I've got a shop opening up in three months depending on how renovations go.  I've already got my crown jewel machine (la marzocco GB/5) and other equipment.  Now i'm left with furnish out and a POS system.  I was wondering if any of you guys have some recommendations on a system.  My shop is in a small college town with no independent coffee houses.  I'm hoping to do up to 250 transactions a day (so not super high volume).

Any advice would be great!

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It really depends on how much variety you are planning to have. we have 5 pages of items, but if you are keeping with a more simple menu, a basic "calc+cash drawer" may work better for you. We have also found that using the iPad as a pos is a very good conversation piece. We even got featured on "The Daily" newspaper. A long term lease for a major touchscreen auto backup would be even more expensive than the iPad, (up to a point of course), and  none of them will look as cool and clean. Just remember, if you have great product, the customers will do the rest for you.

 

 

 

well we use openbravo with a year avrage of 230 customer per day . in summer i set up openbravo on the ipad so i can have a second cash regiter by our gelato station and it work fine . and the best is the software is totaly free
Don't you need a separate computer anyway, regardless of POS?  And usually if you want any kind of customer support for a POS terminal, they charge a monthly fee, or an exorbitant hourly fee, correct me if I'm wrong though.

olivier dutil said:

WoW!!! shopkeep sure look good but it is holy expesive for a software.49 a month for basic or 79 $/ month for the next step up.  that ist over 2352$ over 4 year or 3792 over 4 years for the other one. + the i pad 500$ plus a comptuter 1000$ so this is more 4000 $ for the basic or almost 6000$ for plus. Well for mutch cheaper then that you can get a real pos with commercial touch screen witch wont break after a year in commercial used.

Dont get me wrong i would love to have shop keep in my shop but really i rather put that extra money in stuff that will bring me more returning costumer.

 

 

 

Yeah, the cloud systems all have monthly fees. It covers storage, backups, updates, customer service, etc. If you were to pay for this through any commercial software, Coffeeshop Manager, Restaurant Pro Express, Selby Soft, etc. the fees would be pretty comparable, well some would be way higher. Shopkeep is one of the most affordable ones I have seen, as far as monthly fees go.

I just received an email from Own the other day and they do have the software beta testing on Tablets, but they said they won't be using the iPad, seems like an odd choice. The initial setup would be around $1000, would be the tablet, printer and cash drawer, with $100 monthly fee.

I've said it many times before in other threads about this topic, TEST BEFORE YOU COMMIT! 

christopher myers said:

Don't you need a separate computer anyway, regardless of POS?  And usually if you want any kind of customer support for a POS terminal, they charge a monthly fee, or an exorbitant hourly fee, correct me if I'm wrong though.

olivier dutil said:

WoW!!! shopkeep sure look good but it is holy expesive for a software.49 a month for basic or 79 $/ month for the next step up.  that ist over 2352$ over 4 year or 3792 over 4 years for the other one. + the i pad 500$ plus a comptuter 1000$ so this is more 4000 $ for the basic or almost 6000$ for plus. Well for mutch cheaper then that you can get a real pos with commercial touch screen witch wont break after a year in commercial used.

Dont get me wrong i would love to have shop keep in my shop but really i rather put that extra money in stuff that will bring me more returning costumer.

 

 

 

Well i build my programe on openbravo, no fee, i am not a programmer and it free free free free it cost me les then 1000$ for 3 printer 1 comptuer, 1 barcode scanner, 1 touch screen and one cash drawer.


christopher myers said:

Don't you need a separate computer anyway, regardless of POS?  And usually if you want any kind of customer support for a POS terminal, they charge a monthly fee, or an exorbitant hourly fee, correct me if I'm wrong though.

olivier dutil said:

WoW!!! shopkeep sure look good but it is holy expesive for a software.49 a month for basic or 79 $/ month for the next step up.  that ist over 2352$ over 4 year or 3792 over 4 years for the other one. + the i pad 500$ plus a comptuter 1000$ so this is more 4000 $ for the basic or almost 6000$ for plus. Well for mutch cheaper then that you can get a real pos with commercial touch screen witch wont break after a year in commercial used.

Dont get me wrong i would love to have shop keep in my shop but really i rather put that extra money in stuff that will bring me more returning costumer.

 

 

 

I've been using shopkeep for several months now and i love it!  i look at the monthly charge as payment for storing all my info on their 'cloud'.  

 

a lot of times i'm out of the shop and i can easily see what's happening through my iphone.

 

keep in mind, the ipad version is very basic - no modifiers, for example.   but i love it, my employees love it, and the customers love it!

I'd like to chime in... I'm  a newbie but I to am looking into getting the Ipad Pos Software. I really like the POS Lavu. I've done the trial and it is fairly easy to add and update the menu. They also have features that Shop Keep doesn't (printing off a reciept, clock in/clock out) Plus in the long run (over 5 year) POS Lavu is cheaper than Shopkeep.

 

My question is about the Credit Card processing/gateway services. I'd like to know what others are using and what can I expect to pay for these processing and gateway fees.

 

So far I've received quotes from Mercury, Magensa, and Merchant Warehouse....

 

There is a special for one of the gateway services for $20/month, regardless of how many cards are swiped. Is that a good deal? ( I know it would depend of how many customers use their cards)

Our shop is using Mercury. They've been a good option for us. One thing we looked at is how secure they are and our book keeping company checked them out and they are compliant with all of the fed regulations.

 

They also were competitive. I had a local processing company quote me better rates and they came down and matched.


I've never looked at the Ipad software. I ended up going with Coffee Shop Manager and we've been completely satisfied.

 

Cheers

ShopKeep. Great tech support, low cost of entry, easy (I mean easy) to train. Will a stand alone POS system/hardware stay current at the current pace of technology?
Would not use mecury very dishonest. Would pay twice as much not to use tell you whatever ou need to hear first year once you sign they quote paragraph 32 can charge whatever they want. cost me hundreds more in the long run. 

Kyla brown said:

I'd like to chime in... I'm  a newbie but I to am looking into getting the Ipad Pos Software. I really like the POS Lavu. I've done the trial and it is fairly easy to add and update the menu. They also have features that Shop Keep doesn't (printing off a reciept, clock in/clock out) Plus in the long run (over 5 year) POS Lavu is cheaper than Shopkeep.

 

My question is about the Credit Card processing/gateway services. I'd like to know what others are using and what can I expect to pay for these processing and gateway fees.

 

So far I've received quotes from Mercury, Magensa, and Merchant Warehouse....

 

There is a special for one of the gateway services for $20/month, regardless of how many cards are swiped. Is that a good deal? ( I know it would depend of how many customers use their cards)

Is anyone actually using POSlavu or OWN?

 

I have a lot of interest in OWN.  I think the hardware and software is reasonable priced... it's their monthly fee that scares me... $298/month for two registers!  However, the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if the features justified the price... Facebook and Twitter integration, custom coupons, etc.  That's targeted advertising that often costs extra if a third party is doing it for the shop.  Will the nearly 300 bucks a month be made up in increased communication with customers and increased efficiency?  Thoughts?



Dan Gorder said:

Is anyone actually using POSlavu or OWN?

 

I have a lot of interest in OWN.  I think the hardware and software is reasonable priced... it's their monthly fee that scares me... $298/month for two registers!  However, the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if the features justified the price... Facebook and Twitter integration, custom coupons, etc.  That's targeted advertising that often costs extra if a third party is doing it for the shop.  Will the nearly 300 bucks a month be made up in increased communication with customers and increased efficiency?  Thoughts?


It wouldn't be worth that to me! That's ridiculous!

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