Sell products offline

NewStore allows you to use limited features of NewStore Associate App when the device is not connected to the internet or there is no internet connectivity in the store.

NewStore Associate App also displays a You have no internet connection error message as a banner when the NewStore platform is unavailable or the store has internet connectivity issues. You can continue using NewStore Associate App offline in such scenarios. see Switching to offline mode.

Technical configuration
The following section involves working with technical configurations and APIs. Contact your IT support team for more information.

To enable this feature, see Enabling NewStore Associate App to be used offline.

Currently, when you are offline, with NewStore Associate App you can:

Create a shopping cart and add in-store items
Important
- If you have created a cart and the device is rendered offline during the transaction, you cannot check out the cart. Create a new offline cart to check out the items.
- Electronic Product Code (EPC) is not captured in offline mode.
- RFID reader connection is not supported in offline mode.
Check out the shopping cart
Process payment for the order

After orders are processed offline in NewStore Associate App, they must be submitted when the device is back online. See Submitting offline orders.

Limitations

The following features are not available in NewStore Associate App when you are offline:

Creating or managing customers
Processing endless aisle or mixed cart orders
Processing returns or exchanges
Processing gift card cashout transactions
Manager approvals for orders
Inventory management or store fulfillment operations. For app behavior during full counts in low or no connectivity areas, see this section.
If you are on Associate App v1.66.1 or earlier, you can no longer send email notifications for offline orders. See the deprecation notice.

Choosing a language

Associate App is available in English, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Spanish, and Swedish. To change the language, change your iPhone's language:

Tap Settings > General > Language & Region >iPhone Language.
Choose a language. If the language you selected is supported by NewStore, the app will use it.

Logging in

If you have logged into NewStore Associate App at least once after installing it, you can process offline orders without having to log into the app.

Note
By default, you are assigned to the store that you were last assigned to when using the app in the previous online session. This can only be changed via Omnichannel Manager.

NewStore does not add the ID of the store associate to an offline order in NewStore Omnichannel Manager.

To log into NewStore Associate App, See Logging in.

Switching to offline mode

When the device is offline, NewStore Associate App displays a banner that notifies the associate.

Associates must switch to Offline Mode manually, such as when there are problems with the NewStore server or during checkout, or when the device loses internet connectivity.

To switch to Offline Mode:

Close NewStore Associate App if you are already using it, and long press the app icon.
Tap Offline Mode.

Creating a shopping cart offline

To create an offline shopping cart and add in-store items to it:

Switch to Offline Mode.
Tap Create offline cart > Add product.
Scan the price tag of the item requested by your customer.
(Optional) To manually enter the barcode or SKU of the item instead of scanning, tap .
Note
By default, product catalogs are not available offline. However, you can enable the app to store the catalog locally on the device for product validation when operating in offline mode.
This is only a visual indication, so users may still submit unknown or invalid products.
To enable the app to look up the catalog offline, see Enabling offline catalogs.
Validate or add the price of the item.
Note
The offline data is downloaded when an associate logs in while the app is still online. This means that the offline price data can be outdated. However, you can always manually change the price to specify the correct prices or to offer a discount to the customer even when the app is offline.
To enable offline prices, see Enabling offline prices.
Ensure that the price of the item includes taxes. If the price does not contain the tax for the item, enter the tax rate manually in Tax rate.
The tax amount appears on associated receipts as Manually Entered Tax.
Tap Add to Cart.
The items are added to the offline cart.

Repeat these steps for all the items you want to add.

To remove an item from the cart, swipe left on the item and tap Remove.

To stop the purchase and start again, tap X. All items are removed from the cart.

Checking out an offline shopping cart

The offline cart contains all the items that the customer wants to purchase. After you have added the items in the offline cart, proceed to check them out.

To start the checkout and payment process:

In the Offline Cart screen, tap Pay.
In the Select Payment screen, choose the preferred payment option of the customer.

Choosing a payment option

Choose the payment option requested by the customer. Currently NewStore Associate App supports the following payment options when the device is offline:

Cash: Accept cash.
1. Tap Cash and type the amount paid by the customer. The amount of change that is owed to the customer is displayed.
2. Tap Next and proceed to complete the purchase.
Important
Cash payments do not get logged into the Cash Management cash drawer balances when offline transactions are processed. In order to account for offline sales using cash, customers should leverage the non-sale transactions to add the proper cash amounts to the drawer to aid in drawer balancing and reconciliation once the system is back online. As a common practice, customers typically use the “Transfer In” non-sale transaction with a transaction type of “Offline sale” to add cash to the drawers once their application is back online.
Offline Credit Card: Accept a credit card payment using a credit card reader (or POS device).
Important
The payment service provider must also support credit card payment capture when offline, such as a Standalone Mode for Adyen payment devices. To use Standalone Mode, use supported terminals with a built-in printer, such as S1F2 or V400c Plus. Other supported devices include e285, e355, and V400m, but with some conditions. See Configuring Adyen payment devices to accept offline payments.
To enable the payment device to capture payments made offline, see Configuring Adyen payment devices to accept offline payments.

Sales orders that are processed in offline-mode using offline credit card will not include any payment references in the NewStore Omnichannel Manager view. Reconciliation of sales order and credit card payments will need to be handled manually by matching offline orders and payment transactions within the applicable payment platform.
1. Tap Offline Credit Card and switch to the POS device.
2. Follow the on-screen instructions in NewStore Associate App and accept the payment made via the customer's credit card.
3. After the payment has been captured, tap Complete checkout and tap Confirm. Proceed to complete the purchase.
  If the payment was not captured correctly in the POS device, tap Cancel and restart the payment capture process.

Important
When using offline mode and processing payments using the offline credit card option, NOM will display the Payment Method as “Offline Credit Card” however, the Processor line item for the payment will always display “cash”. This does not impact the state of the cash drawer nor does this get reflected within the cash counts.

NewStore Card Reader: This case applies to retailers using NewStore Payments. During Offline mode, the NewStore Associate App may be able to maintain connectivity to a NewStore Card Reader. If a store encounters a situation where offline mode is triggered, and the store had been previously processing live transactions, iPhones where live transactions have been processed will continue to be able to connect to NewStore Card Readers while operating in offline mode. These iPhones will be able to send payment requests and receive payment information in return. The applicable payment information will be attached to the offline orders - making reconciliation easier. However, in the event a store or iPhone starts it’s daily opening transaction while the NewStore Associate App is operating in offline mode - the Associate App will not be able to connect to the NewStore Card readers. Processing offline credit card transactions in this situation will be able to leverage the NewStore Connect Dashboard for processing stand-alone credit card payments. These payments will NOT be recorded as part of the offline orders processed within the Associate App.
NewStore Connect Dashboard: This case applies to retailers using NewStore Payments. In the event a store or iPhone starts it’s daily opening transaction while the NewStore Associate App is operating in offline mode - the Associate App will not be able to connect to the NewStore Card readers. Processing offline credit card transactions in this situation will be able to leverage the NewStore Connect Dashboard for processing stand-alone credit card payments. These payments will NOT be recorded as part of the offline orders processed within the Associate App. Please refer to this document: Accept in-Person Payments with No Code for instructions on how to process payments from the Dashboard.

Processing returns of Offline Orders

If a customer wants to return an item, initially paid using a credit card when NewStore Associate App was offline, the store associate can leverage these options for a refund:

New Gift card: Issues a new gift card for the refund amount. This option may not be available if your store's policies don't allow refunds to gift cards.
Enter the following details if required by your business and tap Add Gift Card:
- Gift Card Number
- PIN for the gift card
- the customer's email address
New Electronic Gift card: Issues an electronic gift card for the refund amount, which is sent to the customer's email address.
Present Card for Refund: Allows you to swipe the credit/debit card that should receive the refund.
Note
Currently, you cannot enter a credit/debit card number manually to receive the refund.
Original Payment Method: Refunds to the original payment method that was used to pay for the item via an external order management system.
For orders that were paid for via external payment options such as WeChatPay or AliPay, this option is disabled by default. Use the External Payment Method to refund the amount instead.
Important
This refund method only works if the order number for the returned item, from the external order management system, was entered during the return process.
Note
- If the customer used several credit cards to pay, each credit card is refunded for the amount that was deducted from it. - Certain debit cards cannot be refunded without swiping them again. In this case, use the Present Card for Refund option.

Completing the offline purchase

After the customer has paid for the order, to complete the checkout:

Enter the details of the customer. An order receipt is sent to the customer's email address when you submit the offline order later.
Note
- If you do not provide the email address of the customer at this step, no receipts are shared with the customer via Associate App.
- If you are on Associate App v1.66.1 or earlier, you can no longer send email notifications for offline orders. See the deprecation notice.
Tap Done to complete the offline purchase.

Submitting offline orders

When the device is back online, associates must submit the orders processed offline in NewStore Associate App, so that they are uploaded to the platform and visible in NewStore Omnichannel Manager. When an order is submitted, related sales receipts are also uploaded to NewStore Omnichannel Manager.

To submit an offline order, go to ... > Offline Mode, and tap Submit Orders.

Note
The sale is attributed to the associate who submits the orders, irrespective of who completed the offline purchase.

The order is uploaded to the platform. A manager can view these offline orders in NewStore Omnichannel Manager.

Counting inventory in low or no connectivity areas

Associate App does not support inventory management when the app is offline (or when using Offline Mode). However, you can perform Full counts in areas with low or no internet connectivity, if the offline catalog capability is enabled for your business. To enable offline catalogs, see this guide.

Note
When offline catalogs are enabled, the device downloads and caches a local copy of the product catalog (refreshed every 24 hours). This allows product lookup actions during scanning without a live internet connection. Without this capability, the counting module falls back to online product lookup for every scan.

See this table to understand the requirement of an active internet connection during each phase of a full count.

Phase	Connectivity required
Signing in to the app	Yes
Opening the full count task	Yes
Scanning zone QR codes to start scanning items	No Scanning works without internet connectivity when the count is open and the offline catalog is downloaded and available.
Tapping `Complete Zone` to submit the count for a zone	Yes The app does not automatically upload the count when the device is connected to the internet again. You must manually tap `Complete Zone` to submit and upload the count.

If you see No count instead of your active count task, the task hasn't loaded yet. Stay online and pull to refresh.

Important
Tap Complete Zone while online and wait for the green Zone completed message before moving on to the next zone. If you see a red Could not complete zone message, your connection is too weak. Walk to a spot with a better signal and tap Complete Zone again.
When you scan a QR code to scan a zone, it is saved on the device, and are not lost if the screen is locked or the app is sent to the background. However, the scan is permanently erased if you tap Cancel on a zone.
Sign in close to the start of the count. The sign-in session expires after several hours.
If the session expires while you are in a low-signal area, you will need a connection to log in again before you can submit zones. For long shifts, aim to upload completed zones periodically, instead of waiting till the end.

While offline, you can only have one zone in progress at a time. The app doesn't let you start a new zone without first completing or cancelling the current one. Plan your route so you finish each zone before moving to the next.

Some retailers conduct counts at offsite locations (such as storage units) without permanent connectivity. The recommended approach then is to:

Connect to a mobile hotspot or guest Wi-Fi to sign into the app, set up the count and submit the zone (after a count is completed).
Move to the low-signal area for scanning, only after the previous step is completed.

Reviewing offline orders

When submitting an offline order after the app is back online, NewStore validates the barcode or SKU of the items in the order. If the order validation fails because of an invalid barcode or SKU, review the order and re-enter the barcode for the items in the order.

For each offline order that cannot be submitted because of invalid or incorrect product IDs:

Tap Review Orders in the screen that appears when you try to submit an offline order with items that have an invalid barcode or SKU.
In the orders screen, tap the order(s) that displays Resolve issue.
In the Offline Order screen, tap the product that has an invalid product ID.
Note
Products with an invalid barcode or SKU have the Product note found in the catalog. Please change the barcode. hint text displayed against them.
In the Resolve issue screen that appears, enter or scan the correct barcode for the product.
After you have added the correct barcode or SKU for a product, the order is ready for submission.
You can also change the product before submitting an order, if you scanned the wrong item when creating the offline order.
Note
- You can only change the product that had an incorrect barcode or SKU assigned to it when the offline order was created. Products added to the offline order with a correct barcode or SKU cannot be changed. - NewStore does not log the edit history for products in offline orders. When you submit an offline order, only the final product ID is uploaded to the platform. Ensure that you have specified the correct product before submission.
Tap Submit Order to submit the offline order, then tap Close in the screen that appears when the order is submitted successfully.

The order is uploaded to the platform. A manager can

view these offline orders in NewStore Omnichannel Manager.

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