Startups Stack Exchange Archive

What features are must for a point of sale app startup?

• posted by: samo on 2015-12-07
• tagged: product
• score: 1

I am building a point of sale app. It has the following features:

1. Create bill
2. Browse bills
3. Search bills
4. Graphs of bills per week, per month.

What am I missing?

Answer 8031

• posted by: Denis de Bernardy on 2015-12-07
• score: 4

You have not even begun to skim the surface. Think:

• read barcodes and RFIDs and what have you or integrate with a tool that does
• increment/decrement stock or integrate with a tool that does
• process refunds, chargebacks, reverse chargebacks, etc. or integrate with a tool that does
• detect fraudulent credit cards or integrate with a tool that does
• permission management across the organization
• provide financial reports for store operators
• provide productivity stats on operators (e.g. transactions per hour)

The list could go on, and on, and on.

And yes: it’s minimum viable features for the most part. You’re not getting clients without most of these. Your competitors are offering most or all of these for very very low fees, and have $100M+ funding behind them to make them happen.

If this is the type of app you’re working on single-handedly, think twice before continuing. Get clients first; spot a niche; then build.

Answer 8034

• posted by: Tom on 2015-12-08
• score: 0

As noted, competition is very big on this market.

If theres only 16% businesses using these in your area, you should consider making reseller-affiliate deal with one of the vendors and start selling today. If you go ahead and build your own, you set yourself back at least 12 months on revenue.

Later on, when you have customers and you’re getting indications of flaws or possible features current providers are missing, you could consider building your own and ditch the partner. You would have immediate customer base, recurring revenue and better knowledge whats needed.

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