Hasta La Gadget!

Back in May, Groupon purchased Breadcrumb, a point-of-sale system for the hospitality industry meant to erase the clunky systems of past years and replace them with a sleek, affordable iPad app. Breadcrumb offers all the features needed by restaurants, cafes, or bars in a single app, including the ability to process sales using an card swiping attachment for the iPad. Originally offered under a pilot run in New York, this POS app is now available nation-wide.

Features for this point-of-sale app include the ability to track employee labor, map out tables or serving courses, send orders to one or more kitchen stations, control cash drawers and receipt printers, and configure various menus, including pricing. In addition to offering the various features a restaurant or bar may need, Breadcrumb also allows real-time monitoring of reports, which are updated with every interaction with the app. Reports can be viewed by authorized users anywhere via a web browser.

Breadcrumb is only available for the iPad, which is perhaps disappointing to those who prefer Android, although the limitation makes sense from a stability standpoint. The variety of hardware available that runs Android – some of which is very low end – could result in bugs and glitches that, while not explicitly Breadcrumb’s fault, would no doubt be associated with the app instead the hardware. Whether the app will ever be available for Android is unknown.

Pricing is split into four tiers. For small businesses, the $99 pricing tier allows Breadcrumb to be run on one iPad, while the $199 tier authorizes 2 iPads, the $299 tier authorizes 5 iPads, and the $399 tier authorizes 10 iPads. All four pricing options include unlimited users and free updates.

[via Groupon]

Groupon launches point-of-sale system Breadcrumb is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Popular deal website Groupon is venturing into the world of smart phone-based credit card payments today, launching the Groupon Payments initiative nationwide after a successful pilot program is the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this year. Groupon’s boasting a guaranteed lowest cost pricing to merchants using Groupon Payments for credit card transactions — MasterCard, Visa, and Discover will cost retailers 1.8 percent of credit card sales, plus a $0.15 per transaction fee, while American Express will cost three percent of credit card sales, plus a $0.15 per transaction fee. The biggest competition in the space comes from Square, headed by former Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, which charges a flat 2.75 percent rate on all transactions against all cards, though PayPal, Intuit, and Verifone all offer similar services.

Today’s news matches up directly with leaks we saw back in May, adding on that merchants will see the day’s credit card purchases credited to their bank accounts overnight, rather than waiting two to three business days (per standard practice). Beyond credit card services, Groupon’s Merchants app also accepts Groupon daily deals, which helps elucidate why Groupon would be interested in entering the mobile credit card payments market in the first place (beyond it being a lucrative market unto itself, of course). Interested parties can sign up over on Groupon’s website, and snag the free payments app right here. Finally — finally — you’ll be able to sell all those $10 gift certificates to Chili’s you’ve been hoarding. Perhaps charge $5 a pop for their $10 value and … is this a paradox? This might be a paradox.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Wireless, Internet, Mobile

Square competitor Groupon Payments launches today, promises lowest cost for retailers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Sep 2012 11:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you love Groupon deals and have a phone capable of running Nokia Maps, then boy does Nokia have the update for you. Today, Nokia’s Pino Bonetti announced that Nokia Maps has been updated and now includes support for Groupon Now! deals. This means that you’re never too far from the next great Groupon deal, as Groupon Now! allows you to purchase them and use them immediately. Pretty cool, no?

Bonetti explains the process of buying a Groupon deal on your phone in a post on the Nokia Conversations blog – when you’re looking for something in Nokia Maps, you’ll be alerted to Groupon deals at nearby places. Each deal listed on your map comes with an “exhaustive description,” and deciding to buy one will take you to the Groupon mobile site where you’ll complete your purchase. Unfortunately, those living outside the US are out of luck for the time being, as Groupon Now! deals are currently only available in the US due to their “geographically limited” nature.

Support for Groupon Now! isn’t the only thing Nokia is touting with this update. Nokia has introduced a new feature called “advanced route setting” in this update, which allows users to plan trips within the Nokia Maps app. Select your starting point and destination, tell the app if you’ll be walking, driving, or taking public transportation, and you’re good to go. Nokia also says that users can save the route to their start screen, so it will be ready for future trips.

At this point in time, Nokia Maps is only compatible with the Nokia Lumia 610, 710, 800, and 900, so if you don’t own one of those models, then this update doesn’t apply to you. Users can get the update by either waiting for the notification from the Windows Phone Marketplace or downloading it from the Nokia Collection. It sounds like an excellent update, so if you’re a regular user of Nokia Maps, be sure to grab it.

Nokia Maps updated with support for Groupon Now! deals is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.