The post SETTING UP YOUR TAPEENO ACCOUNT appeared first on tapeeno.

Pop-ups are an excellent solution for businesses who want to trial-run a physical store before committing to a traditional brick-and-mortar store. They allow businesses to test the waters before taking the plunge. There are many benefits to opening a pop-up store, and many things to consider. One thing to consider is how to take card payments in an age where card payments is essential. tapeeno transforms your smartphone into a card machine and allows you to accept payments on your phone without trapping you into a contract. With tapeeno, you pay as you use and can take your payment method wherever you go.

Benefits of pop-up stores for customers:

Suppose your business is primarily online and you are considering a physical store. In that case, a pop-up store is a great place to start. It allows your customers to physically see and touch products they are interested in and would otherwise be online. For example, if you usually sell clothes online, having the physical items in-store and allowing customers to try on the clothes may drive sales, and customers know they fit when purchasing.

A further benefit to pop-up shops is the atmosphere they create for customers. Customers know that pop-ups are temporary and that if they don’t go in and buy now, they may regret it. It creates an atmosphere of excitement, exclusivity, and a fear of missing out.

Additionally, pop-up stores often offer discounts or bundle deals to draw in a new customer base and create a buzz around the business. Customers may be more willing to buy products when they know it is a good deal and at a reduced price, especially during the current economic climate when budgets for spending are restricted.

Benefits of pop-up stores for business:

Pop-ups allow for flexibility which is not afforded with a permanent physical store. They can be flexible in duration; pop-ups are usually in one space from a few days to a few months. Meaning if your business is seasonal, you can have a pop-up during a time that works for your business without committing to the expense throughout the year.

Location is also flexible with pop-up stores. Pop-ups can allow you to test specific spaces to maximise your location. It lets business owners try out a potential permanent site and act accordingly. Pop-up stores are often located in high-traffic areas such as city centres and shopping centres to attract as many customers as possible. If you want to take your business on the road, a pop-up allows you to do so.

Opening a temporary physical store can act as market research for your business and the products you provide. Pop-ups allow business owners to get to know their customers for future target marketing. Pop-ups can also be an excellent tool for creating excitement with customers about new products being launched.

Create visibility for your business

A further benefit of pop-ups for business owners is that they are cheaper than permanent stores. Costs vary depending on duration of the store, the physical venue, and the location. Testing a venue and location allows businesses to know what works for them before committing to a permanent store. Lower the costs of opening a pop-up store by using tapeeno to take card payments on your phone. It eliminates the need to pay for POS hardware if your store is only open for a short period. tapeeno works around you and your business.

Pop-ups are beneficial as they can suit a large variety of business types. Businesses that would suit a pop-up store include but are not limited to online retailers, home décor shops, seasonal businesses, art shops, and food/drink shops and restaurants.

Factors to consider when opening a pop-up shop:

Legal factors are a vital step in opening a pop-up store. The following are some legal steps to consider:

-Planning permission: This isn’t needed if the duration of the pop-up does not exceed 28 days within a 12-month period.

-Licences: These may be required from the local council. One example of a licence that may need to be obtained is if your store plans to sell/serve alcohol.

-When renting a space for a pop-up store, check the existing business insurance to ensure it covers pop-up use.

-Businesses looking to open a pop-up should register with HM Revenue and Customs and be compliant.

-Additionally, consider is putting in place a short-term lease and ensuring the venue is registered at the Land Registry.

If you plan to open your pop-up store, ensure you download tapeeno on your smartphone for a stress-free and reliable payment method when you need your business to run smoothly.

The post GET YOUR BUSINESS STARTED WITH A POP-UP STORE AND TAKE PAYMENTS ON YOUR PHONE appeared first on tapeeno.

But before you start rushing ahead and planning your menu there are some things you need to deal with before you set up your UK based food stall.

In this article, we are going to set out the things you need to be aware of and what you need to do besides ordering the ingredients for your amazing street food:

• Types of food stall

• The logistics

• The legals

• The operations

• The payments

Types of Food Stall

In the UK there are just as many types of food stall as anywhere else in the world, in fact, we’d argue that you are more likely to find the kind of food you want in cosmopolitan London than anywhere else.

Naturally, there are high-end restaurants, mid-range trattorias and tiny little coffee shops in every town.

In many of the larger cities, you’ll find pop-up shops selling world foods from curries to tacos, from baked potatoes to noodles.

And if you go to a festival then there will always be a massive array of different food stalls available for music fans catering for every taste.

It’s also worth remembering that in the UK today there are often food companies that cater for niche markets such as gluten-free or special diets and of course, vegetarian and vegan food stalls are much more common than they ever were.

Food stalls aren’t confined to one place either. Often you can find travelling food vans that stop in different villages on different days and some businesses only do deliveries rather than having a retail location. When you go to a football or rugby match you often find food trailers outside the grounds to cater for hungry supporters.

So in the UK not only are there many different types of food on offer but there are plenty of ways to sell from high-end restaurants to pop-up stalls on street corners.

So let’s assume that you are looking at portable operations such as trailers, carts and pop-up stalls as a business. What do you need to think about?

The Logistics

So once you have decided what type of food you are going to sell, you need to choose how you are going to go about it.

Although to the outside observer, operating a quality food stall is all about great cooking, experienced owners will tell you that it is just as much about logistics.

There are a series of questions you need to ask yourself;

• Where will you get your raw ingredients from?

• Are they available all year round?

• Where will you store them?

• How will you sell? From a van? From a trailer?

• What equipment do you need and where will you store it?

• Will you need someone to help?

There are plenty more questions depending upon the type of operation you will be running but the message has to be that you need to make sure you don’t get carried away with the excitement of cooking and think more about the everyday things that could make your business a success.

The Legals

It is really easy to start a business in the UK but there are some things that you need to do.

The first thing is to register with HMRC. This is a straightforward process that can be done online but you may want to speak with an accountant first so that you can understand the benefits of operating as a sole trader, partnership or limited company.

Secondly, get yourself some insurance. This is especially important if you are running a food stall as the implications of giving someone food poisoning don’t bear thinking about. In general, for small businesses insurance isn’t expensive and it is certainly worth it for peace of mind.

Next, you need to register as a food business with your local authority. Again, you can do this online and you need to be aware that you will probably be inspected for a food safety rating.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has loads of useful advice for anyone starting up in the food sector.

Although it is not a legal requirement, you are well advised to do some food safety training. You don’t have to hold a food hygiene certificate to sell food in the UK but it is worth doing and often insurers will require it as a condition of cover. In any event, you are legally required to make sure that anyone preparing or handling food understands basic hygiene rules.

If you are going to employ someone to help then you need to register as an employer with HMRC and sort out a method of paying them.

You must make sure you are able to run payroll and report this using the HMRC RTI before you pay anyone. If you are confident with numbers then you could always use an online package like QuickBooks or Xero but if not then think about outsourcing this to a local accountant or bookkeeper.

The Operations

So you are all set up and ready to go and now you need to think about where you are going to sell and how.

If you want to sell street food then in most places you will need a licence from the local authority or to have permission from a venue or landowner. You can’t simply pitch up somewhere and start selling.

The exception to this is if you have a food van that you drive around the streets. Each local authority will have different rules so you need to find out if you need permission for this in your area or not.

It’s worth having a dry run by feeding a few friends or doing a free event or two. This will help you get into the swing of things and if you forget something then it is not the end of the world.

Pitches at major festivals can be very expensive so it is better to start small and gain experience rather than waste a lot of money on rent and make your mistakes then.

When you have found your pitch then you need to think about customer flow.

For example, if you are selling outside a football ground you’ll do fine before the match but for 90 minutes everything will go quiet. Alternatively, at a music festival, you’ll get rushes at the end of each act and especially at traditional mealtimes.

You need to make sure that when you have a rush you are able to serve as many customers as possible. This means having enough food already prepared rather than cooking to order, taking orders and payment quickly (see below) and making sure you have enough stock to cater for as many people as possible.

Experienced operators will tell you that running a food stall is often about demand management; having the right amount of food prepared at the right time and serving it quickly.

You do need to be prepared for the fact that you won’t get it right straight away and also remember that sometimes even experienced food stall owners can be surprised by more or less demand than they expected.

The Payments

One of the surprising things about running a successful food stall isn’t anything to do with the stall itself or the food, it’s about taking payments.

If you look at a row of food stalls at a festival for example, you can often see a single stall that has a huge queue and this is more often than not because they haven’t got their customer flow right.

If you are selling somewhere that will have a high flow of customers then you need to take their payment quickly and get them served and any delay tends to put people off from buying or annoys people who are already in your queue.

Although it may seem tempting to only deal in cash, you have to remember that since COVID, most people have gotten used to using their debit card or device to pay for things.

So you have to make sure you have a quick and simple method of taking contactless payments.

There are plenty of options out there for this but you do need to beware; not all payment services are equal.

SumUp provides card readers that accept the majority of cards and devices on the market. 

The readers are small and easy to use but you do have to pay up to £129 for them and they need a connection through your smartphone or tablet.

This means that there’s another thing to remember and if you forget it then you are stuck!

Square is another payment service that allows retailers to take payments anywhere which is certainly helpful if you are sitting in the middle of a festival field.

They provide a neat device which has great functionality and can even allow buyers to use ClearPay to buy now and pay later although that’s not likely to be helpful if they only want to buy a £5 burger!

The device is somewhat bulky though and costs an eyewatering £99 or £17 per month and transactions are charged at 2.5% which seems quite steep.

tapeeno takes a different route in that you don’t need a separate device.

Utilising SoftPos technology and the built-in Near Field Connectivity of any smartphone, tapeeno is able to turn your phone into a card machine. Given that you are unlikely to be working without your phone this makes sense and means you don’t have to remember to pack your card reader.

This means that there’s nothing to buy, nothing to remember and set up is simplicity itself.

Pricing is excellent at only 1.5% per transaction and because you don’t need to wait for a card machine to arrive you can be up and running in 48 hours.

Summary – It’s Not Just About the Food!

As you can see there are a lot more aspects to running a food stall in the UK than simply being an amazing cook.

The UK takes food safety seriously and you can’t simply have an idea and start selling by the side of the road the next day. But setting up a business is a quick and easy process in the UK when compared to many European countries and it can all be done online.

The biggest issues that new food stall owners have are getting the logistics right and understanding their customer flow. Getting these in order means that you’ll sell more and have less waste which in turn means you’ll be more profitable. And don’t forget that long queues due to slow payment processing can really put people off so make sure you have a great option to take contactless payments.

Good luck with your new venture and make sure you invite us to try some of your wonderful food!

The post HOW TO SET UP A FOOD STALL IN THE UK appeared first on tapeeno.

Step forward 3-D secure, a part of the response to the ever-increasing threat of card fraud.

In this article, we cover:

• The history of 3-D secure

• How it works

• Benefits of 3-D secure

• Problems with 3-D secure

• Alternatives to 3-D secure

• Making online transactions safer

The history of 3-D secure

3-D secure isn’t a new concept. In fact, it has been around since the turn of the century.

Originally the system was developed by Celo Communications AB (later Thales) on behalf of Visa and the authentication method went through a number of different iterations ( and names) until it finally entered the market as Verified by Visa.

The protocol has been widely adopted over the years by some of the best-known names in card issuing including Master card (SecureCode), JCB International as J/Secure, and American Express as American Express SafeKey.

Development over the years has continued with version 2 of the protocol being published in 2016 with the aim of complying with new EU authentication requirements.

How 3-D secure works

The aim of the protocol is to combine physical card features with online information to provide a more secure transaction processing arrangement.

This additional security authentication is designed to operate across three domains which gives rise to the “3-D” in the name.

The system links the three domains of the merchant acquirer domain (the bank and the merchant to which the money is being paid), the card issuer domain and the Interoperability Domain.

When the merchant initiates a transaction the protocol redirects a webpage typically to a service page like Verified by Visa. The customer then completes the transaction by entering information (a password or PIN number) into the form that is only known to the card issuer.  Information is passed securely through the protocol between the card issuer and ultimately the customer using XML.

To most customers, the protocol section simply shows as a separate page (like Verified by Visa or SecureCode) but is still branded by the merchant. To all intents and purposes, they never leave the web page.

Benefits of 3-D secure

The first benefit is that it stops people from conducting transactions by copying card details whether that is by hand or using an electronic device.

The cardholder has a password that is only known to them and the merchant, so even if the user enters all of the card details they will still need to know this password.

3-D secure also reduces security incidents at online merchants as the merchant isn’t responsible for collecting or passing on the password. That way, staff at the merchant can’t intercept the card details and carry out fraudulent transactions or pass them on to someone who will.

Problems with 3-D secure

The first issue that merchants report regarding 3-D secure is that it adds another step into the checkout process. It’s well known that any form of friction in the buying process leads to abandoned carts, a complete no-no in the world of online sales.

Unfortunately, the great work done on consumer education with regards to security has proved to be a double-edged sword. Consumers have always been told to be wary when a website redirects them to an unfamiliar payment page which of course is exactly the point of 3-D secure!

It’s also important to remember that it is only usable on online payment sites so payments in the field with a card machine can’t use the protocol.

There is also an added compliance and technical burden on the merchant as they have to ensure that their website and sales practices accord with the rules of the protocol and work with the enabling systems.

Alternatives to 3-D secure

3-D secure has worked well in terms of reducing fraudulent transactions but it isn’t the complete answer.

As mentioned previously, consumer education plays a big part here and if cardholders can be helped to make the right choices with regard to security then this will go a long way in improving the environment.

As we noted above, 3-D secure doesn’t work with card machines so consumers should look for businesses like tapeeno that are fully compliant with the PCI certification scheme.

The highly secure software used in the tapeeno service is PCI certified to the latest CPoC standards (Contactless Payments on COTS (Commercial off-the-shelf)). Using the right tool for the right occasion is the way forward.

Making online transactions safer

Without a doubt, 3-D secure has made online payments a safer space.

The secure checking of information at arm’s length means that acquirers are able to ensure that the card user is in fact the cardholder and is entitled to make the payment.

It also helps to reduce the number of chargebacks that merchants experience, meaning that they can send out high-value orders with confidence.

But it is by no means a perfect solution and the higher level of cart abandonment seen by merchants means that there is always a trade-off between security and sales.

And of course, it is not a protocol that can be used if the merchant is out in the field taking orders using a SoftPOS app like tapeeno.

So in summary, 3-D secure is a useful tool (but by no means the only one) in the box of online security.

The post WHAT IS 3-D SECURE? appeared first on tapeeno.

NFC has many advantages for Android users and is part of the ever-increasing number of ways we can use our phones and tablets to make life easier.

In this post, we wanted to look a little deeper under the hood at NFC and answer the question “what is NFC on Android phones?” In this article we cover:

• The history of NFC

• The three NFC modes

• What NFC can be used for?

• The advantages of NFC

• NFC is the future of payments

The history of NFC

It may surprise you to learn that the roots of NFC go back to the second world war.

During a time of incredible technological development, Léon Theremin developed a device that could transmit information when energised by another device. Over the next few decades, Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) became a tool used in applications as diverse as aircraft identification and electronic toll gates.

The development of mobile phones and in particular the smartphone meant that this could be used as a way of delivering a service to many more users at a reasonable cost.

At first, developers used it as a way of passing simple information such as electronic business cards but as phone and banking technology improved it became a natural step to look at payment technology.

RFID morphed into NFC and meant that consumers could use contactless credit and debit cards and more impressively, could pay using their phone, tablet or even a smartwatch.

The three NFC modes

Typically, the NFC connection will consist of a passive device (called a ‘tag’) and an active device (like a mobile phone) or alternatively, two active devices.

Active devices used to be fixed terminals that were provided by a bank or merchant service provider but nowadays, SoftPOS services like our tapeeno tap on phone payment app, mean that businesses no longer need to obtain an expensive NFC device.

NFC connections generally have an active radius of only a few centimetres which means that the two devices have to be very close together to communicate.

The term NFC is often used almost as a catchall but when we are talking about NFC for Android phones, there are generally three modes that users might come across;

       1. The first NFC mode is reader/writer mode. As the name suggests, this allows the device to read and/or write to NFC tags.

A good example of this would be a device that writes to a tag that is embedded in a card used in a gas or electricity meter.

The consumer visits a shop, pays for their electricity and then the shop device writes the payment information to the tag in the card.

      2. P2P mode allows the NFC device to exchange data with other NFC devices.

An example of this would be when people use their phones to exchange business cards or set up meetings.

      3.Card emulation mode. In this mode, a device is able to ‘look’ like an NFC payment card such as a debit or credit card.

The NFC point-of-sale terminal looks out for a standard contactless debit or credit card and the device (which could be a phone, tablet or watch) responds in exactly the same way as the card would. This is the mode that is used in android devices.

What NFC can be used for?

NFC works in any situation where there needs to be an exchange of information. For example, a card that confirms your gym membership, security tags in supermarkets, prepaid public transport cards and many many more use cases.

Most people though will encounter NFC in payment technology and it is this that has taken the world by storm.

Initially, NFC was used by specialist terminals provided by banks that would read an NFC payment card.

However, the democratisation of banking and the development of SoftPOS applications means that Android apps such as tapeeno can now transform a smartphone into an NFC payment terminal.

The advantages of NFC

There are a huge number of advantages of NFC:

1. Security – because the devices need to be very close together to operate, there is little chance of the communication being intercepted.

2. Simplicity – it is incredibly easy to use NFC. No need to carry a special card and no need to remember a PIN number.

3. Cost – retailers who use our tapeeno application love the fact that there’s no special terminal to pay for.

4. Speed – payments are taken in seconds which can make all the difference in busy locations like bars.

5. Efficiency – businesses can become entirely digital, with payments going direct from the consumer to their bank account. No more delivering cash to the bank.

6. Customer satisfaction – people tend to vote with their feet and the massive uptake of contactless cards shows that people love the great customer experience that NFC can deliver.

NFC is the future of payments

Consumers love contactless payment technology and the uptake of NFC products has proven that the simplicity, versatility and security of NFC is a real winner.

In the past, this has meant cost for the retailer but with the development of tapeeno sellers can use their own mobile with NFC as a way of taking payments quickly and cheaply.

Apply here to set up your tapeeno account and start taking payments on your Android phone in less than 24 hours.

The post WHAT IS NFC ON ANDROID PHONES? appeared first on tapeeno.