It is an interesting position to take. While PayPal’s M&A team has done an incredible job in recent years acquiring Braintree (which had already acquired Venmo)  and recently adding iZettle, it is unclear which frontier they are poised to win. PayPal started off as a clear leader in online payments, but now has to compete with Square, Adyen, Stripe and others. Their purchase of iZettle indicates they have a real interest in attacking the offline world, but is iZettle enough to fight off First Data, Chase, Square (again), and the myriad of incumbents? Why not buy a ShopKeep or LightSpeed to make sure they can win market share from First Data and Square in the brick and mortar world?

NetFlix dominated the last mile and then began replacing the content providers in a brilliant aggregation move. It feels like Square and PayPal have decided that the comparable play in the payments world is to connect the offline and online markets (see Square’s purchase of Weebly). This makes a lot of sense, but PayPal doesn’t have the brand loyalty of a NetFlix or even a Square.

PayPal’s balance sheet and M&A team appear to provide a competitive advantage to fight this fight and potentially win. In order to do so, they might be stronger by picking up additional customer bases with a great brand and loyal merchants.

The post What Will PayPal Become? appeared first on POSOptions.com.

Are they a cash app? Maybe, as they appear to be growing faster than Venmo/Paypal, adding over 2 million users per month.

The only logical way to look at them may be as a bank. SQ recently withdrew its banking application, indicating it is working on shoring up its approach in this arena. At a $27B market cap they may look a lot more attractive than other traditional banks in the space, particularly in light of the fact that they are picking up consumers via Square Cash. With traditional banking struggling tremendously, it seems more likely for a tech company like SQ to come in and take market share.

All of this creates more exciting and difficult questions. What happens to all the data they collect from consumers and merchants (SQ notoriously owns the merchant and their loyalty data)? Will end users be concerned about privacy as they begin to question other large tech players in the space like Facebook?

We are not sure where SQ is going, but it looks like it will continue to be a very interesting ride…

The post What is Square? appeared first on POSOptions.com.

To justify this valuation (and assuming its new lead investor T. Rowe Price wants to triple its money), Toast would have to crush one of the incumbents in the space or several of them — Micros, Harbortouch, Digital Dining, NCR, etc. Aside from Micros, no restaurant point of sale provider we are aware of has surpassed the 55,000 merchant mark in the US.  While Toast is much less expensive that current traditional players, one would have to imagine that they would need to enter additional lines of business (lending, anyone?) to justify this growing valuation.

Toast’s growth to date has been nothing short of impressive, but they spent over $100 million in the past year to do it. The question remains, once churn catches up with them, can they keep this train rolling? The market is anxious to find out.

The post Toast POS Raises $115M in a Series D Round appeared first on POSOptions.com.

More mobile payments – Apple, Google and Samsung have all been growing their mobile payments platform.Though mobile payments make up a small amount of the total payments volume, we see them growing significantly in 2018 for a few reasons. They are more secure, newer devices will make it easier to pay with your phone or watch and more merchants will start accepting them as they upgrade their point of sale or terminals.

eCommerce – In 2017, eCommerce accounted for 9% of all retail sales in the U.S. That number seems low to people who have at least one Amazon package waiting at their doorstep everyday, but not to worry, we expect it to grow quickly. As Amazon makes it easier to accept packages and other services ordered online and smaller retailers take advantage of Shopify and other eCommerce platforms, consumers will find it even easier to order goods online and receive them quickly.

Lower fees – As point of sale companies grow larger and have additional ways to generate revenue, we believe the fees they charge for the point of sale app will drop. The decrease in revenue will be offset by selling add-ons (eCommerce, loyalty, payments, etc.) and additional services to a larger customer base. Point of sale companies will also be able to utilize the larger dataset they have on their users as well as the customers of those users.

With all the developments, 2018 will be another exciting year for everyone in the point of sale industry. If point of sale technology continues to improve as it has, small independent retailers have a better chance at competing with the big brand names. Business owners may someday find it hard to believe that investing $20,000 in a Micros point of sale system was the only option at one point.

The post Point of Sale Trends to Watch Out for in 2018 appeared first on POSOptions.com.

Square

Square had another fantastic year! The company’s market cap more than doubled in 2017 along with a few notable achievements. Square’s two biggest wins of the year were releasing a standalone retail app and launching their own custom stand. The retail app allows Square to offer larger retailers the features they need without disrupting millions of other users. Initially, the retail app was not very different from the Square Register app but Square engineers have been adding new features at a steady pace. Square’s recently launched custom stand is an even bigger win. It allows Square to deliver a much better user experience and also go after larger businesses that need customized solutions. The stand looks great and comes loaded with dual displays, ability to accept a range of payment methods and more.

Shopify

Shopify also saw stellar growth in 2017 and managed to double their market cap, which is very impressive for a company their size. Shopify improved their eCommerce platform by partnering up with eBay and UPS. The eBay partnership will allow sellers to seamlessly list their products on eBay, extending their reach. The UPS partnership provides Shopify sellers with discounts on shipping helping them save money immediately and improve their bottom live. Shopify also released their own reader with a flat fee to appeal more to in person sellers. These and other developments led to Shopify merchants selling over $1 billion of merchandise on Black Friday, a record setting day!

Lightspeed

Lightspeed is another tablet point of sale company that saw growth in 2017. Since Lightspeed is a private company, it is hard to get exact growth metrics. Lightspeed did cross the 50,000 customer threshold with a total payments volume of around $15 billion in 2017. More importantly, Lightspeed raised a massive  investment round of $166 million from new and existing investors to fuel faster growth in the coming years and to set themselves up for an IPO. Lightspeed has done a good job of acquiring companies and improving their technology. Their acquisition of POSIOS, a point of sale product for restaurants, in 2014 and subsequent improvement of their technology has made Lightspeed a serious contender in the tough restaurant point of sale market.

We expect 2018 to be just as exciting, if not more, for the point of sale industry. We will continue to follow the market and update you!

The post Point of Sale Industry 2017 Highlights appeared first on POSOptions.com.

Not if Amazon and Clover point of sale have their way. The new partnership announced a few weeks back lets customers order takeout from their favorite restaurants using the Amazon app, sending the orders directly to the restaurant’s Clover POS system. Why do we think this will be a successful partnership? Let’s look at the way things work now…

Here’s what happens with most restaurants accepting online orders:

• A customer orders food from the GrubHub app.
• The order shows up on the GrubHub tablet.
• A server enters the order into the POS system or handwrites it and gives it to the kitchen
• GrubHub takes a 12-17% cut
• Business owner has to wait for GrubHub to deposit money on a weekly or monthly basis

The Amazon and Clover partnership makes it easy for customers to order food and just as easy for business owners to accept orders. Customers open the Amazon app, scroll to the ‘Amazon Restaurants’ section and place the order. Easy!

Once restaurant owners link their Amazon and Clover accounts, they don’t have to do much besides prepare the food. The orders are sent to their Clover point of sale and the chef gets a printout of the order. Once the customer comes to pick up the order, the host can verify that it has been for paid using Amazon Pay by looking at the Clover Station. The money is deposited faster and Amazon only takes a 10% cut.

Besides not having to purchase any additional equipment or having to train their staff on new procedures, what makes this really interesting to restaurant owners is the tens of millions of customers using Amazon Prime. Analysts estimate Amazon has over 80 million Prime subscribers in the U.S. Restaurant owners instantly get access to a vast new market without having to do much work.

Amazon benefits by growing their total payments volume (TPV) for Amazon Pay and bringing Amazon Prime customers back to the app even more frequently.

Amazon is incentivizing customers by giving them $10 off their first order. Promotions are being displayed in the app and being emailed to customers.

What’s next? An Amazon delivery guy delivering and plating your food while you get ready for dinner.

The post How does the Amazon & Clover partnership change online ordering? appeared first on POSOptions.com.

Square launched their new Register Stand today and at first glance it looks like a home run. Here’s why:

All in one solution: The Square Register offers a beautiful 13.5” screen, 7” customer facing screen, an ethernet port and five USB ports. The larger screen helps it compete with traditional POS systems that typically have a 13-15” screen. The ethernet and USB ports offer wired connectivity to all peripherals and the internet, making it a more reliable POS solution.

Accepts all payment types: The customer facing display has a magstripe, EMV and NFC readers which allow it to accept a variety of payment methods including magstripe cards, chip and pin transactions, Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay. The display’s tight integration with the rest of the hardware make it a versatile device, one that can easily accept new payment methods.

Perfect for enterprise customers: Square has a few enterprise customers, including Ben & Jerry’s, but until now the system wasn’t very conducive to large customers. Now that Square has full control of the hardware, they can customize the system for large customers and send the units preloaded with desired inventory and settings.

Even lower rate: Square understands that brick and mortar businesses that will make the initial investment of $999 for the stand will have higher payments volume. Because of that, Square is offering an introductory rate of 2.5% + 10 cents per transaction which can be lowered based on payments volume.

We believe the new Register Stand solves a lot of the pain points that customers have expressed with tablet point of sale systems and will be a hit among small businesses and enterprise customers. The $999 price point is a bit steep for a business looking to use the free headphone reader but a steal for any business evaluating legacy POS options.

The post What do we think of the new Square Stand? appeared first on POSOptions.com.