GoCardless, from the company of the same name in San Francisco, is a recurring payments platform that integrates with the applications businesses use every day, to give businesses more visibility over payments and saving the time on tasks like payment reconciliation. The vendor states they partner with more than 150 billing and subscription software partners globally, including Xero, Sage, QuickBooks, Zuora and Salesforce.
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ShopKeep
Score7 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
ShopKeep is an iPad point of sale system; The vendor says it is intuitive, secure, affordable software that helps merchants run smarter businesses. The product optimizes staffing and inventory, while offering sales reports and customer information on a cloud-based platform. The product includes low-cost, integrated payment processing, as well as point of sale hardware. According to the vendor, ShopKeep has 23,000 customers, and a customer…
We believe GoCardless is the best-in-class solution for global companies who wish to streamline payment processing in many countries, especially when integrating within a company website or supported complementary software. It also works very well for recurring payment situations as it can be very streamlined for recurring & auto-payments. This is NOT a tool for credit card processing, so understand that and consider something like Stripe if credit card integration is your goal. The fees for GoCardless may be highly dependent on the anticipated processing volume and size of your business, so do know that very tiny companies may find the fee structure to be higher. For a US-only business, I'm not sure if GoCardless really would make the most sense outside of specifically for integrating within the software for click-thru payment processing. Where GoCardless shines is when your business operates in many countries and is looking for a seamless solution for your customers that also avoids them paying banking fees.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
ShopKeep can maintain up to 10,000 individual stock items. This is perfect for a cafe, coffee shop, wine bar, small retail store, etc. If you're inventory exceeds the 10,000 items then it may not be a fit for you. Also, ShopKeep works with Apple tablets only (iPad 2 or later). If you prefer Android or PC based tablets then this won't work for you.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
ShopKeep provides solid pre-sales support. They did a pre-sales screen-share demo that helped us ensure that their system would handle the needs of the business, and they assisted us in making decisions around which hardware would be appropriate.
ShopKeep's hardware seems well thought out and well integrated. One exception is issues with the connection between their recommended iCMP credit card scanner and the register. Other than that, the hardware works well together.
The register has excellent configurability and customization capabilities, and handles a large variety of products easily. High-volume products can have their own buttons on the register. Products can be added to a purchase by using these buttons, by scanning a bar code with an integrated bar code scanner, or by doing a live text search.
The register is also easily configurable to handle product options - either multiple options like pizza toppings, or exclusive options like regular or decaf coffee.
The ShopKeep system can handle hybrid retail/quick serve/restaurant scenarios with grace. This was a factor that eliminated many other systems that are optimized for one or the other, or where the products for handling retail are completely separate from the products for handling quick serve/restaurant operations. Since this customer has a location where there is a quick serve counter, a restaurant, and a retail gift shop all in the same location, ShopKeep's ability to handle all of these kinds of transactions from the same platform is a powerful advantage. ShopKeep also recently added functionality to transfer open tickets between registers, so that if a customer starts out with a cup of coffee at the quick serve counter, their ticket can be picked up and added to at the gift shop if they wander in there to purchase items.
ShopKeep has a Back Office system that can be accessed through any Web browser, or through their mobile app. The Back Office system is used to import and export data, manage inventory, configure the iPad registers, set up product options, manage employees, and report transactions, sales, product costs & margins, and other data.
Discounts, returns and credits are relatively easy to handle from the register, and the system can be configured to require a manager to approve these kinds of transactions, or not.
Bulk imports and exports are handled well by ShopKeep's Back Office. When setting up initial inventory, products can be added through Excel, then imported as comma-separated values (CSV) files by uploading them through the Web browser. Once inventory is established, adding or modifying items can be done directly through the Web interface.
ShopKeep has a mobile app that can be used by owners or managers to remotely access real-time snapshots of sales and other important data whenever they wish.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Because we expect the current issue with the credit card reader disconnecting from the register to be solved with an upcoming software update, and we like many of the features of Shopkeep.
We have had no issues with GoCardless since it was implemented in our new software. The customers are able to sign up with ease. The reporting on the site is very helpful and the site is easy to navigate
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The register functionality is excellent, both from a learning standpoint and an operations standpoint. Cashiers learn how to use the register quickly, and the registers can be configured with hot buttons for fast-moving products. Setting up product variations and additions is straightforward. The web-accessible Back Office has good features, but lacks enough granularity to provide a store manager with the ability to modify inventory settings without giving them access to all of the financial reports as well.
There is no phone support, email only, and the support is slow coming. The support staff often don't read your support query properly, so you waste time having to re-explain yourself. That is the only downside of this product.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Occasional long waits [5 minutes or more] or call-backs needed for telephone support. Email support replies usually take several hours. Support personnel are generally friendly and knowledgable.
If moving from a "dumb" cash register system, spend all the time needed to get starting inventory and product costing and pricing correct. Shopkeep has good tools for reporting inventory, margins, and other critical business info, but the information is only useful if the starting figures are accurate.
It stacks up well against Stripe but I think they serve different purposes. Stripe is better when it comes to integrations, GoCardless is great for recurring payments, particularly for service-based businesses.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
ShopKeep is an inexpensive choice iPad POS system that comes with all of the tools needed to do business without any long-term contracts or expensive fees. It also offers free 24/7 phone and email support along with online live chat during business hours. Coffee Shop Manager offered some of these items, but they also tied you into a long-term contract and you were charged fee after fee for support, etc. Also, the CSM system was big and took up a lot of space compared to ShopKeep's integration with an Apple iPad tablet.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
ShopKeep didn't integrate with my accounting software. I had to double enter all financial data.
Without inventory controls, all of my financial information was inaccurate. It is impossible to grow a business without accurate financial information.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
