Sunday, November 3, 2013

Updates on Clover Point of Sale


Updated September 4th, 2015: to summarize all the information below - 3 years ago Clover looked promising but todays advice is to avoid Clover like the plague - I've stopped tracking the number of complaints specific to Clover as its clear that choosing Clover is a bad decision. 

Update July 6, 2015: no shortage of complaints against Clover specific to expensive long term contracts, costly buyout clauses, unable to transfer licensing if the business is sold, and sales reps making promises for features/functions that Clover just can't do.  I believe the overall tally is over 400 verified complaints against Clover.

Update 1.January.2015:

Based on user feedback and the fact that First Data locks you into a costly merchant services contract when purchasing Clover, I do not recommend that anyone considers Clover as a possible point of sale system for your business or organization. There are much better systems on the market like NCR Silver and Bindo Point of Sale that perform at a same or better level and do not lock you in to costly merchant services contracts.

As I have mentioned in the past, I came across some issues with Clover point of sale when it came to actually selling the Clover solution (the folks at Clover said that they were "moving in a different direction" and didn't feel that they could support any new customers at the time).

I liked Clover as it worked well in both a retail and quick-serve environment.  Well, it turns out that First Data Corporation (one of the largest payment processing companies) has acquired Clover point of sale and relaunched Clover with updated hardware.  It will be interesting to see how this effects the merchant services options that Clover previously offered.

Even more interesting is that the Clover website states that Clover will be sold through First Data but there is no pricing information and only a "wait list" to be "one of the first" to get a Clover system.  You can see more information at https://www.clover.com/waitlist or www.clover.com.

NCR Silver is one direct competitor to Clover so it will be interesting to see how First Data markets Clover.  I suspect that there will be some incentives to use First Data for merchant service since there is more money to be made off of merchant services in the long term than off of the Clover hardware and software.

Bottom line: wait and see or look at a different solution if you need a point of sale system sooner than later.

*Updates 7/24/2014**Feedback Received in July 2014*
  • Returned it (Clover) the next day"
  • "(sales rep) couldn't even demo the system"
  • "they will raise my (merchant services) rates"
  • "don't want to be locked in to a credit card contract"
  • "good step up from a cash register"
  • "missing features"
  • "went with Bindo which does more and doesn't require me to use a specific company for credit and debit card processing services"
The Bindo solution was mentioned a couple of times.  Folks noted that Bindo does more than Clover and is even offering some various incentives like free hardware currently. If you are curious about Bindo Point of Sale, check them out at www.bindopos.com.

Are you in the US and in need of no cost retail point of sale advice? I'm happy to help and can be reached on my cell at 208-340-5632 (mountain time) or via email at kevinantosh@gmail.com.

8 comments:

  1. You can get CLOVER now at cloverpossales.com. I got mine in about a week after ordering and my menu was set up and ready to go.

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  2. What kind of business do you have and what type of feedback would you give?

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    1. Derek, (in case the poster above never replies) I actually talked to a couple of businesses today that contacted me for some free advice on Tablet POS systems for retail stores. All of them mentioned Clover, NCR Silver, and Bindo as options. Clover was eliminated pretty quickly due to high credit card processing fees as well as Clover being more of a cash register than a true point of sale system. I'm not sure what type of store you have so let me know if I can help further.

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  3. What are your thoughts about the LEAF Heartland invested into? Same open platform concept.

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    1. Good question as this is the first time that anyone has mentioned LEAF. I like that LEAF is still committed to letting users 'pick and choose' merchant services companies even with the investment from Heartland (I know some of the folks that work at Heartland personally).

      I looked through LEAF's website and it isn't very clear what LEAF can and can't do (ie: barcode label printing, purchasing & revieving, split tenders, etc). If I get time, I'll see if LEAF would be will to set up a demo for me to I can write a review and talk to some users.

      One thing that has come up at my speaking engagements is the functionality and feature differences between the original tablet POS systems like Clover and Silver (which are more like cash registers) versus newer tablet POS systems like Bindo (which are more like true point of sale systems).

      I guess that you could call it tablet POS 1.0 versus tablet 2.0 or mobile POS 1.0 versus mobile POS 2.0!

      Hopefully this is not another Shopkeep situation as Shopkeep had a $10M investment some time ago yet I can't find anyone using Shopkeep, no valid Shopkeep reviews, and only 2 out of my 3800 contacts have even asked about Shopkeep. Maybe Shopkeep can help me out here too!

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  4. Stay away from CLOVER if you are in retail. In a word, Clover SUCKS.

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  5. Clover is picking up major steam in my market. I have a comparison of Clover/NCR Silver if you'd like to see I would be happy to email you. Or post here when I have time. NCR Silver is not in the same ballpark to the features and functions you have access to in Clover. They just released the Mobile and Mini. I wish First Data would go public, it's the most robust option for Small/Medium sized operations.

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    1. Thanks for the comment - Clover does have some nice functions but dishonest salespeople and costly long term contracts have created a huge log of Clover complaints - I'm contacted on a regular basis by business owners thanking me for helping them prevent a costly error when it comes to choosing a point of sale system.

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