by rparra | Jun 21, 2013 | features, news
The buzzword “Cloud” is the center of enormous press, the basis for numerous Silicon Valley startups and is surfacing in a variety of emerging technologies, however, what impact will it have for the payments industry? In terms of commerce, the Mobile POS Market Survey by IHL reports that by 2015, traditional POS sales will drop by more than 13% due to the rise in mobile POS systems powered by the cloud. An additional IHL report states by 2015, 2.7 million tablets will be shipped per year to retail and hospitality venues. This shift will account for a growth rate of approximately 450 percent in just three years. While traditional POS systems cost thousands of dollars and can become instantly obsolete; could the cloud’s strong processing power and instant data storage/retrieval insure that cloud based merchant POS systems are future-proofed businesses? Think of the impact of Netflix and Spotify on your CD and DVD collections. No longer do you have to have physical goods for music and the movies. Vastly larger content libraries are now accessible in your home or as you travel on tablets and smartphones; they no longer need to be purchased and locally stored. Now think about that concept with data generated by transactions… Full cloud computing, with large and distributed cloud based computing systems, can offer more power, uptime and access to unlimited amounts of data with faster responses and virtual access from anywhere. Wow… The advantages of cloud computing are making more affordable devices (compared to a PC) like tablets and smartphones very powerful as they can access unlimited data, really fast, without the need...
by rparra | Jun 14, 2013 | features
In the last few days both QSR Web and Fast Casual have posted articles about customers driving the need for restaurants to adopt mobile technologies. The truth of the matter is that your customers are on their smartphones. In order to compete, you need to be where your customers are and that means you need to be on their phones. Having a website that can be browsed on mobile is not enough. GoPago LIVE offers a one stop mobile solution. First, you get the mobile storefront for every location broadcasted through the GoPago app. Our killer app is a free download that allows your customers to browse, order and pay for your goods and services from their smartphones. Secondly, GoPago acts as a communication platform between the merchant and the customer. The customer can message the POS from their phone (like a text) asking for things like no tomatoes on their sandwich or substituting an item. The merchant has the ability to instantly respond. These quick message interactions are a game changer. No longer will the customer have to call, be placed on hold and wait to ask their simple question and get a quick reply back. An email, a tweet or a Facebook message isn’t as convenient as responding via a tablet POS: the hub of your business. Furthermore, the merchants can access their community, those who have previously ordered and those who have viewed their mobile storefront, and push messages like “You brighten up our day! Come by and visit us soon.” The level of communication can be customized and enhanced with the ability to push dollar...
by rparra | May 31, 2013 | event, news
While attending the NRA (National Restaurant Association) Show in Chicago last week it became crystal clear what restaurants want: integration in the technology they adopt. Our booth was centrally located in the technology pavillion of the show where bulky legacy point of sale systems were replaced with sleek sophisticated tablet-based POS solutions. These cutting edge cloud-based systems and mobile applications were neighbors during the four day show and it got attendees to wonder: can they have the best of all worlds in one system for their restaurant? Thankfully, for restaurateurs and merchants, the future for integration is looking bright. GoPago is deliberately moving to an open platform. At the prestigious Google i/o Conference earlier this month, it was announced that we have integrated with Google Wallet. The Google Wallet Instant Buy API is available on the GoPago app on Android devices, so now GoPago LIVE can accept Google Wallet payments alongside mobile orders and payments. Through our own SDK (software development kit) we will be providing API libraries and developer tools to build, test and debug apps for GoPago LIVE. Through opening our platform, we get to extend the value for our merchants with the best industry apps developed by domain experts. With this openness, a sit down restaurant may want to use their favorite reservation app and have it integrated on their smart POS system, GoPago LIVE. We are very aware of the highly competitive nature in the industries that we occupy, but we do believe that the winners will be those who work together and don’t position themselves as an all or nothing solution. During the conference,...
by rparra | May 13, 2013 | features
Let’s face it, most brick and mortar businesses don’t have an IT department and most cannot afford the costs of hiring an IT specialist, although we all know how vital internet enabled systems are to running a successful business in today’s competitive world. In fact, it is so important that when POS systems go down, especially during the transaction process, they hit a businesses’ bottom line hard and fast. The problem is that WiFi is unreliable. How many times have you had to check your router or call your cable company during your busy hours? If you are lucky and patient enough to talk to someone after hours on hold, you still have to remember and have access to your username and password (which probably is the unchanged one your internet provider automatically registered you with) and then you still may need to set up an appointment for a technician to visit. All of this while you have a business to run and customers who do not like the inconvenience of paying in cash. This whole process makes troubleshooting internet problems a nightmare. At GoPago, we are well aware of this pain point and that is why we have partnered with Verizon, the nation’s premier 4G data provider, to bundle a 4G internet data plan with every GoPago LIVE system. As soon as you turn on your system, it’s ready to go. No need for internet configuration, no WiFi passwords to remember. As Leo Rocco, GoPago CEO and Founder is fond of saying, “It’s like that euphoric feeling when you were a kid and the present you got included...
by rparra | May 3, 2013 | features, news
Pictured above from left to right: David Herzog, VP of Partnerships and Alliances; Martina Plaza, Office Manager; Leo Rocco, Founder & CEO; Kelsey Mitchell, Program Manager; and Steve Elefent, Chief Strategy Officer A year ago yesterday, Tech Republic published an article about an emerging trend, Solution as a Service, which could take over the other SaaS (Software as a Service). The article pointed to this new trend as a “revolution in a revolution” and as something that “would start with traditional Internet-related problems (such as search or content distribution)” and later move to other verticals. While attending the Electronic Transaction Association Expo these last few days, it became evident that there is evolution from Software as a Service to a Solution as a Service approach in the payments space. GoPago LIVE, our total commerce in the cloud product suite, is a comprehensive, bundled solution that stretches beyond software. It integrates all the hardware, software, and internet connectivity, while providing customer service that is both predictive for the merchant (eliminating system downtime) and proactive for future needs. Leo Rocco, GoPago Founder and CEO, stated, “There’s a big idea of evolving the paradigm of ‘Software as a Service’ to ‘Solution as a Service.’ The solution includes hardware, software, 4G data connectivity and best in class customer service; that’s our package and I believe that’s where the industry needs to go.” This change means that merchants will no longer have to invest large upfront licensing and maintenance fees for software from one company and pay additional large upfront costs in hardware from another company. An upfront licensing fee for POS software can...
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