The system travels in hard-sided plastic cases that contain two laptops and cash boxes that serve as registers, a secure, independent wireless server, and software fully loaded and ready to go.
“All you need is power,” said Jarvis.
ShopBox helped Adidas achieve record sales at this year’s Boston Marathon. For the past four years, the company has provided its mobile POS solutions for Adidas’s Sports and Fitness Expo at the marathon. Merchandise nearly sold out and “Despite the fact that lines were around the block at times,” said Jarvis, “customers did not have to wait for more than a few minutes to be checked out and on their way. The Shopbox system ran flawlessly for five days.”
Other systems Adidas had used prior to ShopBox were not only inefficient, they didn’t offer reporting, Jarvis explained. The ShopBox platform uses LightSpeed, which allows for full reporting of sales and data, in real time, saving hundreds of hours of labor on the back end.
“All you have to do at the end of the day is count the money,” he said.
The ShopBox platform is designed to be simple enough for anyone to operate it.
“Our clients set it up, turn it on, log in, and they’re ready to sell,” said Jarvis.
At the Boston Marathon, Adidas had 40 ShopBox stations performing transactions every two minutes. And by creating a simple system that doesn’t need constant IT support, the ShopBox platform saves money while it helps its users make money. According to Jarvis, large companies like Adidas can have 10-12 events a week across the country. When a company is operating at that level and pace, he said, “Just having a reliable system that works is major. Even Adidas couldn’t afford the level of IT staff that would be needed” for a different system that wasn’t completely self-contained, reliable and user-friendly.
While the company’s key clients are major retailers like Adidas, they offer solutions for a wide range of clients.
“Something like Square is good for a startup,” said Jarvis. “Square doesn’t integrate with Quickbooks, it doesn’t track inventory. For a bigger retailer who needs their data, or a company that needs higher, more reliable security and compliance, this is a system that works,” he said.
The company also consults on LightSpeed software, has handheld solutions to get sales staff to be more mobile, and helps set up POS operations.
“I love doing that work, too,” said Jarvis. “That’s the really fun part of the job, being able to go in and solve their problems.”
He continued, “What we do is pretty simple. We make a point-of-sale system that people don’t have to hate.”
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