AirPOS is an electronic point-of-sale (EPOS) company that helps businesses easily make sales through the use of a tablet or phone.
The service is installed on the device of your choosing and comes with many features and third-party services that allow you to quickly and efficiently process payments, but also features that help you grow your customer base, manage your accounting, and keep track of your inventory, to name a few.
Sections
Features
All of the features we’ll go over in this section are included in both the Pay and Pro plans.
Loyalty Reward Scheme – The AirPOS loyalty reward scheme allows your customers to earn points if they make repeat purchases. This feature works in tandem with the Customer Accounts feature since the points will be accumulated on the account, and they can be redeemed at any time.
These points can then be used to earn discounts for other items that you sell. The height of the discounts and the number of points that need to be accumulated are both thresholds that you can set and modify yourself.
Process Coupons – Vouchers, gift cards, and coupons can all be processed through the system and it’s as easy as scanning the printed code by using the camera, or manually inputting codes directly into the system.
Customer Accounts – Being able to create customer accounts allows you to give select customers discounts and preferred treatment. You can also give account points and streamline the payment process.
If a customer already has an account, processing their payments is a matter of selecting their name and scanning their card since their payment details are in your system.
As for the account points, they’ll be stored in the system, and once a certain customer is registered, they’ll be able to use their points to get a discount on a purchase or accumulate more points and use them at a later time.
Customer Info – Employees can add certain details about customers that might be useful for promotional and marketing purposes. For example, the system will give your employees recommendations on which products a customer might like based on previous purchases and offer them a discount on those products. Employees can also add notes or memos on customers so they can provide better service.
Trade Accounts – Setting up a trade account for individual customers or local businesses will allow your customers to top up their accounts and spend against the account balance if they want to.
Inventory Management – Warnings will automatically appear on your screen when your stock gets depleted and you’ll be shown which items are running low. You’ll also be able to check and see the exact number of items that you have in your inventory, as well as manage your new orders.
Modifying the inventory alert is also possible, so you’ll be able to set it to the exact number that you want. This will allow you to adjust the inventory limit of all of your items and get notified once that limit is reached.
Unlimited POS – You can add as many points of sale and employee accounts as you want. All of the accounts will be linked and all of the transactions and other info will be collected in a main hub for easy management and organization.
However, the Pro plan will charge you a per-device fee if you want to install the AirPOS service on more than 3 devices, and the Pay plan doesn’t mention whether or not it comes with a similar charge or any device limit.
Unlimited Products – There’s no limit to the number of products that you can log and process through the POS service. The Inventory Management feature will keep track of all of your products, and the POS will log all of your sales so that the inventory is automatically updated.
Reporting Tools – Generating reports through the AirPOS service is as simple as pressing a button. You can choose the specifications of the reports yourself, and you can create and review anything from the number of sales that you’ve processed in a given time, to the most and least well-selling items that you offer. You can also generate as many reports as you want.
You can use these reports to see which products you should get more of and which you should get rid of because they’re not selling. You can also generate the number of products sold by each employee as well as the customer satisfaction score so you can estimate the efficiency of your workers with a decent amount of accuracy.
Employee Accounts – Speaking of your employees, you can give each of them their own password-protected account. This ensures that the system is protected against someone from outside of the company who’s trying to view your files.
This feature works in tandem with the Reporting Tools that we just mentioned and creates an accurate estimation of each employee’s performance so you can reward them or help them out if they’re having trouble in a certain area.
Sales Reports – The sales reports are automatically generated and stored away from all of the other reports. This will allow you to easily keep track of all of the purchases that you’ve processed on a daily basis. You’ll also be able to sort your sales reports by date and other groups so that you can manage them more easily when it comes time to balance the books.
Support – Both the Pay and the Pro plans come with free customer support that’s standing by to answer any questions that you might have. The support is UK-based and it’s available 7 days a week from 9 am to 9 pm (UK standard time). The average response time is reportedly around 3 minutes.
Flexible Payments – Customers will be allowed to pay for purchases at once, or spread the payments over several instalments. You can also give them the option to simply delay the payments, all of which are great incentives for customers to make large purchases on products that might be out of their price range in single instalment payments.
eCommerce – If you want to sell your products online, AirPOS allows you to integrate your in-person and online stores into the same database. The inventory from both stores can be viewed and managed from the same account and device, and both the online and in-person sales will be stored in the same place.
The inventory is also synced, so regardless of where the purchase was made, the system will automatically manage the inventory size to always accurately display the number of products you have in stock.
Hardware
Aside from the software, AirPOS also provides you with hardware that you can purchase for your business.
The hardware and the prices are as follows:
- Universal Tablet Stand – £34,99
- Star Cash Drawer – £64,99
- Star Lan Receipt Printer – £199,99
- Newland Barcode Scanner – £99,99
- AirPOS Pay Cradle – £39
- Star TSP-143IIIU iPad Charging Receipt Printer – £184,99
You also have several product bundles that you can choose from:
- AirPOS Pay Card Reader – BBPOS WisePad 3 – £29
- AirPOS Pay Card Reader – BBPOS WisePOS E – £150
- AirPOS Hardware Bundle with Wifi Card Reader – £399
- AirPOS Hardware Bundle with Free Bluetooth Card Reader – £299
Pricing
The AirPOS service comes in two packages. You can choose between the free and the paid option, both of which come with their own benefits.
AirPOS Pay
The free version of AirPOS won’t cost you anything, and yet, it still comes with a pretty impressive selection of features. These features include:
- The POS Platform – Regardless of whether you’re using an iPad or an Android, the POS system is compatible with both tablets. It’s the same for both systems and you simply need to log onto your account to download and automatically install the service on your device.
- Xero Integration – Xero is an accounting software that does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to managing the financial side of your business. The many available features will allow you to track and pay all of your bills, submit expense claims, connect your bank account directly to the app, and much more.
The site also mentions that there are two more features that are coming to the AirPOS service somewhere down the pipeline, although when they’ll be implemented isn’t mentioned.
These services are the ability to use AirPOS Pay on Windows with the wifi terminal that the company provides, and the ability to process card payments through the AirPOS Pay Virtual Terminal.
While the Pro plan comes with a few more features, the Pay plan is still a great addition to any business. Not only do you get a lot of POS features, but you also get to use them for free, whereas most other companies would charge you a pretty penny for this sort of service.
AirPOS Pro
The Pro version of AirPOS will cost you £49 a month. The good thing about this service is that it doesn’t have a contract. This allows you to cancel the service whenever you want to with no repercussions.
On the other hand, the lack of a yearly plan also means that there’s no discount for an annual billing scheme as you might find in a lot of other similar services. However, we believe that the price of the Pro plan isn’t that high, so the lack of an annual billing discount isn’t much of an issue.
The Pro plan comes with all of the features that were included in the Pay plan, with the addition of a few new ones:
- POS on Windows – While the previous plan limited the usage of this service on iPad and Android devices, the Pro plan allows you to install AirPOS on devices that run Windows as well.
- 3 Install for Free – The first 3 devices that you install the service on won’t cost you anything, but the 4th device and up will incur an additional fee. This isn’t ideal for large businesses since you’ll need to pay a per-device fee if you want to use more than 3 tablets, but it’s still a great deal for smaller businesses that don’t need many devices.
- Shopify integration – You’ll be able to integrate both your Shopify Inventory and your Shopify eCommerce site with your AirPOS service. This will provide you with much easier access to all of your items and payments, regardless of the platform that they’re located on.
- Third-Party Payment – Zettle, Sumup and Worldpay can all be integrated into the service as easily as Xeno. You press the prompt and the app is installed and ready to use. However, keep in mind that all of these services come with their own fee-per-transaction rate.
Payment Options
As we mentioned, Zettle, Sumup, and Worldpay are all available payment options that you can use through the AirPOS service. You’ll also be able to add Stripe, which is the preferred payment option for a lot of people in addition to card payments.
Speaking of card payments, Visa, Mastercard, and most credit and debit cards are accepted through the service, however, you’ll need to get your own card reader in order to process those payments. Luckily, AirPOS can provide you with a card reader, and it doesn’t even come with any rental charges.
Company History
AirPOS is an electronic point-of-sale company that was started in 2009 in the UK by Kieran Graham and Martin Neill. Its goal is to provide business owners with an easy method to sell their products both online and in person. Over the years, the company has steadily been adding more and more useful features that keep improving the customer experience and it doesn’t seem like they’re going to stop anytime soon.
Reviews
Techradar gives the service a 3.5 out of 5 stars, with the biggest pros being the lack of a long-term contract, the simple back office, and the companion service integration.
Trustpilot puts AirPOS at 3.9 out of 5 stars, with most of the reviews giving the company 4 and 5-star ratings.