The number of businesses that decide to offer their clients the option of paying with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is growing by leaps and bounds. Every month, new big names such as Tesla enter the party and expand the list of crypto use cases. While all crypto-fueled merchants accept cryptocurrencies, the particular ways how they do it vary. In other words, there are dozens of approaches to enabling crypto payments, and each company chooses the one it likes the most. The cryptocurrency Point-of-Sale terminal is a popular solution for accepting cryptocurrencies popular among many enterprises. Online Point-of-Sale is easy to deploy, and it does not entail any expenses. If you want to receive an answer to the question “What is a Point-of-Sale system” and learn how to set up a Shopify Point-of-Sale payment gateway, check this article.
Key Points:
- Crypto Point-of-Sale system is a convenient tool for collecting payments from customers.
- NOWPayments’ PoS terminal is entirely web-based and does not require any deployment expenses.
- Merchants with eCommerce stores on Shopify and WooCommerce and owners of brick-and-mortar shops can benefit from a PoS solution.
What is crypto PoS?
As mentioned above, a crypto Point-of-Sale (PoS) is a solution for deploying a cryptocurrency payment gateway. The PoS system enables your clients to pay for goods and services with Bitcoin using their smartphone and crypto wallet. The main advantage of the PoS method is the convenience since it takes mere seconds to create an invoice that the customer can utilize to pay. The PoS gateway is also simple to use and does not involve building complex infrastructure.
PoS is generally a safe way of accepting cryptocurrencies for both the merchant and the client. It also lets the merchant fully customize their invoices and issue new ones for each client. That is why PoS is an excellent option for small brick-and-mortar stores that do not need to process hundreds of payments per second.
Yet, online stores also can benefit from setting up a crypto Point-of-Sale system. Since cryptocurrencies are borderless and their transactions do not have any geographic limits, PoS becomes an ideal choice for eCommerce stores that sell their products worldwide. Creating an invoice for international clients using a cryptocurrency PoS terminal takes less than a minute.
How does Point-of-Sale work?
The Point-of-Sale gateway requires only three steps. The first one is entering the sum that your client needs to pay in the fiat currency of your choice. The second is choosing the cryptocurrency in which your client prefers to pay you. Finally, the third step is the auto-generation of the QR code.
Your client can scan the QR code using their phone and pay the sum which you specified earlier with the help of their mobile or desktop crypto wallet.
There are, of course, PoS solutions involving expensive devices which can process payments by scanning clients’ crypto debit cards. Yet, such a method is costly and simply unaffordable for small and medium-sized enterprises. Moreover, it is quite inconvenient for people who do not have crypto debit cards and cell phones with the NFC chip.
NOWPayments’ PoS solution is purely web-based, so all you need is a phone, laptop, or PC to issue an invoice with a QR code for your client.
Risks of PoS
Perhaps, one of the primary risks of PoS solutions is the potential problems with the network uptime. Namely, providers of PoS solutions that do not invest in their network infrastructure may face occasional crashes or delays in their connection. As a result, the companies using PoS systems can potentially be unable to process payments and let clients carry out transactions. Nevertheless, such an issue is fairly easy to resolve simply by the PoS solution provider partnering with a reliable hosting service. For instance, NOWPayments’ crypto Point-of-Sale gateways function without any interruptions since the company carefully chooses its servers providers.
Another risk of deploying a web-based PoS is the malware that can interact with the device’s operating system and other components and allow scammers to steal money from the merchant or their client. For instance, malware can interfere with the crypto wallet and redirect a transaction to another crypto address. Thus, merchants that use PoS and their clients should be advised to install security software and deploy firewalls to make their connections resistant to attacks.
Shopify crypto Point-of-Sale
Merchants that host their eCommerce stores on Shopify can deploy a PoS crypto payment gateway with the help of NOWPayments. Shopify is a major platform which gives sellers from around the world an opportunity to get their products to a wide audience and build a large clientele. Shopify delivers ready-made templates and instruments that make creating an eCommerce store and managing it a walk in the park. Since Shopify lets its users customize their personal stores, they can add various features. NOWPayments has designed a special plugin compatible with Shopify that can process crypto payments automatically. Yet, if you want to have more control over each transaction, the Shopify Point-of-Sale solution should be the best option for you.
WooCommerce Point-of-Sale
WooCommerce is another eCommerce platform. It is built on top of WordPress, a popular service for bloggers. WooCommerce was designed specifically for merchants that do not want to waste resources on developing their own store infrastructure. WooCommerce provides sellers with all essential tools for successfully running their shop online. NOWPayments also has a special plugin capable of registering and processing cryptocurrency payments for WooCommerce. Still, WooCommerce merchants can utilize PoS too. Those WooCommerce store owners that want to provide a personalized customer experience to each client can choose to deploy a crypto Point-of-Sale System from NOWPayments. In this case, once your client settles on the products they want to buy, you will be able to enter the total price of their order and the coin chosen by the client. After generating a QR code, you will have to send it to the client, and it will take them to the page where they will be able to pay for their goods.
Why do NOWPayments use PoS?
NOWPayments has chosen to feature the option of PoS as a way to guarantee more flexibility and freedom to its clients. Many merchants have only one crypto payment gateway, which can be inconvenient for some of their customers. Merchants that use NOWPayments’ services can choose to collect crypto payments in several ways, namely, through invoices, plugins, and the PoS system. Thus, they always have the ability to offer several crypto payment methods to their customers.
Additionally, NOWPayments decided to provide a cryptocurrency PoS system as a solution for small brick-and-mortar businesses that do not have online stores. Now, thanks to the crypto PoS terminal, they will be able to issue individual invoices to all clients willing to pay with Bitcoin or altcoins.
Conclusion
It is common to hear from people unfamiliar with PoS solutions, “What is an electronic Point-of-Sale system?” The short answer to this question would be that PoS is a convenient tool for collecting payments from clients. While traditional PoS terminals require special physical devices and sophisticated infrastructure, NOWPayments’ crypto PoS system is completely web-based. Merchants using NOWPayments’ PoS only need to enter the sum and the currency in which their customers will pay them to generate a QR code. The buyer will have to scan the QR code in order to conduct a transaction.