It’s a Wild Wild POS World
Re-imaging the POS is where the payments innovation party is at. And today, payments darling Square is the latest player to modernize the POS by introducing a new iPad app that lets the tablet device masquerade as a cash register, too.
Square Register, the name of the new app, offers merchants some pretty impressive functionality beyond accepting payments, including inventory management services and analytics that chart out what times are busiest for retailers, for example, as well as who are the “best” customers. Plus, the app can also wirelessly connect a tablet to a receipt printer and cash drawer. For smaller retailers, the offering should be quite meaningful as the app grants them technology that helps them compete with larger stores.
Typically, convincing businesses to modernize their POS terminals is usually a pretty tough sell. Here’s why: First, small merchants typically do not want to be disturbed from their workdays because they are busy. Second, a new system requires staff training. Third, merchants are skeptical of “latest and greatest” sales pitches because of the lies they have heard in years past. Fourth, if consumers are not demanding new ways to pay, what’s the point of shaking up the terminal setup?
Square Register can address this retailer reticence in a number of ways, since POS terminals aren’t even required of merchants. Though iPads aren’t exactly cheap, their price points are pretty reasonable in the cash register world – especially considering tablets are portable and have much greater utility than simply just accepting payments. Plus, installation is pretty sweet and simple. And Square’s existing technology has been well received to date by smaller businesses. Already, Square is processing more than $4 billion in payments volume a year, reports TechCrunch.
Square certainly isn’t the only one with its eyes on the brick-and-mortar checkout scene, though. PayPal has been trying to infiltrate the space, and just last week retailers rallied together saying they, too, will debut a mobile payments product. Couple those initiatives with other budding digital wallets, and the checkout scene is what every payment player seems to be checking out. Sure, each innovator will cater to specific niches, such as Square gunning the smaller business market, but there’s bound to be overlap, too.
