Selling in person with Shopify POS
Written 18 Sep 2026 from Shopify's documentation and Holdback's own tests. Not yet run on a POS device. Before relying on it at a counter, ring up one deposit item on Shopify POS and check it appears on Holdback's Rentals page under "Sold without a deposit".
Shopify POS can't save a card for a Holdback deposit. Holdback's deposit is a deferred purchase option: the customer's card is kept on file at online checkout. Shopify's documentation is plain that pre-order and try-before-you-buy options can't be used through Shopify POS, and Holdback's deposit is the same kind of option. So an in-person sale never has a card saved for a deposit.
What Holdback does about it, so your counter is never blocked:
- Online, Holdback requires the deposit on every product with a deposit rule, so a web order can't slip through without one.
- If you sell in person, Holdback stops requiring it. The setting is on the Settings page, under "Selling in person":
- Automatic (the default): if any of your last 50 orders came through Shopify POS, Settings says so and offers Yes, sell them in person too. Nothing changes until you press it. It's rechecked daily.
- Yes: always sell deposit items in person too.
- No: online only. The deposit is always required, and POS may refuse to sell these items.
Online, the product page still adds the deposit either way.
- Anything sold without a deposit is listed on the Rentals page under "Sold without a deposit", with the order and whether it was in person. No card is saved for a deposit on those sales, so take a deposit another way, for example a card pre-authorisation on your terminal or cash.
Switching the setting updates every product with a deposit rule straight away.
Ordering online and collecting from you
If your customers order on your website and collect the item from you, a deposit doesn't get in the way.
That is worth saying plainly, because Shopify's documentation for this kind of purchase option says pickup and local delivery can't be used with pre-orders or try before you buy. Holdback's deposit is the same kind of deferred option, so the fair assumption is that collection is off the table for a hire. It isn't, and this was checked rather than assumed.
Tested on a live checkout on 23 Sep 2026, on a store with a physical storefront, a location carrying a real address, and both pickup and local delivery switched on. Three carts were taken to the delivery step:
| The cart | What checkout offered |
|---|---|
| An ordinary product, no deposit | Pickup at the shop location, free, ready in 24 hours |
| A deposit item on its own | The same pickup location, with the later charge date still printed, so the deposit really was on the line |
| A deposit item and an ordinary product together | Pickup, and "There is 1 location with your items" |
Two things follow from the third row in particular: a deposit doesn't remove the pickup option, and it doesn't remove it from the ordinary items sitting beside it in the same cart.
So a hire shop can save the card for the deposit online and hand the item over at the counter. Shopify POS can't save one; ordering online and collecting is a different thing, and it works.
One limit on what was tested, so you know what you are relying on: no order was placed through pickup and finished, so only the checkout step is proved.
Local delivery for hires
Holdback hides Shopify's built-in Local delivery on hire items, because Shopify can't edit those orders once they're placed. You can turn this off in Holdback's Settings, under Local delivery for hires.
Shopify doesn't let any app change an order sent by its own Local delivery, so Holdback couldn't release the deposit on one. Holdback keeps Shopify's Local delivery off hire orders by itself, and shows your own Local delivery rate on them instead, for the postcodes you deliver to. Two steps, both yours. First, add the rate: in Shopify go to Settings, then Shipping and delivery, open the zone or market that covers where you deliver, choose Add rate, name it exactly Local delivery, set your price (0 for free delivery) and save. Then in Holdback's Settings, open Local delivery for hires, enter your postcode areas and press Keep local delivery for hires. Everything else you sell keeps Shopify's Local delivery as it is. A cart with a hire and other things in it follows the hire rule.