iVend Retail is a point-of-sale software solution with features such as stock management with handheld devices and SMS integration.
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Square POS
Score 9.9 out of 10
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Square POS is a point-of-sale software solution with features such as accept credit cards with your iPhone, Android, and iPad along with the flexibility to accept credit card payments anywhere, from Square headquartered in San Francisco, California.
iVend Retail is very scalable, so can be used for small retailers, as well as multi-branch retailers. As the software is intuitive, training times are not extensive and allow a user to progress with other areas as they become familiar with the software. Any retailer will be familiar with the functions within a POS package, but there are many extra in iVend.
Square POS is by far the easiest POS software to use at events and train additional team members on - even with temporary or first-time employees. It's easy to see how each event is doing in live time. It gives the event manager a real-time view of revenue earned. Its really easy to create/manage/delete users to keep the platform secure.
Mobile transactions (not like from a phone, but in terms of the ability to physically relocate rapidly).
Simple setup.
Generally uncomplicated pricing.
Widespread customer familiarity: because it's so regularly in use in our industry (musicians/entertainment professionals), people know and trust it in a way that you might not with a different provider.
I don't really foresee anything being able to dislodge Square from our organization—we're not evangelists or anything like that—it's just the best solution we've found for our use case. Being able to quickly handle transactions from customers and then track all of those sales for analysis/bookkeeping later on.
Once set up, Square POS is very easy to use. I feel it is a little too easy. Many other solutions have some layer of complexity to them but Square POS is pretty straightforward and this makes it the ideal POS solution in my opinion. If a solution can remove the barriers to use and allow end users to get on with their tasks without being slowed down, then it is a winner. This is what we were able to achieve with Square POS.
An admission - I have NEVER had to use Square POS support. The system is seamless, it just works! I have never had any queries about how the system worked as everything is so clearly laid out. I have never had any problems with payments. If their support systems are anywhere near as good as their software, I think we'll be in good hands.
The alternatives in the market may be able to achieve some of what iVend does, but there is not an alternative around that can offer all options. iVend has POS, loyalty, ecom, passes, ERP and much more out of the box, without having to customise. This results in a low overall base cost.
We only used Square POS while we were getting set up with Authorize.Net. It isn't as flashy or recognized by the general public, but in our industry, that isn't a priority. We do very large transactions so the higher rates and fees from Square add up insanely quickly making the lower rates and fees from Authorize.Net the nail in Square's coffin for us.
The opportunity cost of waiting for payments and manually bringing them to a bank means that we don't have to visit our bank branch. That alone saves us several hours each month.
We can use ordinary computers and mobile devices with Square instead of paying for expensive software or terminals.
Our clients appreciate not having to process payments to us, and anything that helps our clients and makes them happy carries more import than I can explain in this space.
