Today New York City-based ShopKeep announced the launch of its new iPhone app, which gives merchants real-time access to all their sales data from their iPad point-of-sale (POS) systems. The company launched its iPad application in August 2011 and to date the company has worked with over 3,000 brick and mortar retailers, providing merchants with inventory and transaction management software. The company raised $2.2 million in funding from Tribeca Venture Capital, TTV Capital, and Contour Ventures in January 2012.
ShopKeep’s iPad POS gives merchants the ability to enter a transaction, process cash and credit card payments, and print receipts on their tablet. One the online backend, it gives owners the ability to track, receive and order inventory, generate sales reports, and assign individual employee security access. “I started ShopKeep four years ago out of my frustration as a retailer, I had a three-location grocery and wine business in Brooklyn and was fed up with the inability to access my reports, problems with servers, databases crashing and the lack of support from my vendor was really frustrating,” ShopKeep CEO Jason Richelson said in an interview. “And then after a database failure, I decided I wanted to switch to a point-of-sale cloud system at the end of 2008, and there weren’t any, so I decided to build it.”
ShopKeep deals mostly with small retailers that have one or two locations, including coffee shops and apparel stores. The new iPhone app gives them real-time access to things like how much cash is in the register, how many transactions took place at any given time, and sales reports. The app also gives small business owners with more than one location the ability to sync data with all of their iPad POS systems, giving them a single point of access to see how each of their locations are performing.
“As the owner or manager of the store you want to know how much money’s in the cash drawer, how many sales I’ve done today…these are the kind of things you want to know on a daily basis, several time a day,” Richelson said. “With ShopKeep you can of course log on to your browser and run those reports, but this app now allows you just pull out your phone and click refresh and see all that information.”
The company operates on a SaaS subscription model, giving retailers access to the iPad and iPhone apps for free, with subscription plans starting at $49 per month. In addition, merchants can purchase the hardware from the company’s online store, including stands, routers, credit card swipers and more.
Other players in the mobile POS game include Revel, an iPadPOS system that provides its solution to niche verticals, including grocers and food trucks operators. ShopKeep differentiates itself by offering its app for free and only requiring merchants pay the monthly subscription fee, while Revel POS systems need to be purchased up front (and cost $100 a month for hosting fees). And of course there are mobile payments solutions like Square and LevelUp, which just added NFC support, though it doesn’t work with iPad, and rather has its own hardware that it provides to perchants.
The company is looking to integrate PayPal in the near future in order to give customers the option to pay by checking in on their PayPal app. The company is also looking to update their existing Android app to provide the same functionality as the iPhone app in a few weeks, and is also currently working on closing another round of funding. In terms of verticals, they’re working to add functionality that is more tailored to the restaurant and bar market to expand their reach. Mobile payments and merchant POS solutions is a growing space, and with over 3,000 retailers on board and a SaaS model that’s affordable for even the smallest retailers, ShopKeep is poised for growth.
