Card terminals - what do you connect yours to?

[scm5436]

So my shop is opening soon and I'm looking for a card terminal to process card payments. I'm just wondering how this works in practice with regards to getting the total price into the terminal.

Ive seen the all singing all dancing e-tills for around £1000 with receipt printers and barcode scanners linked to the inventory database and all that jazz. I assume that they link in to the card terminal somehow and send the total electronically.

But if I want to start of with minimal costs then what do I do? Just tot up the items on a calculator and type the total into the card terminal...?

 

[JoshB92]

I don't know how all those fancy ePOS tills work but on all the relatively simple ones I've used you just ring all the items in as you normally would, hit subtotal then instead of pressing cash you press card. Type the total into the card machine (run from the broadband) and follow normal procedure. Simple

 

[filtee]

Ive been looking into this myself and have come accross 'payatrader' who seem quite decent.

 

[fairdealworld]

I agree with JoshB92. Unless you are opening in huge town centre or retail park premises with 20 staff to start off with then just get a plain ordinary cash register and for a card sale type the total from the cash register into the card machine. Cash is king and that means not spending all your cash on complicated systems until you are actually making decent levels of cash (and think hard even then). There are small shops all over the country with a non-linked cash register and card machine and none the worse for it.

You actually could just use a calculator and then enter the total into the card machine but that leaves you with the problem of a receipt for the customer. There are ways around this - including carbon paper which is much cheaper than printing or copying and after almost disappearing from the scene has made a come back with the recession making people do their sums - but some customers will find this approach a bit odd though it depends a lot on what sort of shop you are going to open.

On the issue of keeping track of stock, again, unless you are starting something really big, paper and pencil will do you fine in the early days and possibly long after. In a small shop if the owner can't stock take quickly and adequately for ordering purposes with paper and pencil then there is something wrong with the organisation of stock on the shelves and stock in reserve.

One day you will need EPOS (perhaps) but don't pay for it until you actually need it is the golden rule of retail. Spend money on what attracts and keeps customers.

A true story. Once upon a time, on the way home from my own shop, I'd sometimes call at a small off-licence. It had a good range of stock. It wasn't desperately cheap nor was it desperately expensive. The owner was pleasant and friendly and attentive to customers and could rattle off a description of any wine or beer you cared to hold up. It had a simple cash register and a separate card machine. I'd be very confident the owner and his wife went around with a notepad and pencil to check their stock. Then one day a salesperson persuaded the owner to invest in a fully computerised system. The owner gradually disappeared behind his computer, his time was so taken up with running the system that interaction with customers had to be provided by assistants who knew little or nothing about the products on display. Costs soared, customer satisfaction dwindled and eventually the shop closed its doors for the last time. Point: if that shop didn't have what you wanted before (due perhaps to a simpler method of stock control) the owner would easily have persuaded you that you really wanted to try something different : - )

 

[k13p]

use i zettle -- until you turn a reasonable profit and then sign up with a terminal provider -
when you are with the provider you can opt out of having a terminal and then switch it to your epos

 

[scm5436]

thanks - el cheapo cash register and separate card terminal it is then!

Looks like I can pick up a brand new casio till for a little over £50 so that should do me.

 

[Christiane]

Totally agree with above, don't get an epos system unless you really need to! I've got a thermal till (no need for ink) and you just type the amount into the card machine. Can I just recommend Streamline for your card machine, and never get fooled by anyone promising you cheaper rates or to get you out of your contract for free, they can't and won't! It's standard to have a 3 year lease on card machines if rented.
C

 

[kelvin1950]

thanks - el cheapo cash register and separate card terminal it is then!

Looks like I can pick up a brand new casio till for a little over £50 so that should do me.

Just a warning. Count the number of compartments for change, some cheap tills don't allow enough.

 

[scm5436]

Just a warning. Count the number of compartments for change, some cheap tills don't allow enough.

Thanks, to be honest I don't think many people will actually pay cash as most of the items will be fairly high value (£200+)

 

[Louie]

Just a note to let you know you don't need broadband for a card terminal, it can be processed through a plain phone line although it is a little slower.

Also I switched from Streamline to Barclay card as they were cheaper for me.

 

[Louie]

Also if you already have an iPad it can be easily used as a till with certain apps and the right stand. If its a fairly simple set up I'd recommend Cashy-POS which I use personally.

 

[JoshB92]

Also if you already have an iPad it can be easily used as a till with certain apps and the right stand. If its a fairly simple set up I'd recommend Cashy-POS which I use personally.

I disagree with the iPad suggestion. More easily stolen than a standard till, not designed for heavy handedness, not designed for careless staff who might drop it. Not to mention the initial expense.

For startups in a 'standard' retail environment, cheap and simple is the name of the game. By all means go for some fancy ePOS system when the business can afford it, but at the end of the day its the same cash going into it. And I bet I'm just as quick with an older Casio or Sharp as anyone with their fancy all singing all dancing iTill.

 

[kelvin1950]

Just a note to let you know you don't need broadband for a card terminal, it can be processed through a plain phone line although it is a little slower.

Also I switched from Streamline to Barclay card as they were cheaper for me.

Hmm, a lot slower, less reliable, ties up a phone line (meaning either you can't use the phone when someone's processing a card or you need a dedicated phone line).

If you're putting broadband into your business premises then it's foolish not to use it for your card payment machine.

 

[Sobie]

We've got a really, really old basic Casio till that we paid less than £100 for (new) when we started up over 10 years ago.

Its programmed to have our name/ address & VAT no on and we've programmed in a few product names (compost, plants - very basic) and it separates the VAT element so is good enough for the few customers that need a VAT Receipt.

The card terminal is stand alone, through our broadband which is so much quicker than when we had it on the phone lines, and we only have one phone line so it doesn't get cut off when someone phones at the same time!

 

[appyammer]

use i zettle -- until you turn a reasonable profit and then sign up with a terminal provider -
when you are with the provider you can opt out of having a terminal and then switch it to your epos

i zettle turned me down but hsbc didnt and hsbc had better rates:|

 

[John_Orcus]

A true story. Once upon a time, on the way home from my own shop, I'd sometimes call at a small off-licence. It had a good range of stock. It wasn't desperately cheap nor was it desperately expensive. The owner was pleasant and friendly and attentive to customers and could rattle off a description of any wine or beer you cared to hold up. It had a simple cash register and a separate card machine. I'd be very confident the owner and his wife went around with a notepad and pencil to check their stock. Then one day a salesperson persuaded the owner to invest in a fully computerised system. The owner gradually disappeared behind his computer, his time was so taken up with running the system that interaction with customers had to be provided by assistants who knew little or nothing about the products on display. Costs soared, customer satisfaction dwindled and eventually the shop closed its doors for the last time. Point: if that shop didn't have what you wanted before (due perhaps to a simpler method of stock control) the owner would easily have persuaded you that you really wanted to try something different : - )

Don't assume all systems are like this - it sounds like he was sold a lemon.

A decent system doesn't tie up admin time, and should actually assist staff who have little product knowledge.

For example, I might want to know if there are any organic, locally brewed ales available, and I prefer darker rather than light coloured ones. If the system is set up properly, an assistant would be able to filter their stock database on these options, tell me what is available, and locate it within the store.

I can also second the recommendation for Streamline. There are loads of trade associations which have very competitive preferential rates for Streamline (FSB and Giftware Association etc). All of our customers who use them rarely report issues.

 

[fairdealworld]

<i> For example, I might want to know if there are any organic, locally brewed ales available, and I prefer darker rather than light coloured ones. If the system is set up properly, an assistant would be able to filter their stock database on these options, tell me what is available, and locate it within the store. </i>

Sorry but particularly where small shops are concerned I simply don't agree with you. Don't waste money on an EPOS system, pay your staff a little more and train them better. It is ludicrous for someone in a small shop to have to filter a database to find out if they sell something and where it is. Even more ludicrous if the shop is run just by the owner as is so often the case in the early days. Even more useless in shops like mine where good quality stock is displayed creatively and in ever changing ways to keep the interest of our regular customers. Many items don't actually 'belong' anywhere, they are where they are at the moment but often won't be there for long but even though I'm at home 20 miles from my shop at this moment, if you asked me where something was I could tell you, it is part of the art of being a shopkeeper.

The tale I told in my previous post was just one of many examples I constantly come across. Shops that can't sell anything because their till is down. It is a wretched nuisance if mine goes wrong, but there's no way I'll lose a sale because of it. List the items on paper, reach for a calculator, keep a copy and enter the sales when the till is feeling better. Some customers took their grandchildren to a well known tourist attraction but couldn't buy anything in the gift shop because 'the tills were down' - madness. Two years ago a staff member and I (sharing a van) were stranded on the way to our shop by a freak snowstorm, the police closed the road we needed to take as impassable, nothing could turn to the right because of tail backs due to accidents, you couldn't turn round and go back because the carriageway in the other direction was uphill and the police had closed it because of the number of stranded vehicles on it. After two hours of inching our way forwards in treacherous conditions, we reached a village an pulled into a pub and restaurant car park to think things over. Ah we thought, coffee and snacks must be available within, maybe even lunch if we are going to be stuck here. After a terrible drive I was more than willing to buy us both lunch as were obviously other sad motorists pulling into the car park. Guess what? We got inside and they couldn't/wouldn't sell us anything because 'the tills were down', they had cooks, they had food, they had waiting staff, but they would not sell anyone anything. They warmly invited us to use the toilets for free but anything paid for was a no no. My staff member was staggered, as she said, if we had a queue of stranded cars outside the shop we could go along the line of cars selling snacks from a tray, we could invite the drivers and passengers to use our toilet which means they'd have to walk through the shop and see all the lovely things we sell.

By the way in case you think I'm a dinosaur I actually love IT with a passion and get separation anxiety when away from computer access, but you must rule IT and bend it to your will, you must never let it rule you.

 

[kelvin1950]

<i> For example, I might want to know if there are any organic, locally brewed ales available, and I prefer darker rather than light coloured ones. If the system is set up properly, an assistant would be able to filter their stock database on these options, tell me what is available, and locate it within the store. </i>

Sorry but particularly where small shops are concerned I simply don't agree with you. Don't waste money on an EPOS system, pay your staff a little more and train them better. It is ludicrous for someone in a small shop to have to filter a database to find out if they sell something and where it is. Even more ludicrous if the shop is run just by the owner as is so often the case in the early days. Even more useless in shops like mine where good quality stock is displayed creatively and in ever changing ways to keep the interest of our regular customers. Many items don't actually 'belong' anywhere, they are where they are at the moment but often won't be there for long but even though I'm at home 20 miles from my shop at this moment, if you asked me where something was I could tell you, it is part of the art of being a shopkeeper.

The tale I told in my previous post was just one of many examples I constantly come across. Shops that can't sell anything because their till is down. It is a wretched nuisance if mine goes wrong, but there's no way I'll lose a sale because of it. List the items on paper, reach for a calculator, keep a copy and enter the sales when the till is feeling better. Some customers took their grandchildren to a well known tourist attraction but couldn't buy anything in the gift shop because 'the tills were down' - madness. Two years ago a staff member and I (sharing a van) were stranded on the way to our shop by a freak snowstorm, the police closed the road we needed to take as impassable, nothing could turn to the right because of tail backs due to accidents, you couldn't turn round and go back because the carriageway in the other direction was uphill and the police had closed it because of the number of stranded vehicles on it. After two hours of inching our way forwards in treacherous conditions, we reached a village an pulled into a pub and restaurant car park to think things over. Ah we thought, coffee and snacks must be available within, maybe even lunch if we are going to be stuck here. After a terrible drive I was more than willing to buy us both lunch as were obviously other sad motorists pulling into the car park. Guess what? We got inside and they couldn't/wouldn't sell us anything because 'the tills were down', they had cooks, they had food, they had waiting staff, but they would not sell anyone anything. They warmly invited us to use the toilets for free but anything paid for was a no no. My staff member was staggered, as she said, if we had a queue of stranded cars outside the shop we could go along the line of cars selling snacks from a tray, we could invite the drivers and passengers to use our toilet which means they'd have to walk through the shop and see all the lovely things we sell.

By the way in case you think I'm a dinosaur I actually love IT with a passion and get separation anxiety when away from computer access, but you must rule IT and bend it to your will, you must never let it rule you.

Brilliant, someone else with a degree in common sense. Agree with everything.