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for valuable marketing purposes, while accepting
credit and debit cards, general purpose prepaid
cards, e-checks and alternative payments like
Google Wallet. By providing more options, pop-up
merchants are better positioned to satisfy customer
needs and ultimately drive growth.

3. Personalization: Technology advancements at the
POS will enable pop-up businesses to track data and
understand their customers' preferences and habits.
This allows merchants to keep shoppers apprised
of changes in location or to deliver personalized
promotions. By delivering this information through
the desired channels, merchants can stay connected
and maintain loyalty.
Mobile this

The revolution in mobile connectivity is breathtaking.
It seems every coffee shop and public space offers free
Wi-Fi access today. So it may seem like the easiest pop-
up solution is to equip businesses with a mobile POS
that leverages free public networks. But the downside is
that public networks are inherently insecure and can be
plagued with performance issues based on the amount
of user traffic.

"It may not be a problem or it may be a huge problem,"
said Bob Daughton, Executive Vice Chairman of the
Board at Conductiv Software Inc. "But if you are sitting
there on a Saturday afternoon in December and all of
a sudden your system goes down, you've got a major,
major problem."

New York-based mobile app developer Conductiv
addressed this problem with the August 2013 release
of its Interact Mobile POS Solution. The app takes
advantage of the more secure cell signal connections
between mobile devices and cell towers. But that does
not mean that a pop-up business with a tablet POS
would connect to the nearest tower.
"On a typical cell phone signal, you get the tower you're
closest to," Daughton said. "And if that is a busy tower,
you might have a degraded performance. But our system
automatically finds areas where the signal integrity, and
thus the data integrity, is virtually perfect."

At AnywhereCommerce, the debate over Wi-Fi or cell
is rendered moot, according to Cobrin. The Montreal-
based firm resells its mobile hardware, software and
payment gateway packages via merchant service
providers. Its solutions – with rugged, individualistic
names like Nomad, Rambler and Walker – incorporate
what Cobrin termed end-to-end security encryption.

"For us, the data connectivity aspect is kind of secondary
because every one of our transactions is fully encrypted
at the card head reader," he said. "So, essentially, it's
encrypted into an impregnable data packet, and that
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