Shortly after Shopify was created in 2006, Riess Group became a partner in 2007. At that time, the commerce consulting agency focused mainly on creating online stores for small and midsize businesses. They built trust with their clients by recommending products they genuinely believed in—and from the beginning, Riess Group believed that Shopify was the best.
When Shopify Point of Sale (POS) was released, Riess Group jumped at the opportunity. They had plenty of merchants with an online store who also needed a retail system to operate in their physical stores. “It was a perfect fit to be able to say, ‘You're already on the Shopify ecommerce platform. Let's also get Shopify Point of Sale implemented for you,’” said Mike Riess, owner at Riess Group.
Shortly after, Riess Group’s first big merchant put them on the map. At a coffee shop in Waco, Texas, Mike met with the team at the budding home decor brand Magnolia. They had just finished their pilot episode for Fixer Upper on HGTV. Riess helped set up their website using the blog functionality on Shopify, with the intent to turn on selling features later depending on their success.
As the show soared in popularity, Riess Group and Shopify were there to scale with them. Magnolia launched their online store as well as Shopify POS in their first retail store, and the business took off from there. At one point, to accommodate the registration numbers of their first live event, Riess Group worked with Magnolia to buy up all the iPads in Waco to double their POS capacity in 24 hours.
“They used Shopify POS as their business was exploding from the success of their show, Fixer Upper. They launched their retail store, which was a very small space, and grew into a very large space with over a million visitors every year,” said Mike. “They've been using Shopify Point of Sale since day one.”
With Magnolia’s success came Riess Group’s own growth. Now, they’re a design development and consulting agency that specializes in both online and in-store solutions for omnichannel merchants with a heavy presence in POS. They’ve seized the opportunity with Shopify POS and are running with it—which means they’ve also taken advantage of the two billion dollars that Shopify has invested to close any gaps in research and development.
By being a Shopify partner, Riess Group has achieved:
- 75% of new deals include Shopify POS
- 2x revenue in the last 3 years
- 3-4x larger deal size on average when Shopify POS is involved
The challenge: Bringing Shopify POS to more merchants
Building on the momentum of Magnolia’s success, Riess Group wanted to help other big clients with Shopify POS.
For one thing, Riess Group wanted to encourage many of their large merchants to consider building a retail strategy with a physical presence. They found that even for businesses with millions of dollars in revenue online, physical stores can feel like a big undertaking. To shift this perspective, Riess Group helped merchants try out the idea by creating pop up shops.
“It’s not like they have to go and get a bid to do a… Point of Sale buildout,” said Mike. “You just add this sales channel to your Shopify store, buy the Shopify POS [hardware], login, and start accepting sales.… We’ve had a lot of merchants take us up on that recommendation. And by and large, it’s been hugely successful.”
The pop-ups help merchants both attract new customers and connect existing ones in a new way. Encouraged by their success, they often come back to Riess with requests to customize and expand POS for their business. Riess then offers their full expertise—not just around POS, but also around the strategic importance of having an integrated solution that handles both online and in-store.
"[Merchants stay with] us because they know Riess Group gets point of sale, and this is something that not all agencies get. It's also something when we're pitching new clients that are considering Shopify, and we say, ‘Do you really want to stitch together two software systems? Do you really want to deal with that hassle? And [what if customers] bought online, and they want to return it in store. You have to figure that out now, that's your problem.’ Whereas if you use Shopify, it's just sorted. It just works."
—Mike Riess, Agency Owner, Riess Group
The solution: Becoming the go-to expert
There’s no doubt that Riess is an expert on Shopify POS. In fact, it’s why merchants specifically seek them out. “Part of our success lately, and part of how we’ve exploded growth-wise very recently, is we’ve done so much [Shopify] Point of Sale work. There’s not too many agencies that have extensive Shopify POS experience,” said Mike. “[Merchants] have told us, ‘Hey, we chose you because you guys know POS really well.’ That’s been really cool to see how our early belief in Shopify Point of Sale has paid off because we’re winning these really large merchants.”
The nature of Shopify’s products have also given Riess the upper hand. Not only are the online platform and Shopify POS both industry-leading solutions, Riess can sell merchants on the fact that it’s an all-in-one platform.
"It's a big clicking point on a lot of those deals, and it's a huge reason why Shopify wins. Because they realize, of course it makes way more sense to have the customer data all in one place, the order data all in one place, the reports all in one place, the staff all in one place. We can operate as a business and focus on what matters, rather than trying to Frankenstein together different systems."
—Mike Riess, Agency Owner, Riess Group
As Riess Group’s expertise in Shopify POS has compounded, they’ve also added to the ecosystem. Their developers create apps as well as extend and customize out-of-the-box solutions to meet merchants’ complex needs.
“We've released multiple Shopify Point of Sale apps. We've gotten feedback on how to make it a better user experience,” said Mike. “We feel like the Shopify team has done a great job putting us in front of people, putting our apps in front of people, and has connected us to some really great merchants.”
For example, Riess worked with Magnolia and Warner Brothers Discovery on a way to easily recognize and appreciate their guests who have signed up for a loyalty account online when they visit one of Magnolia’s retail locations. “They've always been very thoughtful about how to ensure guests can have a great, consistent experience across mediums,” said Mike. “From watching Fixer Upper on TV, to shopping online, to a pilgrimage to their beautiful hospitality and retail locations in Waco.” Now, when the staff uses Shopify POS to scan a customer's QR code, the guest receives perks in store, is able to be recognized by name, and feels part of the brand.
"What's also cool is, because Shopify has been sure to make Shopify POS really customizable and really extensible, that's also allowed us to offer additional services. We have a very strong team of backend developers. We're not just [here to] make your site pretty. We also have done a lot of custom development on backend logic, which lends itself really well to Shopify Point of Sale development."
—Mike Riess, Agency Owner, Riess Group
The results: Bigger merchants, more retail opportunities
Riess Group has found their niche. As Shopify POS experts, they’re working with large brands who tend to have at least some sort of physical presence—and those clients lend themselves to being some of Riess Group’s largest deals as well.
"I would say 75% plus of our new deals, our new leads, are at least involving Shopify Point of Sale. So I would say it is absolutely the reason we're growing so fast. It's absolutely the reason that we're working with merchants that are really large and really impressive."
—Mike Riess, Agency Owner, Riess Group
On average, deals that include Shopify POS have been 3-4x larger than deals without. As a result, they’ve doubled their revenue in the last three years.
In terms of what’s next, Riess Group sees nothing but opportunity. “There's two million Shopify merchants. A lot of them have point of sales that are not Shopify POS. It's a huge opportunity to say, ‘Hey, you're already on Shopify. Why don't you just switch over to POS? Make your life better and easier.’”
Riess Group is also making additional investments to support their growing number of Shopify POS merchants. Because they’re now attracting larger merchants, many are looking to build both point of sale and online with a focus on B2B. As these relationships grow, Riess Group is poised to support them in their needs.
“Every day, [think of] how many more merchants come on to Shopify.… As Shopify continues to serve us bigger merchants, a huge percentage have POS. So that's a massive opportunity. I think POS UI extensions and the other ways to customize POS continue to become more powerful,” said Mike.
As for future opportunities with Shopify POS, Riess Group doesn’t see them as exclusive. Instead, Mike encourages other agencies to get involved. “If you're considering, ‘Should we do this? Should we not do this?’ I'm just going to say, if you don't do it, somebody else is going to.… So take that step and add [Shopify POS] to your service offering. Your future self is going to be very happy that you did.”
Watch the entire interview
Watch the full video interview with Mike Riess, agency owner at Riess Group, and Sean Buckley, retail partnerships lead at Shopify, for a deeper dive into the Riess Group story.
