Gust Pay, the South African mobile payments startup, has introduced a new iPad-based point of sale (POS) solution for restaurants and coffee shops.
Gust PayPoint is an iOS app which runs on an iPad and turns it into a touch screen POS system which accepts smartphone payments.
Joe Botha, one of the Gust Pay founders, said that the PayPoint is less expensive than traditional POS systems and is part of an international trend towards using tablets to improve the in-shop payment experience.
“Our goal is to help merchants attract more recurring customers and build smarter customer relationships,” he said. With Gust, customers pay with a tap and a swipe on their phone. Merchants get to greet regulars by name and skip the hassle of cash.
“The future of commerce is completely mobile and connects the merchant and customer in new ways. Gust is designed for a complete purchasing cycle: our PayPoint Dashboard lets a merchant configure a special, customers find the special with Gust Finder which helps them navigate to a shop, Gust Pay offers a quick payment experience and gives the customer access to free in-shop WiFi, while Gust PayPoint processes the payment and offers detailed analytics.”
Analysts believe 2013 will be the first year in which more than 50 percent of new mobile phone sales in South Africa will be smartphones.
Lower end Android smartphones are already available across Africa from as little as US$50 and these trends, according to analysts, point towards exciting and disruptive times, changing the way we discover products and pay for them.
Gust’s PayPoint Dashboard lets merchants configure their stock inventory using a browser. Merchants have the option to create daily specials and these specials are pushed to their customer’s smartphones using a location aware app called Gust Finder.
