Vend’s Cloud-Based POS Systems Facilitate Credit Card and Other Payments Around the World

In a Nutshell: While it’s often not obvious when you swipe your credit card at a retail store, a whole host of interactions take place from different companies to make the purchase possible. Vend plays a crucial role in this process with its innovative, cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) solution. The company’s platform provides businesses with a fast and easy-to-use POS. And it also gives customers inventory management capabilities, scalability, omnichannel functionality, real-time reporting, and e-commerce integrations. While the company’s platform is suited for a wide range of businesses, retailers make up the majority of its customers. Vend counts more than 25,000 retailers around the world as customers and keeps quality customer service and an easy onboarding experience among its top priorities.

When you swipe, insert, or tap your credit card to make a purchase, what seems like a nearly instantaneous transaction requires a lot of moving parts on the backend.

Businesses of all types must work with card issuers to accept different types of cards, payment processors to ensure the payments go through, and point-of-sale (POS) vendors who make sure the company has a way to read credit cards and other types of payments.

When it comes to POS systems, Vend offers an innovative solution to suit a variety of business needs.

“The company was founded in 2010, and our claim to fame is being the world’s first cloud-based retail point-of-sale system,” said Jake West, Vend’s Director of Business Development. “So since inception, we’ve operated in the cloud.”

West said the idea for Vend came to Founder Vaughan Rowsell while he was biking across New Zealand.

“He started pitching everybody that he saw about putting point-of-sale in the cloud so that you could do things like connect to accounting software and sell online or view your business reporting in real time,” West said.

Today, Vend does all that and much more. West discussed the process of developing the innovative platform, how it benefits the retail market, and the company’s attention to quality customer service.

With the COVID-19 pandemic impacting retail commerce across the globe, it’s more important than ever for retailers to maintain an omnichannel business, according to Vend. It’s also important to be prepared for a retail resurgence, the company states.

Vend makes it easy for companies to do both of these things.

“We designed a user-friendly interface that’s fast to use and easy to learn, minimizing training time,” according to the website. “Works seamlessly with existing or new hardware. All your data is synced to the cloud and accessible from anywhere.”

The company believes that Vend is the easiest to use POS available.

“Our core competency is developing the best point-of-sale platform out there,” West said. “We’ve got 100 engineers that work on turning out product daily. And we partner with the best-in-class companies, whether it’s payments, ecommerce, loyalty, etc.”

The cloud-based solution is designed to not only be easy to use, but to help companies succeed, grow, and thrive.

“You’re a retailer, not a tech wizard. We designed Vend to be so intuitive, anyone — from owners to managers to cashiers — can get the hang of it in minutes,” according to Vend. “You and your team can stop worrying about the tech side of things, and focus more on running and growing your business.”

West emphasized that Vend itself is not a payments processor, but as a POS solution, it partners with processors and many other companies to provide businesses and consumers with positive shopping experiences.

Since Vend already has its cloud-based POS solution in place, it makes sense for many companies to use the existing platform rather than spend time and money to develop their own, which would likely not be as efficient and effective as Vend, West said.

“The big thing I’ll stress here is, when you think about point-of-sale, think of it less as a sales screen with integrated payments and think of it more as a business management platform,” West said. “We’re super strong with inventory-based retailers — all those kinds of merchants that have a lot of inventory they need to manage.”

The platform is particularly valuable for retailers because it connects so many different solutions in one place.

“We work with all the major credit card providers in North America, direct integrations, advance loyalty, staff management, e-commerce,” West said. “About 50% of our merchants now sell online — ERP platforms, you name it. It’s all extensions within our API.”

With systems that streamline operations, boost efficiency, and help get jobs done faster, businesses can focus on other things.

“You’ll get more hours back into your day, and you can spend that time serving your customers, cooking up new ideas, or simply doing things you truly love,” according to the company.

And Vend is truly made with today’s diverse marketplace in mind, allowing companies to easily expand to different outlets and grow organically.

“Vend makes it easy to add new outlets and registers as your business grows,” according to the company. “All of Vend’s key features including POS, inventory, and reporting are designed for multiple outlets so your business operates as one cohesive operation. Ecommerce integrations support fulfillment from any store.”

The point-of-sale sector is a competitive area, and Vend understands this. But the company is confident in its platform and offers retailers a chance to try the solution for 14 days completely free, with no obligations.

Along with its top-notch developers and innovative approach to POS, Vend also makes sure to prioritize customer service.

“As a four-time winner for customer service at the Stevie Awards (the Oscars of customer service), you can be 110% sure that Vend’s support crew will be there for you,” according to the company website. “Our team members come from retail backgrounds themselves and they’re well-equipped to solve any issues you may have.”

West said Vend also keeps things simple as far as pricing goes, starting at $99 per month.

“Our entry plan is great for smaller merchants who need that sales, customer, and inventory tracking,” he said. “If it’s an advanced retailer, we know they are going to want the e-commerce loyalty, accounting, and access to all of the API integrations so we have plans that scale to suit their needs.”

Watch on
And if there’s any doubt that Vend can meet your business needs, just look at some of the globally known brands that use Vend. Sennheiser, Disney, ECCO, and ShopNASA are just a few well-known brands out of the 25,000-plus retailers around the world that use Vend.

“With Vend, we can literally launch a store in five minutes, add 20 registers, and set up multiple locations anywhere in the world,” wrote Sennheiser Ecommerce Manager Jason Weber on the Vend website.

For Sennheiser, using Vend was 80% cheaper than using its legacy POS, according to the Vend website.

This is just one of many examples of satisfied customers who have saved money and boosted efficiency using the cloud-based POS solution.