Setting Up StoreBase: Just Your Phone, or With POS Hardware

You don't need to buy anything to start using StoreBase — it runs as an app on the phone you already have. If you later want a barcode scanner or receipt printer for a busier till, generic hardware works too. Here's how to set up both paths.

Option 1: Just your phone (works out of the box)

1. Open storebaseng.store in your phone's browser (Chrome on Android, Safari on iPhone) and sign in, or start your free trial.

2. On Android (Chrome): tap the menu (⋮) and choose "Add to Home screen" or "Install app." On iPhone (Safari): tap the Share icon, then "Add to Home Screen." This installs StoreBase as a proper app icon — full screen, no browser address bar, and it opens instantly from your home screen from then on.

3. That's it. Your phone's camera works as the barcode/QR scanner already — no extra hardware, no extra app. Tap the scan icon on the POS screen and point your camera at a barcode.

4. For printing receipts, you can share/print via any printing option your phone already supports (e.g. a Bluetooth thermal printer app, or AirPrint on iPhone), or simply show/send the receipt to the customer digitally — StoreBase generates a full itemized receipt either way.

Option 2: Adding generic POS hardware

If you're running a busier till and want dedicated hardware, StoreBase works with generic, off-the-shelf equipment — you don't need anything branded or StoreBase-specific.

Barcode scanner (USB or Bluetooth)

Any generic barcode scanner that acts as a "keyboard wedge" (the vast majority of USB and Bluetooth handheld scanners sold for retail) works with zero setup. These scanners just "type" the barcode number followed by Enter, wherever your cursor is — StoreBase's POS screen listens for exactly that pattern anywhere on the page, so you can plug in the scanner, open the POS screen, and start scanning immediately. No drivers, no pairing software, no configuration screen.

Receipt printer (thermal, 58mm or 80mm)

This one needs one extra step, because a browser can only print to a printer your device already recognizes as a printer — the same as printing any other document.

On a laptop/desktop with a USB thermal printer: install the manufacturer's Windows/Mac driver once (comes on a CD or the manufacturer's website). After that, StoreBase's "Print Receipt" button uses it like any other printer.

On Android with a Bluetooth thermal printer: pair the printer in your phone's Bluetooth settings, then install a small print-bridge app (e.g. RawBT, or the app that came with your printer) that registers the Bluetooth printer as a system print option. Once that's installed, "Print Receipt" in StoreBase will list it as a destination.

This one-time setup is a limitation of how thermal printers connect (Bluetooth ESC/POS printers don't have a universal built-in browser protocol), not something specific to StoreBase — the same step is required for any web-based POS to print to this class of hardware.

What works offline either way

Once installed, StoreBase keeps working through a network drop or a power-related connectivity gap: you can keep ringing up sales, scanning barcodes, and printing receipts with no internet at all. Everything you do offline is saved on the device itself and syncs automatically the moment you're back online — refreshing the page, or even a hard refresh, does not clear your inventory or sales history, because that data lives in the browser's local storage, not in a temporary cache.