A/B testing.

QuickBooks Commerce Features

QuickBooks Commerce enables users to manage various aspects of their business—from orders and inventory to bookkeeping and reporting in a centralized platform. Check out some of its notable features below:

• Inventory management: Offers inventory management features for storing customer purchase preferences, history, billing details, and shipping addresses.
• Warehouse management: Has tools to organize shipping, receiving, and packing requirements.
• Automated invoicing: Monitor invoice status, trigger payment reminders, and automatically match payments to invoices.
• Sales platform integration: Ability to manage multiple sales channels in one platform, including Amazon, eBay, Shopify, WooCommerce, and Squarespace.
• POS integration: Integrates with popular POS tools, such as Lightspeed Retail, Shopify, and Square POS.

There are five versions of QuickBooks Online available. To learn which one suits your needs best, read our in-depth guide on QuickBooks Online comparison.

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How We Evaluated the Best Retail CRM Apps

To determine the best retail CRM systems, we evaluated various aspects of dozens of CRM providers, including general features, pricing, and level of customer support. Users working in retail stores—whether online or offline—need features like product management, payment processing, and email marketing. We also considered POS systems with customer management tools or whether the CRM is integrable with popular POS tools.

We chose Square POS as the best retail CRM because it offers POS software and hardware that allows users to manage their brick-and-mortar or online store. The tool also allows users to process orders and monitor inventories. It has a robust mobile app that lets users email and text receipts, sync mobile registers, and process payments even when it’s offline.

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The tabs below offer more insight into our evaluation process for selecting the best retail CRM: