Elavon: Making life easier on both sides of the counter
Retail technology and its applications are accelerating at such a rate it's hard to keep up with sometimes...but that's nothing retailers aren't used to.
Print26 October 2016
Regular readers of ShelfLife will be aware of our fascination with technology and how it affects all areas of retail. Naturally, the changing consumer experience is usually the focus of this talk, but evolving technology also offers the retail an ever-changing range of solutions to make life easier on both sides of the counter.
Payment systems, for example, are constantly adapting. Much of this change is being led by consumer preferences. Ease and speed of processing is key, meaning it should come as no surprise that card payment transactions have grown by 24% in the past 5 years; debit card transactions have doubled in the same period*.
With that kind of growth, it’s odd to think that card payment is evolving too. Contactless payment – where customers need to simply tap their card against a terminal to process a payment – continues to grow at an enormous rate, especially since the limit was increased to €30 in November of 2015.
Prior to this, contactless payment had struggled to catch on, until the government stepped in to cut the cost of transactions in order to promote their usage. And it worked: according to an Irish Times report in February this year, more than €1 in every €3 spent in Ireland is now paid by card. In 2012, this figure was €1 in every €7. The number of card-based transactions in 2015, meanwhile, rose by 16% to 584m.
With those kinds of figures, it’s clear that cash payments are making way for card payments due to their simplicity and speed. Meanwhile, as we have seen in many ShelfLife articles before, digital and mobile technology are becoming major influences on modern retailing. From beacons in department stores notifying customers of special offers via their mobile phones, to speculative virtual online shopping and other options more akin to science fiction films, businesses are obliged to make choices in their investments that are as future-proof as possible. Emerging technologies, software advancements and applications are changing the types of services retailers can offer, but also how they manage their businesses.
Next-gen ePOS
As the march of technology continues, savvy retailers will benefit from an integrated ePOS system that will allow them to manage all aspects of their business, from inventory to employees to payments and everything in between, all while generating reporting that will actively help to manage the business. All that sounds great on paper, but any such system should also be affordable, and designed on strong user experience principles.
In association with Elavon, talech offers retailers a combined Epos and card payments solution, but with the added ability to perform many other crucial management tasks:
Manage inventory
Track employee hours
Run customer promotions
Monitor stock levels inc. strong and poor sellers
Furthermore, talech offers retailers peace of mind. It can be accessed anytime and anywhere. It’s safe and secure, easy to set up, to use and to train on, and is backed up with 24/7 customer service.
The Art of Business
An early client of talech was the Jam Art Factory in Dublin. Established in 2011 by brothers Mark and John Haybyrne, Jam Art showcases the best in Irish art and design of all styles. Before the business embraced talech, all reconciliation was manual and time-consuming, as the staff had to match sales to artists and payments. All that changed with talech though, as all stock is uploaded on one system, so that all sales can be reviewed by artist at any time.
“Because we can access talech in the cloud, we can focus on customers during the day and work on the books at night from home,” says Mark Haybyrne. “talech has changed what we do at the back end of our business an awful lot – especially in how we pay artists and designers.
“Before this, we were going through page after page of receipt books, paying manually, which took a lot of time. With talech, it’s all just there on screen for you.
“It helps out brilliantly,” he said.
Meanwhile, with Elavon as card payment provider, retailers have the ability to accept all card types and receive payment the next day. Any small business owner will agree this can help enormously with cash flow.
Together, talech and Elavon enable small businesses to solve problems all retailers face every day. In turn, the retailers can respond to opportunities in the fast-paced modern industry.
To learn more visit www.elavon.ie/talechretail
This is a sponsored article.
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