Mobile payments are taking off, but ShopBox owner and President Ryan Jarvis says he’s not worried by the growth of popular systems such as Square, Amazon Local Register or PayPal Here, which are all targeting small-scale sellers. These tools use smartphones to swipe credit cards, and track sales via an app.
Amazon Local Register can report on peak sales times and sales trends, Square tracks which products and product categories sell the best — and these “point of sales” features can help small businesses understand their operations, says Jarvis.
“It works great in a cafe, it works great if you are selling things, but if you start doing inventory management, purchasing and receiving, these systems don’t do that,” he says. “Square has been successful, Amazon has been successful, because they target the smaller guys. Our customers have a central office, with multiple locations that need to report out. If you have a back office or warehouse, or if you have events all over the country, you need a more robust solution.”
See Sunday’s Columbian for more on the new Apple Pay point-of-sale service and Amazon Local Register.
Mobile payments are taking off, but ShopBox owner and President Ryan Jarvis says he's not worried by the growth of popular systems such as Square, Amazon Local Register or PayPal Here, which are all targeting small-scale sellers. These tools use smartphones to swipe credit cards, and track sales via an app.
Amazon Local Register can report on peak sales times and sales trends, Square tracks which products and product categories sell the best -- and these "point of sales" features can help small businesses understand their operations, says Jarvis.
"It works great in a cafe, it works great if you are selling things, but if you start doing inventory management, purchasing and receiving, these systems don't do that," he says. "Square has been successful, Amazon has been successful, because they target the smaller guys. Our customers have a central office, with multiple locations that need to report out. If you have a back office or warehouse, or if you have events all over the country, you need a more robust solution."
See Sunday's Columbian for more on the new Apple Pay point-of-sale service and Amazon Local Register.
A small Vancouver company helped set new records at April’s Boston Marathon — not on the course itself, but at “pop-up” stores at the start and finish lines.
Sportswear giant Adidas planned to sell shoes and jerseys from temporary storefronts during the race — and needed a way to quickly process payments that would integrate with its complex inventory-tracking computer system. That’s where Vancouver-based ShopBox stepped in.
ShopBox specializes in making sales systems that are easy to use, like iPods that can swipe credit card payments, but still sophisticated enough to track the complex information retailers need. And according to a review of retail sales at the Boston Marathon, ShopBox’s system helped Adidas achieve record sales at the event this spring.
Adidas has been a ShopBox client since the company’s creation, and remains a major source of business. Now, in the months since setting records at the Boston Marathon, ShopBox president and owner Ryan Jarvis says he’s focused on diversifying, and taking the business he founded to the next level.
Retail sales evolution
It’s not news that retail sales have been transformed by technology in the past 20 years — the Internet is both a competitor and a source of information. Increasingly, mobile devices are at the heart of the retail evolution, according to a recent report by research group IHL Services, which found that “mobile point-of-sale systems,” such as iPhones with credit card readers, now constitute a $7.8 billion business.
But the first generation of mobile point-of-sale systems has been too limited for many large and even midsize retailers. Computerized point-of-sale cash register set-ups track inventory and other data to help retailers maximize profits. Companies such as Square and PayPal — popular with food vendors and at farmers market stalls — are easy to set up for mobile payments, but don’t offer these more complicated data analysis tools.
That’s where ShopBox hopes to step in, Jarvis says.
He got a head start in the business five years ago, when Adidas asked for help processing credit card payments at fairs, festivals and athletic events. Jarvis began developing Apple computer-based systems so that non-technical Adidas employees could open a box, set up shop and start selling with very little training. And when they’re done, the corporate office can still get the supply chain and sales reports that it desires.
Each ShopBox configuration is different, depending on the event and the needs of the customers, Jarvis says. A simple point-of-sale box might include cash drawers, barcode scanners, credit card scanners and laptops. Some clients might just require iPhone system setups. Others want receipt printers and Internet access tools. Generally, everything is packaged in sturdy cases that can stand up to the jostle of a busy day of sales.
“We have clients who need 40 registers, they have two hours to set everything up, and they’re expecting $2 or $3 million in sales in one weekend,” Jarvis says. “They can’t always count on power, Internet access, Wi-Fi. With us, they can just open the box and be ready to go.”
Attracting new clients
About two years ago, ShopBox began a transformation. Jarvis became full owner of ShopBox after buying a co-founder’s share of the business, and then he began to hire additional staff, starting with CEO Martha Howe.
“The company had grown to the point where they felt they needed outside business expertise to grow,” says Howe, who had left the workforce for several years to raise children and brought a background in telecommunications and sales to the business.
Since Howe’s arrival, ShopBox has signed another big-name athletic company — Reebok, an Adidas subsidiary — as a client, as well as a number of smaller clients, Jarvis says. It has added several more employees, growing to a staff of five, with an increased focus on marketing and sales. And it has opened a base of operations in a warehouse in Uptown Village.
Max Ault, business development manager at the Columbia River Economic Development Council, says he’s impressed by the growth and business savvy he’s seen in just a few months working with ShopBox.
“They are quietly tucked away in Uptown, but are producing very original and marketable technology solutions of the point-of-sale marketplace,” Ault said in an email.
Looking ahead
ShopBox’s top priority for the year ahead is to continue producing original technology while also seeking new clients, Jarvis says. He hopes to hire interns, who might later become full-time employees, to help program new point-of-sale tools.
Howe says the company has doubled its sales every year until now, though it’s reached a size where its growth is likely to be somewhat more modest. She declines to discuss sales specifics, but does say the company is still well below $10 million in annual revenue.
“We’ve been able to grow and support the needs of the business without seeking outside funding by being disciplined,” she says, adding that the company plans to continue to remain locally owned and to grow through its own efforts. “Now we need to market more and to go out and gain some new clients.”
