If you are an independent contractor or self-employed business person who does most of their business on the road, you need a mobile Point of Sale.
What is it? Glad you asked!
But first, what is a regular Point Of Sale? (Or POS as it is commonly referred to.) Point of sale refers to the time during the transaction with your customer where she has found or decided on the goods or services she wants and is ready to pay for those goods or services.
This is called the “point of sale.” It is the point of the transaction when the actual, physical sale occurs.
In brick-and-mortar stores, this typically happens at the cash-out stand or checkout aisle. The customer shops around for her items, finds what she needs, and then they make her way to the front of the store to purchase those items.
The desk clerk scans her items into the POS system/register and then accepts the customer’s payment. If the customer is paying with cash, the clerk takes the cash and makes change in the cash register / POS and gives it back to the customer.
If the customer pays with a card (which is the method we are most interested in discussing here) the customer swipes her card through a card payment terminal. Once she has entered her PIN number or hit the “pay by credit” button, the POS system electronically communicates with her bank or financial institution to approve the transaction. Purchase complete!
There are smaller, more condensed versions of POS systems which are designed specifically for mobile business. There are several different types for each type of mobile business. It is up to you to decide which one works best for you.
The biggest, most important thing to know is whichever one you use, you will need to have an Internet connection. It is crucial you have Internet connectivity in order to process your customer’s or personal client’s credit and debit cards.
An established internet connection is necessary for your mobile point of sale to communicate with their financial institution/bank.
There are newer versions of mobile POS systems which only require a credit card reader (toggle) which attaches directly to your smartphone or tablet.
These types of mobile POS are cheap and easy to use. All you have to do is swipe your client’s card through the toggle, and the software on your smartphone does the rest. It processes the transaction and the customer signs the screen with her finger authorizing the purchase.
The most common method for providing a receipt to the customer with these smart device POS systems is through email. The customer provides her email address and a copy of the receipt is sent to her inbox.
If you happen to be running a food truck or something of this nature and have the capacity and space for a manual receipt printer, there are those available for mobile business too. A lot of businesses (especially smaller, mobile businesses) are leaning towards digital methods, however.
For one, it’s a cheaper method. It saves them money otherwise spent on endless amounts of receipt paper. And, many people these days are far more conscious about their use of paper and the environmental effects and so are more inclined to receive their receipt digitally.
A mPOS (mobile point of sale) is cheap and easy to use.
The fees for processing transactions are usually quite low. Of course, the more transactions you process, the higher the cost.
But if you are operating on a smaller scale and only average a few hundred to maybe a few thousand transactions per month, your costs will be substantially lower than larger operations. This is especially good news for those who are just starting out on their business venture and don’t have a lot of capital to work with.
There are several companies out there like Square, PayPal, and other well known names who sell these toggles and mobile POS software.
Of course, RedFynn also offers state of the art software and hardware for all POS systems, including mobile point of sale.
We also guarantee we will beat the card processing rates both Square and PayPal charge. But that’s a story for another day. Wink.
We’re happy to discuss any and all of this stuff with you on the phone. Our specialty is fine tuning businesses so they run smoother, more efficiently and at less cost while simultaneously increasing profits. It’s a big, substantial boost for most businesses.
For any questions about these and other mobile point of sale systems, give us a call over here at RedFynn. No obligation, of course. Anything you’d like to talk about… merchant services, payment processing, business loans, POS, loyalty programs… you name it!
We do this every day like it’s our job. Because it is! We hope to hear from you soon. (888) 510-9871
