[Ann] Best SambaPOS Features

This is the thing though in my mind, while samba has facility to do almost any integration with scripting etc its difficult to market this as a feature with re-seller model given that resellers may not have the skills or will do forfill a specific integration for their client making general marketing of integrations a challenge.
If you compair to say wordpress, while core wordpress could be said to resemble sambapos it s core starts pretty simple but can quickly be expanded with plugins.
SambaPOSs answer was meant to be as I understand it configuration tasks.
As you say emre without a big team its hard to maintain a range of ‘plugins’.
While wordpress does offer a large amount of free community provided plugins most better more powerfull ones are paid.
A possible solution I see is a method of selling ‘plugins’/configuration tasks as like you would need a team people need to justify their time in producing these setups and given a direct reward/justification those more capable may be more inclided to work on solutions beyond sharing their own purpose developed solutions.
Q’s answer was to produce his own external system with its own licencing setup.

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I’m still on it. I had a chance to bring that to attention on our last hq meeting but unfortunately my call received no response.

Receiving no response is completely my fault and I’ll work hard to fix that but this is not my point. I’m really proud of having people who implements their custom SambaPOS solutions and wants to sell them to SambaPOS users. This is just a dream for most businesses. To make it beneficial for everyone (devs, sellers, etc) we need to create an organized environment for it (like a marketplace) but without a dedicated effort it is really hard to do that. I’ll keep pushing it and I’ll find a way to bring it to life.

However without being able to tell our story no effort will be effective enough. So first step should be improving how we reach people (resellers, end users) and how we introduce SambaPOS to new people. We already have some marketing stuff but I feel like we can’t explain properly how awesome we are so I decided to ask here. We’re working with great marketing people and I believe by inspiring from community feedbacks we’ll be able to create great material.

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. We can keep discussing it but it will be great if we’ll also keep talking about things we like about SambaPOS :wink:

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Sorry, missed that post…
I wasn’t trying to divert the topic but input to marketing thoughts, ‘can do, with custom programming’ is a hard end user sell. That is where resellers come in but then they can market their setups/solutions but as said its a challenge to market that from your end.

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One of the ways I pitch clients here which works great is I show them how if you don’t like one particular setup method, no problem, lets change it.
As a reseller I normally ask the customer what it is they are wanting in a POS system, and they would normally tell me they want something similar if not better than what they were using previously.
When I tell them, "One of the many advantages and beauty of SambaPOS, is that we can design and implement the flow almost exactly as what you are used to, and if you don’t like it, unlike most other systems, we can change the flow to suit your needs. or "Most Traditional POS systems have a specific flow of the way things are done with only a handful of way you can truly customize the look, feel and functionality… With SambaPOS the possibilities are almost limited to your imagination.
"You wan’t Add an extra button to do a certain task? Done… You want to change that button’s function later down the track to do something else? Done! You want to suddenly change the entire flow structure of the way you run your business? done! You want to reports to show on a particular screen? done!
You want to change the size, and colours and fonts of your buttons? Done!
You want your receipt to print a particular way and particular method without too much effort? done!

“And that’s just a drop in the ocean of ideas you could come up with” “Our community Is strong and driven actively”“The developers listen to the users and constantly provide updates with feature brought forward by the community”… “Constantly upgrading and adding new features, way to which can make your experience with SambaPOS or POS in general far more awarding and more satisfying”
“Have an Idea you think would be great for your restaurant/shop? Let us know, and most likely it can either already be done or we can help build it for you”

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Wow @Shivan this is probably the best SambaPOS pitch I’ve ever heard. Awesome!

I don’t know how we’ll be able to explain that on a flyer but we should better emphasize “how lack of customization limits businesses”.

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Not wanting to be negative though, that is a pitch of a direct sell/re-seller. My consern would be if SambaPOS as a company market in that manor and stick with the current reseller model its not that simple, its luck of the draw with what reseller they go with as to how well that promise can be for-filled. We all know there are plenty of people calling them selves reseller but would be unable to meet a persons expectations - at least without milking the community here for support.
Im not saying any of that is wrong/bad or whatever just if Samba markets offerings but sells through resellers its not Samba meeting those expectations and end user disappointment then reflect badly back to Samba as well as reseller. Then again I guess it would anyway is a poorly skilled reseller left customer disappointed so guess its same thing in the end anyway.

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Of course some resellers will be able to implement custom solutions but I think resellers will be happy to sell custom SambaPOS solutions developed by third party developers.

For sure, if someone else has already done it why invent the wheel or spend time doing same thing from scratch if your happy with their setup. Even if paid, its probably cheaper to buy someones plugin that recreate your own if there is one that does what your need. But that comes back to having those 3rd party solutions and unlike wordpress which is probably has a larger DIY section that EPOS, and many websites are not businesses/for profit unlike Samba which is direct business use and these solutions would be used by reseller directly profiting from those solutions and while sure i’d load some basic configs of my own as free but solution like my PMS integration is not something I would rush to just give away given the time put it to create.
Like with wordpress those freeplugins are usefull and have their place but to good ones are more extencive and not free and its those big ones with majority of the time are paid which make wordpress what it is.
Those freebes bulk out the offering and give a taste but especially in POS market its will be the big integrations etc which are the features you want to market.

Sorry, again not trying to go off topic :slight_smile:

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I 100% agree. Nothing harms SambaPOS more than a poorly skilled reseller. We’re also discussing these stuff and we decided to have a “customer success manager” in our marketing team to ensure customers are satisfied with our service. Of course we may not always achieve full satisfaction but we’ll be able to prevent poorly skilled resellers from harming customer’s business.

So lots of great solutions are already implemented for SambaPOS but they can reach to a limited number of people. People who’re ready to pay for them even don’t know such solutions exists. I’m fully aware of it. We should solve that.

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5 posts were split to a new topic: Solutions for a marketplace and reseller confidence

Ok sorry back to topic at hand. I love the look and feel of it. It’s very modern and clean. It’s fast and runs on multitude of hardware.

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Now that I have had time to sleep and think about it.

  1. Inventory tracking with the ability to track suppliers and payments attached to purchases is huge. No other POS solution allows this kind of detailed cost analysis. Combine that with the custom reporting and SambaPOS can provide an extremely powerful tool for restaurant owners that will give them insights into how their business is running which no other POS can do currently. I have tested the big players in POS industry and there are a couple that offer inventory tracking but nobody offers the ability to attach Supplier payments and track them with purchases. There are a few that will make you pay more than $100 per month for a third party inventory solution.

  2. Kitchen screen capability. Many POS companies expecially top players offer a Kitchen screen solution but it is always extra monthly payment and it is always limited to how they tell you it will work. Being able to design and customize a kitchen screen to operate how your kitchen needs it to operate is a very powerful resource.

  3. Loyalty Programs, in the US specifically loyalty systems are pricey. Most POS solutions offer loyalty but it can cost upwards of $400 per month with most being $30 per month. They add on more costs if you want to accept gift cards, etc. Being able to build custom loyalty programs and have them interface with Mag cards, printed barcodes, email campaigns, text messages, tweets (Yes SambaPOS can do Twitter) is huge. OK did I say SambaPOS can do Twitter! Little known powerful tool included…

  4. Powerful delivery tracking that can be installed with press of a single button. I actually do not see any other pos company offering delivery tracking short of custom programmed solution.

More coming…Need to think.

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  1. Twitter marketing: I have used it and I may be the only one using it but Twitter is built into SambaPOS and there are multiple ways we can use it. We can allow it to generate orders, we can use it to send and receive tweets automatically. I am about to go live with a system I have been working on for my food truck that will send tweets to customers if they have filled out and gave permission for a loyalty program I am starting. Everytime they buy something from me it tracks it and when they reach 10 purchases it will tweet out a special discount for them. This will be advertising for me and give them a cool benefit.

  2. Built in support for customer accounts. Most POS companies do not even offer this the ones that do charge you a lot for it and some even use third party for it. Not only can we use customer accounts in SambaPOS but we can enhance it to do truly awesome things. Loyalty can be intertwined with customer accounts, twitter, emails, text messages all can be integrated with customer accounts. Who else is offering this?

  3. Time Clock capability. Ok so most POS companies are offering time keeping. SambaPOS has support for really good time keeping and there are good tutorials out there for 3 different versions. Not only can we do time keeping but we can integrate virtually any other time keeping software if they provide an API for us to use.

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I have SambaPOS installed at my restaurant location and at a friends restaurant.

THE GOOD

  • VALUE - This software is on par if not better then almost any POS software out there with out the nickle and diming other companies do. I’ve owned systems that charge in the thousands for each terminal license.

  • CUSTOMIZATION - It is amazing that you can accomplish pretty much anything with SambaPOS. There is a bit of a learning curve but with some forum searches you can become a pro in no time

  • THE FORUM - The community is very helpful and the posted tutorials are great.

  • CUSTOM REPORTS - For business analysis and management it is AMAZING!! The ability to track and report pretty much anything is an awesome selling point.

  • USER INTERFACE - the software looks good and with proper setup is super intuitive.

  • ORDER TAGS - the order tags are great for customizing orders and are intuitive

  • CUSTOMER LOYALTY/TRACKING - This is a premium feature! I have it set up based off of Q’s voiceover example. It is a huge selling point for people interested in marketing.

  • CUSTOM ENTITIES - The ability to compile data on anything is useful(Tables, customers, gift cards, employees…etc)

  • ENTITY SCREENS - This is another amazing feature. Being able to create custom screens that are made tailored to your need is amazing.

  • CUSTOM PRINT TEMPLATES - Its nice to be able to make your receipts look unique as well as customize what info goes where

THE FRUSTRATING
I know you asked for the best features but Ill throw this in there too, under frustrating since its not bad but could be improved in my opinion. You know its a good system when my list of complaints is 1 item long :slightly_smiling_face:

  • USER FUNCTIONS - I really wish there was a more streamlined time clock function. I know there are many tutorials on the topic and I have implemented a system and it works ok, but its generally complex for the clients. Also I wish the Pins could be 2 digits long would make logging in so much faster, and if you log in under Admin you should be able to view the employee pins.
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I love this topic… Please write more, more, more…

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Isn’t it @JTRTech’s?

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yea it is lol SORRY its been a while

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As recently suggested by @Hasa and many other people we’ve planned improvements for @Jesse’s timeclock implementation. We’ll have regarding updates on next month.

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I’m still looking for feedbacks :slight_smile:

Another alternative to using time trex is Deputy which is quite a popular one. Also not sure if anyone has heard of www.doshii.io They are like zappier. Creating an integration for their marketplace means we enable a lot more integrations in a few clicks. Might even be worth looking at zappier in that case. Just a thought. Doshii received quite a media coverage here in Australia and has recently won a good investment partner.

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