Christmas Market

POS setup and configuration for a Christmas market stall. From an empty account to a full evening queue: the kit, the winter menu, seasonal staff and the nightly close.

What it does

A Christmas market is a market stall with the difficulty turned up. The season is four to six weeks long, the queue arrives at once when the lights come on, the people serving are often hired for the season, and everyone is working in the cold. This guide sets POSolid up for exactly that: a till on the phone or tablet you already own, a menu where a mulled wine with a shot of rum is still one quick sale, a PIN for every seasonal worker, and figures every evening that tell you how to stock the next one.

The short version: a phone, a power bank and a short menu are a complete till. Everything else on this page is optional. If you have not read it yet, Market Stall covers the basics of trading from a pitch; this page adds what is specific to the Christmas season.

What you need

Thing	Why you need it	Notes
A phone or tablet	your till — takes the order and the payment	Whatever you already own. A tablet gives bigger buttons, which helps with cold hands and gloves.
Mobile internet	POSolid is a cloud app and needs a connection while you trade	A crowded square can overload the mobile network in the evening — see "The connection" below.
A power bank	cold drains batteries much faster	Keep the power bank in an inside pocket, not on the counter.
Touchscreen gloves	so staff can tap without taking their gloves off	Cheap, and they make more difference to speed than any setting.
Fiscal printer — depends on your country	required by law in some countries to record sales	A temporary pitch is still a point of sale. In Poland: Posnet, Novitus or Elzab — see Supported Fiscal Printers, or Fiscal Printers in Other Countries.
Optional: a card terminal	most Christmas-market guests expect to pay by card	From your payment provider, works on its own. You record which method was used so your takings reconcile.
Optional: a thermal printer	paper receipts and order numbers	See Supported Thermal Printers.
Optional: a second device	a second pair of hands at the weekend peak	Any phone or tablet with a browser and a staff PIN. Both see the same orders.

"Optional" means your choice — not an upsell. Every feature named in this guide is included in your subscription from day one. The only thing you would spend money on is the physical equipment, and only if you want it.

Getting started

Create your organization — see Create Your Account. Set your country, currency and, in Poland, your tax settings.
Build the winter menu in Menu → Catalog — see "The winter menu" below.
Strip the register down in Settings → Orders configuration: table assignment off, order type selector off, and require payment before accepting order on — at a stall the drink and the money move together. Leave pager numbers on only if you cook to order and call numbers.
Poland: add your fiscal printer and turn on its fiscal option — see Supported Fiscal Printers.
Add your seasonal staff — see "Seasonal staff" below.
Install POSolid as an app on every device so it opens full-screen — see Install the App.
Do a dry run before opening night: one sale of every drink size, one card payment, then find them in Reports.

One button per drink, not one per size. Add mulled wine once and give it variants for the mug sizes (for example 0.2 l and 0.3 l). Extras such as a shot of rum or amaretto are modifiers — see Modifiers. The person serving taps one button and answers one question, instead of hunting through six near-identical items.

Keep it short. A Christmas stall usually sells three to five drinks, a few hot snacks and perhaps some gifts. Put the drinks first, in the order people ask for them, so the best-seller is always the first thing under the thumb.

Mug deposits. POSolid has no separate deposit feature. If your market runs a mug deposit, add it as its own item (for example "Mug deposit") so it is charged with the drink and shows separately in the day's totals. How returned mugs are refunded depends on your market's deposit system — agree the procedure with your staff before the first evening.

Recipes, if you track stock. With Recipes you can say how much wine and spice goes into a litre of mulled wine, and every sale then draws the ingredients down — see Inventory. Over a six-week season this is what tells you when to reorder before you run out on a Saturday.

Seasonal staff

Christmas markets run on people hired for a few weeks, and they need to be selling within minutes.

Give every worker their own PIN — see Quick Access with a PIN and Staff & Roles. Shared logins make it impossible to tell who sold what.
Give them a role that shows the till and nothing else. A seasonal helper does not need reports, the menu editor or settings.
Turn on work shifts if you pay by the hour — staff clock in and out on the same device they sell on. See Work Shifts.
When the season ends, delete their accounts in Staff & Roles so last year's PINs do not work next year.

The connection

POSolid in the browser needs a connection: with no signal you cannot take orders. On a busy evening, thousands of phones on one square can make mobile data slow or unavailable even where it worked fine in the afternoon.

Test your pitch at the busiest time, not when you set up in the morning.
A small 4G/5G router with its own SIM usually holds a connection better than a phone, and every device at the stall can share it.
The Android app (currently in beta) keeps taking orders without a signal and sends them once the connection returns. Download it from the POSolid for Android card on your Profile page. The browser version does not queue orders.

Recommended setup

Minimum — one person, one drink stall

A phone, a power bank and touchscreen gloves. One category of drinks with size variants, payment on. A complete working till that costs nothing in hardware.

Recommended — cards, receipts and helpers

Add a card terminal, a thermal printer if guests ask for receipts, and a PIN for every seasonal worker. Use a tablet if the counter has room for one.

Full — busy weekends, several stalls

A second device for the weekend peak, a 4G/5G router, work shifts for hourly staff and recipes for stock. Each additional stall is its own venue with its own menu, staff and reports, and you switch between them without logging out. A licence covers one venue, so each stall needs its own.

Key things to know

Test the signal at peak time. The afternoon test is the one that lies.
Cold kills batteries. Keep power banks warm and bring more than you think you need.
Variants, not duplicates. One mulled wine with sizes beats three separate mulled-wine buttons.
A PIN per person. It is the only way to know who sold what on which shift.
Poland: print the daily fiscal report before you pack down, not at home.
Compare evenings. The hour-by-hour report shows when the rush really starts, which is what you staff and stock for.

FAQ

Q: Can I pay only for the Christmas season?
A: Yes. The subscription is monthly with no minimum term and no cancellation fee. Start the 14-day free trial a couple of weeks before the market opens to set up the menu.

Q: Does POSolid handle mug deposits?
A: There is no dedicated deposit feature. Add the deposit as its own menu item so it is charged with the drink and appears separately in the day's totals.

Q: Will it work with gloves?
A: With touchscreen gloves, yes. Keep the menu short and use a tablet if you can — bigger buttons are easier to hit with cold fingers.

Q: What happens if the network fails in the evening crowd?
A: In the browser, you cannot take orders until it returns. A dedicated 4G/5G router helps; the Android app (beta) keeps taking orders offline and sends them when the connection is back.

Q: Do seasonal helpers need training?
A: Minutes, if the menu is short. Give each one a PIN and a role that shows only the till.

Q: I run a mulled-wine stall and a food stall. One account?
A: Yes — one login, two venues, each with its own menu, staff and reports. Each venue needs its own licence.