Retail & boutiques
Sell the same stock in the shop and in the chat
A customer messages at four asking if the wrap dress is still in. By the time someone has walked to the rail and back, it has been sold at the counter.
The shop window
She can buy the dress without messaging you first
A storefront link in your Instagram bio opens your catalog. What she sees on it is what is actually on the rail.
@amakastores
Link in bio, or a message
Ankara wrap dress
Size 14 · 12 left
Four tools, four answers
The tools multiply faster than the shop does
It starts with a notebook. Then a card machine, then Instagram, then a second WhatsApp for the customers who want it delivered. Each one was the obvious thing to add at the time, and each one quietly keeps its own version of what you have and what you sold.
Nothing is wrong with any of them on its own. The damage is in the gaps between them. That is where the dress sold twice, the DM nobody answered and the takings that do not match the shelf all live.
The four o'clock problem
What stops happening once the rail and the chat share one record
One stock record, three places to sell
- Today
- Someone walks to the rail to check
- With Tab
- The chat reads the same stock as the counter
Counter, chat and storefront read the same count. The last one comes off sale everywhere at once, so nothing gets promised twice.
Instagram becomes a shop
- Today
- “DM us for price” under every post
- With Tab
- A storefront link in your Instagram bio
A link in the bio, so the followers you already have can buy without waiting for a reply you did not have time to send.
Money that reconciles itself
- Today
- Transfers matched by hand at midnight
- With Tab
- Payment attached to the order it paid for
Card and bank transfer collected in Tab settle as one figure by T+1. Or record what you take on your own machine, and the order still lines up with the money.
Margin, not just takings
- Today
- Bestsellers known, everything else guessed
- With Tab
- Margin per line in the morning report
Cost sits on the item, so you learn which lines earn rather than which ones move. They are not always the same lines.
Sizes and colours
A size 14 in blue is not the same item as a size 12 in blue
Most shop software treats a dress as one line. A boutique does not. The wrap dress sells out in 14 while the 10 hangs on the rail for a month, and a single count across every size tells you nothing you can act on.
In Tab each variant carries its own count, its own cost and its own price. Sell the last 14 at the counter and that variant comes off sale on the storefront, in the chat and on the code by the till, while the other sizes stay live.
Chapman
Bar · Coming off the menu at zero.
Selling from Instagram
The followers you already have are a queue you cannot serve
“DM for price” is a conversation you have a hundred times a week, and a good share of them end without a sale because the answer arrived after the customer had moved on.
Your storefront is a link. Put it in the bio, drop it into a story, reply to a comment with it. It opens your catalog with prices, photographs and what is genuinely left, and the customer can pay on the spot.
- #2041 · WhatsAppChidinma · 2 itemsNew
- #2040 · StorefrontCollect at 6pmPreparing
- #2039 · QR · Table 43 itemsReady
What a shop uses daily
The parts of Tab that earn their keep in a boutique
Variants as real stock
Size, colour and style each carry a count, a cost and a price, so the last one takes itself off sale without anyone remembering to.
A counter that draws down
Sell in the shop from the phone or tablet you already own. Tab is a web app, so the device on the counter is already the till.
A storefront link
Your catalog as a web page for a bio, a story, a status or a flyer. Nothing for the customer to install.
A WhatsApp ordering link
Generated when you finish onboarding. Share it anywhere, and the chat it opens can take an order and a payment.
Card, bank transfer, or your own machine
Collect in Tab by card (NGN or USD), or bank transfer. Or take it on the POS terminal you already have and record the payment.
Cost on every line
Because takings and margin are different numbers, and only one of them tells you what to buy again.
A second shop is a second branch
Each branch keeps its own catalog, stock, team and takings, and you move between them from one login.
Margin, not takings
Which lines earned, not just which ones moved
Every shop owner knows their bestsellers. Very few can say which lines carried margin, because the till only ever recorded what came in.
Cost sits on the item in Tab. That one field turns the morning report from a list of sales into a list of what the week actually made you, line by line, including the fast mover you have been discounting into a loss.
Good morning. Yesterday at Amaka Stores:
- • Beaded clutch: sold out, 9 gone by 4pm
- • Leather sandals: 7 sold, 3 left
Reorder beaded clutches and sandals before Friday.
Getting the shop in
From a spreadsheet to a working storefront
Opening the account takes minutes. Loading the catalog is the part worth doing properly once.
Open the account
Sign up from any browser. There is nothing to install and no hardware to wait for.
Import the catalog
Upload a spreadsheet, or add items by hand if the list is short. Most shops do both: bulk import the bulk of it, then tidy the awkward lines.
Split it into variants
Give each size and colour its own count and price. This is the step that makes everything after it work.
Add cost and photographs
Cost is what unlocks margin in the report. Photographs are what make the storefront worth sharing.
Share your links
The storefront link goes in the bio. The generated WhatsApp ordering link goes wherever you already talk to customers. Both are live the same day you sign up.
Under the counter
One catalog behind the shop, the chat and the link
None of this is a separate subscription. It is one login, one stock record and one set of numbers.
Inventory
Stock levels that move as you sell · Low-stock and reorder alerts · Cost price, selling price and margin per item · One catalog behind every channel
Sell everywhere
WhatsApp ordering · Your own storefront on your own link · QR codes for tables, counters and shelves · Bookings, covers and ticketed events
Get paid
Collect in Tab by card (NGN or USD), or bank transfer · Or collect on your own POS machine and record the payment in Tab · T+1 settlement to your bank · Every payment attached to the order it paid for, with nothing matched by hand · An end-of-day close you read rather than assemble
See what's working
Daily AI report to your phone · Sales and margin by day, hour and item · What to reorder and what is not moving · A customer database you own
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Before you sign up
Where a shop will feel the edges
Better to know now than in month three.
If you only ever sell face to face in one shop and never take an order remotely, most of what Tab does is aimed at a problem you do not have.
You can run several branches, each with its own stock and takings, but Tab will not move stock between them for you. Purchase-order workflows, warehouse receiving and batch tracking are not here either; Tab is a front-office system.
If your business is mostly wholesale, priced per customer with credit terms, this is built for retail sale and will fight you.
There is no loyalty or points engine. Order history per customer is there; a rewards programme built on top of it is not.
Questions shop owners ask
The things people check before they start
- Can I load a catalog I already have in a spreadsheet?
- Yes. Import a spreadsheet, or add items by hand if the list is short. Most shops do both: bulk import the bulk of it, then tidy the awkward lines individually.
- What happens when two people buy the last one at the same time?
- Stock is held against the order that reaches Tab first, and the item comes off sale for everyone else at that moment. That is the point of one shared record rather than three copies.
- Do my customers need to download anything?
- No. They already have WhatsApp, the storefront is a web link, and a QR code opens in the phone's browser. Nothing to install on either side.
- Can I keep taking bank transfers?
- Yes. Bank transfer is one of the methods Tab collects, and it attaches to the order automatically rather than arriving as a screenshot you have to match by hand.
- Do I need to buy a till or a card machine?
- No. Tab is a web app, so whatever you already own becomes the till: a phone, a tablet, or a POS terminal that opens a browser. If you have a card machine, keep using it and record the payment in Tab.
- Can staff use it without seeing everything?
- Team members get their own login with a role, so someone can sell at the counter without being in your costs and your reports.
See how retail runs Tab
Tell us about the business and we'll come back with a quote, or start setting up straight away.
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Run the whole business inside the chat
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