Industry · Clothing boutique
POS system for a clothing boutique in Kenya
A boutique does not sell dresses. It sells a specific dress in a specific size in a specific colour, and the difference between having six in stock and having six mediums in black is the difference between a sale and a lost customer. One quantity per style hides exactly the information the shop needs.
It also sells in two places at once. The rail is in the shop and the photographs are on Instagram, and the same three items are being promised to whoever asks first. Without one stock figure behind both, the boutique either oversells online and apologises, or holds stock back from the website and sells less than it could.
What solves it
Size-then-colour variants
Each combination is its own stock figure, so "do you have this in a 12?" is answered from the system rather than from the rail.
The online shop reads the same stock
The storefront sells from the same per-variant quantities as the till, so the last medium cannot be sold twice.
Variant-level sell-through
See which sizes and colours actually move, which is what stops you rebuying the same dead stock next season.
Markdowns with an end date
End-of-season promotions expire on their own instead of quietly becoming the new price.
WhatsApp product sharing
Send a customer the item with its price and availability straight from the catalogue, which is how most of this trade actually sells.
A worked example: the size curve you keep rebuying
You buy a dress in 24 units — four each of sizes 8 to 18, in black and rust. It sells well, you reorder the same spread twice more over the season, and at the end you have eleven pieces left on the rail.
With one quantity per style, all you know is that the dress sold 61 of 72. The eleven remaining look like a small tail on a good line, so you buy it the same way next season. What the variant data would have told you is that the eleven left are almost entirely size 8 and size 18 in rust: the 12s and 14s in black sold out three times and were unavailable for weeks, while the ends of the curve never moved at all.
That is two errors in one line. You lost the sales you could not fill in the middle sizes, and you paid for stock at the ends that was never going to sell. Buying eight 12s and eight 14s in black and dropping rust in the outer sizes would have earned more from the same money. The information only exists if size and colour are separate stock figures, and it is the single most valuable report in this trade.
- →72 bought across sizes 8–18 in two colours; 61 sold
- →Remaining stock concentrated in size 8 and 18 rust
- →Sizes 12 and 14 black sold out three times — lost sales, invisible
- →Same budget, better curve, more revenue
The features this trade leans on
Each one goes deeper than this page does — start with the first.
An online shop off the same stock
A branded storefront on your own domain, reading the same products, stock and prices as the till.
Stock you can trust
Batch and expiry, serial numbers, reorder levels, stock takes and the formulas behind them.
Prices, price lists and promotions
Wholesale and retail off one product, quantity breaks, customer-specific lists, VAT-inclusive display.
Delivery that pays for itself
Zones with their own rates, so the delivery fee covers the delivery instead of eating the margin.
Questions from this trade
Can I track stock by size and colour?
Yes. Every size-and-colour combination is its own stock figure rather than one quantity for the style, so you can answer "do you have this in a 12?" from the system and see which variants actually sell.
Will the online shop oversell my last item?
No, because the storefront reads the same per-variant stock as the till. The last medium is one stock figure visible to both channels, so it cannot be sold in the shop and on the website at the same time.
Can I share items with customers on WhatsApp?
Yes. Products can be shared with their price and availability from the catalogue, which suits how most Kenyan boutiques sell — a photograph and a price to a repeat customer, rather than a browse through a website.
How do I run an end-of-season sale?
As a dated promotion. Give the markdown a start and end date and it reverts on its own, so the sale price does not quietly become the permanent price, and you can measure what the promotion moved and what margin it cost.
Is the online shop a separate subscription?
No. The storefront is part of the platform from the Basic plan onward and runs on your own domain, reading the same catalogue, stock and prices as the till. There is no separate ecommerce fee and no sync to maintain.
How long does setup take?
A single-counter duka is usually selling the same day. The work is the product list, not the software: import a CSV or let Amina create products from a supplier invoice or a photo of your price list. A multi-branch business with thousands of SKUs, opening stock counts and an eTIMS enrolment should plan a week and run the old system in parallel for a fortnight.
Can I sell online with the same system?
That is the point of it. The storefront reads the same products, the same branch stock and the same price lists as the till — there is no sync job and no separate ecommerce subscription. A web order and a counter sale move the same stock and land in the same report, tagged by channel so you can see which one is actually growing.
What does it cost?
Plans run from KES 1,499/month for a single-branch till to KES 14,999/month for unlimited scale, with the online shop, M-Pesa checkout and KRA eTIMS receipts included from KES 2,999/month. Every plan starts with a 14-day trial and no card. There is no hardware to buy — sell.ke runs on a phone, tablet or laptop you already own.
Similar trades
Try it in your clothing boutique
Fourteen days, no card, no hardware to buy. Import your product list or let Amina build it from a photo of your price list.