anyone know if izettle ever coming to Ireland?

martco

I need to put a POS solution into my new small bakery/coffeeshop serveover

I've looked at various options (including just using a plain old fashioned button till + merchant card setup)

Had considered Clover but it looks just too expensive for me from what I can see, I've also read about some -ve things on the tech and functionality side that's putting me off...I might be better off DIY for less outlay and end up something just as good.

I'll prob go for a iOS hardware solution + recommended peripherals

from what I can see they all have flaws but VEND appears to have the most useful cloud-orientated service

as for card processing I was wondering if anyone knows if izettle is coming to Ireland soon as I'd prefer that (contactless payment seems to be everything nowadays, everyone wants to tap)

I can't get info on this easily, worst case I'll buy a SumUp terminal and wait for them to improve or izettle to come in eventually

?

jimmii

Just seen this page on the SumUp site that looks a lot like the contactless device iZettle use might be worth giving them a shout to see if or when it will be available.

AIBMS Clover

Hi Martco,

We have recently released a new Clover Mini unit, some additional functionality, and some new apps, which will appeal to coffee shops and similar businesses.

Clover ensures you have contactless, Apple and Android pay readiness, all integrated into your ePOS - or if you prefer, as a payments only terminal (which makes the solution very price competitive). We supply and support all parts of your solution too.

Where are you located? If you are interested, I can have our technical product manager come and show you the current solution?

Thanks,


AIBMS

Bandara

AIBMS Clover wrote: »

Hi Martco,

We have recently released a new Clover Mini unit, some additional functionality, and some new apps, which will appeal to coffee shops and similar businesses.

Clover ensures you have contactless, Apple and Android pay readiness, all integrated into your ePOS - or if you prefer, as a payments only terminal (which makes the solution very price competitive). We supply and support all parts of your solution too.

Where are you located? If you are interested, I can have our technical product manager come and show you the current solution?

Thanks,


AIBMS

Hi

Could you post the merchant fees associated with this please ?

I don't want to go through the rigmarole and waste time arranging to meet someone etc and then the fees are crazy high

What's the contactless fee per transaction? And also the credit card fee both personal and business cards ?

And the monthly terminal rental ?

I have genuine interest in this for a new buisness I am opening, I am not tyre kicking and wasting your time

Thanks

martco

thanks AIBMS, I'm in touch with one of your reps, I'm going to eyeball one of the established installs tomorrow to see how it operates practically. From what I can tell this is very fast moving space and I think all the solutions have pro's and cons....in my scenario might cost same roundabout in the end, its maybe more around flexibility to expand, service, the apps possibilities and any known current issues etc.

I do like the fact that its an all in one device, some shop owners I think may not have the tech background (or a 15y/o family member) to assist with the DIY install approach using likes of ipad+iOS app+SumUp+printer...bluetooth pairing, wifi etc. never mind the minefield that is ongoing platform maintenance (how many times a year are you forced to take an iOS update on your iphone for example and how many apps does it break normally? u get the picture)

btw, just my tuppence but if it was me @AIB behind this Clover solution have to say for small business like mine I'd be more of a mind to deploy these mini-clover units like contract mobile phones model - they're relatively cheap hardwarewise for what you get so just offer them for "free"....get em in everywhere, get a community thing going on and make the money off the contracts I say

martco

@Jimmii
thanks for that hint, I included that provider in my researching....seems all have pro's and cons as I'm learning...some of these card readers although have a low ticket price might have their issues though if you want to do more than just use them as they are probably intended (mpos..off a phone, receipts by sms/email etc.)...I kinda want to leverage the newer tech but in a bricks and mortar shop setting. For example the delay involved in funds clearance for some of these is maybe not as fast as I might need...also if you've looked at the ticket prices for approved/tested receipt printers for some of the readers they can be heavy money...I'm still learning but maybe not all as open or cheap as it appears, use caution

jimmii

martco wrote: »

@Jimmii
thanks for that hint, I included that provider in my researching....seems all have pro's and cons as I'm learning...some of these card readers although have a low ticket price might have their issues though if you want to do more than just use them as they are probably intended (mpos..off a phone, receipts by sms/email etc.)...I kinda want to leverage the newer tech but in a bricks and mortar shop setting. For example the delay involved in funds clearance for some of these is maybe not as fast as I might need...also if you've looked at the ticket prices for approved/tested receipt printers for some of the readers they can be heavy money...I'm still learning but maybe not all as open or cheap as it appears, use caution

They're all pretty quick now. I use to used one called syspay the money was in the bank the next day.

AIBMS Clover

Bandara wrote: »

AIBMS Clover wrote: »

Hi Martco,

We have recently released a new Clover Mini unit, some additional functionality, and some new apps, which will appeal to coffee shops and similar businesses.

Clover ensures you have contactless, Apple and Android pay readiness, all integrated into your ePOS - or if you prefer, as a payments only terminal (which makes the solution very price competitive). We supply and support all parts of your solution too.

Where are you located? If you are interested, I can have our technical product manager come and show you the current solution?

Thanks,


AIBMS

Hi

Could you post the merchant fees associated with this please ?

I don't want to go through the rigmarole and waste time arranging to meet someone etc and then the fees are crazy high

What's the contactless fee per transaction? And also the credit card fee both personal and business cards ?

And the monthly terminal rental ?

I have genuine interest in this for a new buisness I am opening, I am not tyre kicking and wasting your time

Thanks

Hi Bandara,

We do give instant quotes but we need some basic information about your business first. The fastest way for you to get a quote would be via our live webchat (9am-5.30pm)on our website-

http://www.aibms.com/products-and-services/clover/clover-mini/

Alternatively you can request a call back at the same link.

AIBMS

martco

haha...

so on the non-AIB side of things I finally got some feedback from someone at one of the card station alternatives, Payleven (to avoid the marketing bot answers by email I used a plain old telephone)......they've informed me that one crowd just bought the other card station alternative SumUp....some sort of "merger" anyways and so nobody at Payleven could actually tell me what I needed to know (it was a fairly simple question regarding integration) but promised to come back to me lets see...
and as for izettle? same approach eventually gets an answer of sorts (and its a total joke) they will neither deny or confirm that they are coming to Ireland?!? The other thing I noted is how floaty a lot of it is....I imagine getting someone to respond to a tech fault could be stressful to say the least

afterwards I found some articles here's one:
http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/27/sumup-and-payleven-merge-as-european-square-clones-consolidate/

note the paragraph on providers tricky margins, resulting crash and burning etc.

I have formed the opinion at this stage that an affordable and operable cloud type POS station for small customers is less than properly baked & you're not going to do it as economically as you imagine when you might in the end. This space is moving too fast I think for me, everyone is a startup, usual cool and trendy (but don't look too much under the bonnet) scenario

I may end up waiting for it all to settle down as I don't want to be an early adopter victim and take an old fashioned button till with it's associated labours for the moment...REALLY disappointing as I think a good cloud POS approach would fit our business situation so so well but you can't always get what you want! I love tech I see the advantages but its too harebrained at moment / expensive. And after at least a week of my time spent researching this I need to get back to fundamentals like getting the inventory sorted out, deciding what muffin cases we need to buy and getting signage and labels done up

jimmii

How long would you consider being an early adopter? These things have been around for years now. In terms of reliability and service I had a couple of faults with my SysPay unit and both times a new unit was in the post the next day they were superb at fixing issues and with SumUp I had the unit stop working once and again they had a new one in the post the next day so both companies did a good job of making sure I was up and running again as soon as possible. Its worth getting one even as a back up (especially SumUp where there is no monthly charge) I am glad I had both those as obviously for each of those times they stopped working it was 2/3 working days for the new one to arrive so if it happens on a Thursday it can be a while until the new one arrives.

martco

Thanks actually that's a really good point, having a backup. Don't get me wrong I'm a fan of the concept, I'm not risk adverse either on point solutions but ultimately this thing will be the backbone in my scenario. The problem I guess is for a small operator like I am at this point I have to anxiously watch every penny for first 2 years plus I have no time to manage intrinsic doublecharging bugs, disappearing buttons bugs requiring terminal reboots....the backend worries me. I'm going to check out a place using Vend register later today that have a very similar business to mine to see how they manage, I'll comment more later

jimmii

I used a cloud pos called pose I tried vend and a good half dozen others but found the back end of pose a lot more suited to my needs and the CRM system was way better than anything else out there most didn't even have one! Again their cs was brilliant I never really had any serious issues with them but things were always dealt with super quickly the only time I had something major to deal with an engineer was on the phone and on team viewer in half an hour getting it fixed.

martco

for anyone who's interested...
in the end I went for Vend Register (revised very keen pricing on that btw)
It runs on a pair of previous gen ipads I bought from the Apple refurb site to save a few more quid (Vend has a customer facing app to display sales being rung up etc. so I've a standard ipad for the till operator + a mini for the customer side display - to finish off the build I got a nice little stand which holds both in a kind of tent card format from Heckler design and I got the rest of the till from a UK crowd called barcode warehouse (a LOT cheaper than buying here, very disappointed with that aspect I have to say don't understand how it could be SO much less in UK and I made the purchase prior Sterling's dive, delivered in 2 days DHL )
Last I took a card reader from Sumup - if you are doing that btw demand a discount (they won't offer one but if you ask they will)....also they just recently did some sort of merger with Payleven and they will have a new card reader shortly which has the nfc built in and they will upgrade me for free when that comes along.....I'm not sure how it will work out practically day to day but at worst it can become a backup card machine if necessary
It all works very well and this despite the fact I have currently got brutal broadband (more like narrowband really)
thanks for all the advice very helpful

Kildafornia

@martco How are you finding your setup? We are going through the research at the moment and the trick seems to be finding the merchant account service in ROI. As someone said earlier nobody seems to know what the options are as the goalposts are moving fast. I have gotten info only to be told the next day "sorry that's UK only, not ROI". This is why clover seem the safest option even though it has flaws.

Here is the setup I am looking at:

App (Your sales / stock / customer interface)
I liked the Vend app. Highly rated, used by lots of high profile companies, nice interface design, good pricing, no contract, not locked into hardware (although good point regarding IOS updates possibly breaking the app, but don't update the IOS until the app has a pending update and it should be fine). A big plus is that you can buy a wifi / cellular iPad so you can use cellular data as a backup if your wifi goes plonk, which ours often does. I have read that Vend is better than clover at storing info offline and syncing correctly when back online. A local coffee shop with Clover flagged this as an issue.

card payment provider (processing and authorising transactions)
Vend told me the only card payment provider with hardware that fully integrates with their app is Payment Express. They sell and manage the Ingenico iWL250 , which talks to vend to reconcile what has been sold and manage inventory at the same time (actually it's the iWL252 but that's the link they sent me). setup fee of €139.99 and a monthly fee of €32.99 for the terminal, contract term is 36 months.

merchant account (deposit/transfer the funds to your business bank account)
Their card terminals don't support all merchant account providers, so you need to choose First Data or Barclays. We would have to switch from worldpay in our case. Fees vary among the different merchants.

Hardware
Besides an iPad and the card reader from Payment Express, you need a physical till & peripherals. I found an all-in-one unit called star micronics mPOP, which is a cash till, barcode scanner, receipt printer, and all bluetooth / wireless.

This setup should offer complete integration with Vend. Possible downsides are DIY setup, 3 different service providers in case of a problem, contract with payment express & merchant. I need to pin down more features to compare it with clover. Any feedback would be welcome.

Kildafornia

Can't figure out how to format a table, but here are the charges First Data quoted me. Might be useful to somebody.

[HTML]

<body>

<table>
  <tr>
    <th>Type</th>
    <th>Charges</th>
  </tr>
<tr>
<td>All Debit Cards</td>
<td>0.38%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>All Consumer Credit Cards</td>
<td>1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>All Corporate Credit Cards</td>
<td>2.05%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>AMEX</td>
<td>1.9%</td>
</tr>

  <tr>
    <th>Charges </th>
    <th></th>
  </tr>
<tr>
<td>Set Up Fee</td>
<td>£150</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Minimum Monthly Charge</td>
<td>£25</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>PCI DSS Management Fee</td>
<td>£4.99 per month</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Monthly Maintenance Fee</td>
<td>£0</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Authorisation Fee</td>
<td>2p</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Chargeback fee</td>
<td>£25</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Refund charge</td>
<td>20p</td>
</tr>

</table>

</body>

[/HTML]

martco

@Kildafornia

it's all good I have to report so far! (although we're only 2 weeks in)

Vend is working great and we are a fair test as like many we wait in hope for anything better than ADSL...rumour is efibre is due but I might die first SO working its backend from the laptop in the shop on 2 cans and a string is slow but with patience it can be done...the register copes great, glitch free.
Using Vend has a side-benefit as well for a new starter like me in that it forced me to clearly define my inventory and breakdown of costs of my supply baked goods (I wanted to build .CSV's for all)...Operationally anyways in 2 weeks I've had no outages, funny freezes, nothing oddball so far.

Sumup is doing a decent job too, there ARE a couple of weaknesses though!
the cutsey card terminal isn't suitable for people with fingers and thumbs larger than a small child's...the touchpad is fairly oversensitive...I've had a couple of frustrated customers. For the type of business I do I really would prefer a tap the card option on the reader. Apparently coming soon, they have one out in the US already and I was promised one free when it comes. The other pain is that lack of integration with Vend Register app...even though you can do the 5 finger swipe thing on the ipad to quickly switch apps from Vend Register to Sumup and back to Vend to complete sale it's a pain in the arse when you are busy and have a queue of people.
Settlements seem quick enough they're normally inside 2 days.
Overall I really hope that Sumup and similar get a good foothold and develop the concept further. The low bar of entry compensates for all the niggles and outweighs the rather opaque concept of the more regular path with its reams of legal paperwork, commitments etc.

I did look into the payment provider you mentioned, interestingly sometime after I'd contacted them initially I got a callback from some rep of theirs on a really odd phone number I didn't initially recognise...which turned out to be Australia?! anyway the conversation was along the lines of what you described above....end of the day same old story with all this fee and rental bollocks on the card terminal...First Data, guess who I smiled when I thought about how many loaves of bread I'd need to sell to cover the cost of having the terminal in my shop. Nonsense. for my scenario anyway. Overall we're finding that about 80% of our sales are in cash so far...I wonder if we didn't have any card terminal atall would we really lose any sales particularly...I have my doubts.

Regards the till gear, yep really liked the look of that combo drawer/prn would look well but didn't suit my scenario...I went for a boggo Star drawer and the Star TSP143 lan prn - I have it mounted under counter and it works great, no hassles to report.

The only issue I've really had atall with any of it is that have the devices setup to take DHCP IP addresses and my router keeps changing them with the result the printer becomes unreachable...easily solved by assigning perm static IP's just haven't gotten around to it but I could see how if you weren't an IT fella that could catch you out very easily...imo automatic assignment of IP addresses is not a good idea!

crighton

@kildafornia @martco thank you for your extensive shares here, any additional feedback and advice very welcome as we are about to embark on same test of suppliers.

Kildafornia

crighton wrote: »

@kildafornia @martco thank you for your xtensive shares here, any additional feedback and advice very welcome as we are about to embark on same test of suppliers.

Hi Crighton, we ended up going with Clover as you have one point of contact rather than three, and the pricing worked out similar enough for everything we needed. If it was for me I might have stuck with vend, but my wife is not technical and clover is very easy to use and they set it up for you.

It is working very well, with a couple of minor drawbacks. The apps are third party and while they are approved by clover, any questions beyond clover's knowledge have to go directly to the app developer. So your one point of contact is a little moot.

Also while the core apps are very good and the interface well designed, the 3rd party app we use for scheduling (salon scheduler) is awkwardly designed and misses a few basic functions. It works though, in fairness.

Clients love the hardware, and payments work perfectly. quite happy with it, with room for improvement. best of luck!

thecommander

Kildafornia wrote: »

Hi Crighton, we ended up going with Clover as you have one point of contact rather than three, and the pricing worked out similar enough for everything we needed. If it was for me I might have stuck with vend, but my wife is not technical and clover is very easy to use and they set it up for you.

It is working very well, with a couple of minor drawbacks. The apps are third party and while they are approved by clover, any questions beyond clover's knowledge have to go directly to the app developer. So your one point of contact is a little moot.

Also while the core apps are very good and the interface well designed, the 3rd party app we use for scheduling (salon scheduler) is awkwardly designed and misses a few basic functions. It works though, in fairness.

Clients love the hardware, and payments work perfectly. quite happy with it, with room for improvement. best of luck!

What sort of costs are involved with the purchasing of the equipment? Are there monthly fees as well as % of sales?