The mobile POS (mPOS) systems have gained a lot of traction in the last few years in the Indian market. The eCommerce platforms initially used it for the collection of payments while delivering goods.

How does it work?

Any smartphone or tablet can act as an mPOS machine by downloading the payment app on to the device. When a merchant registers with the payment processor or Acquirer bank, the processor or bank ships their PIN pad integrated card readers to be connected to the smartphone or tablet through the audio jack or Bluetooth. Credit/Debit transactions were processed using the card readers.

mPOS was initially used mainly for the portability and the wireless capability that it brought. So, you can accept payments anywhere and everywhere without any hassles. Some mPOS devices also came with docking stations, which allowed the mobile device to read barcodes and print receipts. The extended capabilities made mPOS as a stand-alone device or as a part of the legacy POS play.

The advent of Android POS

Android POS belongs to the family of mobile POS (mPOS), with the most significant advantage being the ease-of-use. It is a single device that comes with the reader, application, and the PCI-certified PIN on Glass technology. It not only allows portability, but it also encourages the in-store merchants to make use of it as opposed to the cumbersome and price-heavy stand-alone POS systems.

Why Android POS?

• The most significant advantage of the Android POS system is that it is relatively cheap and secure compared to stand-alone POS systems. All the customer data is stored in the cloud in an encrypted manner.
• Android POS has full integration with the POS software. Inventory management, employee management, sales data, customer data, purchase history, and other relevant information can be accessed quickly.
• Android POS allows you to check your business performance on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, where the data can be sliced and diced the way you want. It can also be integrated with the existing POS systems to check on the business performance.
• Based on your business needs, you can add multiple devices to your Android POS – printers, barcode scanners, and customer monitors, among others.
• Highly portable – you can use it as a part of your cash register, or your delivery person can carry it on the person to collect payments from your customers, or you can take it to your office to export or print reports from the device.
• It is easily scalable – you only have to add the Android POS devices as the number of locations increase. As everything else is hosted on the cloud, scaling is pretty fast.

Android POS is the future. More and more businesses are adopting it, irrespective of their sizes for the sheer ease-of-use and flexibility that it offers.