People have been exchanging all manner of currencies for goods and services for thousands of years. However, the ways they shop and pay for what they buy have undergone drastic changes even in the past few years. As you contemplate how to best grow your business, consider what a mobile point of sale solution and a contactless card reader can offer you, your staff, and your customers.
Preliminary definitions.
Before we dive in, let’s review a couple of important definitions. Mobile point of sale systems are hand-held, wireless, cloud-based solutions equipped with technology that allows them to act as full-fledged POS systems. In other words, you can use a smartphone or tablet equipped with the right software to read customers’ cards and ring up purchases while simultaneously integrating with other important business functions.
As the name suggests, contactless card readers are designed to take physical touch out of the checkout process. They use near-field communication (NFC) technology to gather payment information from a customer’s smart card, phone, or wearable device to convey it to the card processing company and other actors in the payments journey. The entire transaction takes place within mere seconds and is kept secure from data breaches thanks to robust encryption and tokenization technology built into the customer’s digital wallet and your reader’s payments software.
Mobile POS solutions and contactless readers are relative newcomers to the payments landscape. However, they have quickly proven their worth and there’s no doubt that they are here to stay. Here are just a few of the most compelling benefits of these payment innovations.
Enhanced portability.
A mobile POS can be easily carried to wherever you want to use it: the sales floor of your store, a sidewalk or tent sale outside your location, a customer’s home, or an exhibit hall just to name a few places. Many mobile POS systems can even function temporarily without a stable internet connection, storing data in an Offline Mode until you can again connect online.
Furthermore, you can harness the system’s product database to answer any questions prospective buyers may have while suggesting complementary items that will enhance their purchase. If your mobile POS has contactless payment capabilities, you can conduct all of your business without there ever needing to be physical contact between you and your customers. In this era of hygiene and safety consciousness, this represents a huge benefit to everyone involved.
If you don’t have a storefront or conduct most of your dealings with customers in their homes, this portability can be a lifesaver. Instead of dealing with inefficient customer checks and phone payments to your staff back at the office, you can take care of the charges via credit card right away. The result is faster turnaround times and fewer late or delinquent payments.
Affordability.
There is no doubt that mobile POS solutions and contactless card readers are easy to carry around. However, that doesn’t mean that they lack functionality. In fact, they cost less than their complete POS counterparts while being able to do virtually everything a small business owner needs.
Simple setup and ease of use.
Now that the use of smartphones is second nature for most of us, incorporating them into your business model in the form of a mobile POS system and contactless card reader is really a no-brainer. Initializing your new system can usually be accomplished in just minutes, and troubleshooting problems is much simpler when you are navigating hardware you are already familiar with. These more intuitive systems mean that you can resolve issues more quickly, often on your own, allowing you to get your checkout process up and running again much faster.
Enhanced security.
As we noted above, your mobile POS system’s software combines with the features built into customers’ digital wallets to help safeguard sensitive data as it travels throughout the payment process. Additionally, customer data is not only encrypted against hackers but also is not stored on your POS tablet, thereby helping to ensure that it is less vulnerable to cyberattacks.
Furthermore, the Android and iOS platforms are designed with security in mind. Frequent, sometimes forced upgrades may seem like a nuisance, but these security measures are excellent strategies that foil criminals’ ever-changing attempts to steal and sabotage data. This environment of security awareness fostered by the major smartphone providers has another side benefit: Your cloud-based software remains updated to the most recent version, thereby running at its optimal level to further protect the data you manage, store, and transmit. All of which limits your liability and safeguards your business.
Faster, safer checkout.
Anyone who has done any in-store shopping has experienced the frustration of the seemingly endless line at the register. How many times have your eyes glazed over as you watched a procession of tortoise-like customers fumble for cash or cards while equally lethargic workers made change at a snail’s pace?
Mobile POS systems equipped with contactless readers can dramatically accelerate the queue at the counter without compromising speed or accuracy. In fact, human error is reduced and record-keeping enhanced with a mobile POS. That’s because every transaction is digitally recorded and stored in the cloud for easy retrieval. Receipts can be provided in their traditional form via a peripheral printer or instantly emailed to the customer, allowing for better accounting practices all around.
Seamless integration with other business software and features.
Although you might think of a mobile point of sale solution as “POS lite”, you’ll never be short-changed when it comes to the suite of features available to you. Perhaps the most compelling is your system’s ability to complete tasks such as inventory, employee, and customer relations management. Because this technology enables you and your staff to interact with buyers in numerous ways and locations that expand far beyond the register, it can actually help you to cultivate and enrich your relationships with those all-important customers.
You may already have a loyalty program that rewards your best customers for their ongoing patronage. With a mobile POS as part of your team, you can use the stored information about shoppers’ past buying histories and preferences to curate personalized product recommendations. Furthermore, you can create customized emails in line with this data to show buyers that you care about providing them with a tailor-made buying experience.
Powerful reporting capabilities.
Your mobile POS stores a great deal of information, making it a breeze to nurture your customer relationships and order the exact items people want. However, that’s not all. This solution also lets you harness these details in ways you can use now and in the future as you continue to grow your brand.
Even now, you might rely on manually produced spreadsheets and reports that are based on hours of poring over receipts and ledgers. Thanks to your mobile POS, you can obtain even better results much more quickly simply by specifying your parameters, making a few clicks, and waiting for the results. What you will get are actionable reports that you can share with staff, partners, and even potential investors. Armed with the information your POS can so expertly provide, you can then check past sales, monitor employee productivity, see what is selling and what is not, and make accurate projections for future inventory purchases.
While buying and selling goods has gone on since the beginning of time, modern technology has streamlined and secured the process in ways no one could have imagined even 100 years ago. If you want to provide your customers with a 21st-century shopping experience while enhancing security and streamlining your internal operations, look no further than a mobile POS system equipped with a contactless card reader. Incorporating it into your operations is one of the most affordable yet important steps you can take to propel your retail operation forward.
