Retail businesses can no longer rely on traditional consumer spending habits. Mobile POS is helping businesses respond to these changes by freeing staff from the counter to capture customer interest and create responsive stores such as pop-ups. Previously, if an item was out of stock, or queues were too long, the sale may well be lost to a busy customer. Now, staff can check availability across their business, place an order and crucially, take mobile payments – all while never leaving the customer. To ensure they are not left behind, businesses must, therefore, find and also invest in the right mobile POS solution.
So, how does mobile POS work?
There are two key ways mobile point of sale works. One is to extend the range of an existing electronic payment system, also known as ePOS, which allows staff to take sales on the shop floor during peak times to ensure that no sales are lost, or outside if you are a restaurant or bar. It can also be used in place entirely of an ePOS system, which is perfect for a small business as it is easier, faster and more cost effective to set up, as well as being more flexible if you are running a temporary sales point for something such as a mobile event. What’s more, they can be integrated with other aspects of your business. For example, if you run a restaurant you can take an order outside and the details can then be sent directly to the kitchen, which reduces time and errors. An obvious bonus for the business on a busy day. Further benefits are the space that a more traditional payment system can take up in a retail space. With less hardware needed, valuable space in your business can be given over to extra tables, stock, and promotional stands. With less hardware also comes savings. The smaller business may not need many electronic registers or the complex software that is needed to handle the payments, and they are more likely to want to adjust their set up as they develop and so need a system that is flexible and works for them.
What else do mobile point of sale systems offer business?
Further benefits of using mobile POS systems are things such as the ability to capture and use additional customer information. For example, you can give the customer the option to email them their receipt, and so request they enter their email address in your point of sale mobile device. This additional information means that you can track a customer’s purchase history, and then look to build customer loyalty through further promotion. If for example, you are a gift store that will regularly sell items for birthdays, then tracking such important dates and then promoting offers to regular customers in advance, is a clear advantage to your business.
As you can see, the mobile payment craze is real! All a business needs to start taking mobile POS payments are a mobile device, such as an iPad, a card validation system and an online-based software to manage the whole process. It can be as simple as downloading an app, with which providers will usually offer a card reader to take card payments, and sometimes an additional hand-held docking station (or ‘sled’) that adds the option to scan barcodes and provide the customer with receipts at the point of sale.