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Insights and Expertise
StreetSmarts SM
POS partners: Agnostics or antagonists?
By Allen Kopelman You'll be next
Nationwide Payment Systems Inc. If you think this can't happen to you, think again. POS
partners are poaching hard-earned accounts in record
nce upon a time, POS companies sold hard- numbers. Some are former partners and friends, who
ware and software and left payment process- came to us on a wing and a prayer, hoping to sell some
ing to ISOs and merchant level salespeople cool new tech.
O (MLSs). Then Mercury Payments began shar-
ing residuals with POS partners in the early 2000s, and a After we helped them grow revenue and market share,
decade later, a company now known as Shift4 introduced we got screwed without a kiss. My partner Dave and I
free POS systems with embedded payments. got sick and tired of losing merchants to predatory POS
companies and decided to do something about it.
Before too long, the payments industry was rife with
partnerships, mergers and acquisitions between POS Let's face it: being a POS dealer is a pain in the butt. Too
technology companies and merchant acquirers. many calls, too much driving, too much time tied up
building menus, training staff, setting up equipment
My stomach hurts when I see MLSs on Facebook groups and learning software from understaffed companies
looking for agnostic POS systems. I'm reminded of the with subpar developers and unstable systems. It didn't
hundreds of merchants we've lost over the years, along take long for me to throw in the towel. I told Dave, if you
with millions in residuals. want to sell POS, leave me out of it, unless we find a good
partner.
One by one, formerly payments-agnostic POS companies
began poaching our customers, including some that Eventually, we struck gold with a POS partner that
had been with us for over a decade. Merchants who handles menu-building, training, installation and help
had invested in POS systems or had been lured into desk support. And then we found another company that
free systems were given an ultimatum: switch to a new specializes in retail verticals and does all the heavy lifting.
processing platform or your equipment will be useless.
These partners free us to do what we do best: sell! Like
In retrospect, we lost business over time but not all at most MLSs, we don't have IT backgrounds and we don't
once, like other ISOs and MLSs. I know an ISO that lost write code. Having POS partners manage these things
over 50 prime restaurant accounts when their POS dealer enables us to grow and scale our business.
was acquired and a bulk of their income disappeared
overnight. New playing field
Another ISO had been sharing about $80,000 a month with Thanks to our new POS partnerships, Dave and I don't
a dealer until the dealer was sold, and all the accounts have to rush out at 1 a.m. to fix some nightclub's POS
were switched over. I'm sure there are hundreds of other equipment. Of course, we knew there would be tradeoffs,
stories like this. but we are happy to share some residual revenue with
partners that answer late-night service calls, order
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