Choosing the right CRM for your retail business can make the difference between one-time shoppers and lifelong customers. For retailers like you, the best CRM combines customer profiles and purchase history with inventory awareness, POS integration, and loyalty capabilities. Not only that, but it needs to be easy for store teams to use during busy service hours.
Why HoneyBook?
At HoneyBook, we’re traditionally positioned for service-based small businesses like photographers, event pros, and designers. However, our CRM software for small businesses provides client workflows, proposals, contracts, and payment features. That means it can also be easily used by smaller retail operations that sell appointments, services, or high-touch products requiring curated follow-up.
If that’s you, and your retail operation blends product sales with appointments, private shopping, or bespoke services, we offer high-value functionality to manage client relationships end-to-end. We’re an AI-powered client relationship platform that centralizes leads, projects, and payments, so you can get more done faster and easier than ever before.
Check Out Our Retail-Relevant Features
We know it’s essential to have everything in one place, so your entire team can work together as efficiently as possible. Especially if you’re in a fast-paced retail niche or you’re looking for opportunities to scale, a one-stop solution is key.
Here’s why that solution is for us.
Single Client Records and Project Flow
At HoneyBook, we store contacts, communications, files, notes, and payment statuses together in one client record. If you’re a retailer running private shopping appointments, trunk shows, or personal styling sessions, those unified client records help make follow-up personalized and frictionless.
Branded Lead Forms and Booking Workflows
For retailers relying on bookings such as appointments, fittings, and private events, it’s easy to embed our live lead and booking forms directly on your site. That creates a seamless way to capture precise appointment details and payment guarantees, and these lead forms reduce back-and-forth and automatically populate client records.
Proposals, Contracts, and Payments Together
At HoneyBook, we also combine proposal creation, contract signing, and payment collection into a single workflow. For retailers like boutiques selling custom garments, made-to-order items, or private events, this reduces friction in closing sales and collecting deposits. We also support payment plans and invoicing automation, which is helpful for higher-ticket retail transactions.
Team Collaboration and Permissions
If you run multiple stores or have stylists and sales associates, we offer the option to create multiple team members and company profiles, with control over who can see what. That matters when you want sensitive client notes available to stylists, for example, but not general floor staff.
Reporting and Basic Analytics
At HoneyBook, our reporting features help you see bookings, outstanding balances, and revenue by client or project, which can be extremely valuable for small retail operations that need quick visibility into cash flow without complex tools.
We’re an excellent fit for retail, especially in some specific areas, including:
- Boutiques offering appointment-based shopping or personal styling.
- Retailers that sell combined product and service experiences, like bridal boutiques, custom furniture sellers, and experiential pop-ups.
- Small teams that want unified client records with built-in proposals, contracts, and payments.
If you’re a retailer looking for the best CRM options for your business, checking out what we offer could help you succeed.
Did We Miss Anything?
It’s important to note that we’re not a full POS or inventory-management platform. If your primary need is seamless POS inventory sync across multiple storefronts, advanced SKU-level promotions, or deep omnichannel reporting, you’ll need a platform that tightly integrates POS and CRM.
Fortunately, we’re still here for you, as we pair well with a POS that handles inventory, while handling the client-facing, appointment, and proposal side.
Other Retail CRM Options to Consider
We know we’re not the only CRM option available, and you have several to choose from. Below are some alternative options to us at HoneyBook that retail teams might choose, and why they might fit your store.
- Shopify, plus CRM integrations like Endear, Zoho, or Klaviyo: These are best for merchants who need a commerce-first platform with built-in online and offline sales sync and CRM integrations. Shopify’s ecosystem supports clienteling and personalized marketing through apps.
- Square for Retail: This has a strong free customer directory, POS-first CRM features, and affordable add-ons for email and loyalty. It can work well for pop-up shops and single-location stores focused on simple CRM tied to payments.
- Lightspeed (Vend): It’s a powerful retail POS with customer profiles, purchase history, and omnichannel tools, making it helpful for multi-location retailers needing deep inventory and CRM alignment.
- Zoho CRM (Retail vertical): This is a highly customizable CRM with inventory integrations, AI assistance, and affordable scaling tiers for small-to-mid- sized retail operations seeking a complete CRM platform. It can work well when you want deep customization and integrated marketing workflows.
- HubSpot CRM: Its free core CRM includes marketing and sales automation add-ons, so it can be a strong choice if you’re looking for email personalization, ticketing, and reporting without heavy POS requirements. You might want to consider HubSpot if marketing automation and customer lifecycle reporting are priorities.
How To Choose Between HoneyBook and Other Options
If you’re looking for a practical checklist, we can help with that, too. There are some great reasons to choose us at HoneyBook, but we also know we might not be right for everyone. How should you decide which CRM is the right one for your needs? Here are a few of the most significant areas to consider.
Define Your Primary Use Case
Are you mainly selling products that require SKU management and guidance on multi-location inventory, or services and experiences requiring appointments, bookings, and proposals? If it’s the latter, we’re the compelling choice for a lot of great reasons. However, if you’re focusing on a product-heavy experience, you may want to prioritize POS and inventory-first CRMs.
Consider Your Integration Needs
List the must-have integrations you’re looking for, like POS, an e-commerce platform, and accounting. If you need a POS and CRM that syncs SKUs and stock levels across channels, then it makes logical sense to choose a commerce-first provider. If you only need clienteling and appointment flows and can run a POS separately, we can slot in and work with the POS system you already have.
There’s no reason to change it if it’s working well for you, and you’re looking to add increased value with additional systems.
Loyalty and Repeat-Customer Programs
If customer retention through a customer loyalty program is central, consider native loyalty features or add-ons. Several companies offer loyalty integrations geared to POS-driven rewards. With us, you’d pair a loyalty platform and sync customer records, so you could get all the support and value we offer along with the loyalty program perks your customers are looking for.
Ease-of-Use and Staff Adoption
Retail floor staff need speed. That means you’ll want to test workflows for transaction speed, purchase history lookups, and mobile access. Our workflows are friendly for appointment-based teams, while POS-first systems are optimized for checkout speed. Both can be vital to growing your business, especially when they’re paired together to get maximum benefits from both.
Budget and Pricing Model
If budget and pricing are significant factors, take the time to compare per-user CRM fees, transaction fees, and add-on expenses like loyalty and marketing. At HoneyBook, we offer tiered plans, with higher tiers offering unlimited team members. That’s in contrast to some POS systems, which sometimes bundle CRM features into a single retail plan.
Take time to review the actual billing math for your team size before making a decision, because many POS options might not be as budget-friendly as they initially seem.
A Quick Implementation Plan for Retail Teams
If you’re looking for ways to get moving quickly, there are excellent opportunities to get your entire team on board as fast and efficiently as possible. To get started:
- Map the customer journey from first contact (web form or in-store sign-up) to repeat purchase and loyalty redemption.
- Choose a primary system (POS-first or CRM-first) and list your required integrations.
- Run a 30- to 60-day pilot in one location or with one sales team.
- Train your staff on lookup and search, adding notes, and loyalty enrollment.
- Monitor KPIs, including the repeat-purchase rate, average order value, and conversion rate from appointment to sale.
Ready for the Next Step in Your Retail Growth Journey?
If your retail business relies heavily on appointments, private shopping, or bespoke sales, start with us at HoneyBook for clienteling, proposals, and payment workflows. Then, connect it to a lightweight POS for your business’s other needs. If inventory synchronization, multi-store omnichannel sales, and built-in loyalty are your core needs, you may want to choose a POS-first system, such as Shopify, Lightspeed, or Square, and then couple it with a retail CRM or integrated clienteling app.
In short, match the tool to your business model. The best CRM for retail business is the one that bridges the gap between your point-of-sale data and meaningful, actionable customer relationships that help your business continue to thrive in the long term.
