Choosing the Best Mobile POS System for Food Trucks

• Stationary POS terminals take up too much space for mobile restaurants and food truck applications
• Portable payment processing terminals for businesses like these need to be fast, secure and reliable
• Modern mobile POS systems offer expanded functionality to increase efficiency and boost profitability

Food truck operators and mobile pop-up restaurants need tools and equipment that work fast, take up very little space, and can go anywhere. When it comes to payment processing systems, security, flexibility, and reliability are also key factors to success for businesses like these. Choosing the right mobile POS system can make a big difference in customer satisfaction and business profitability.

When your business relies on mobility and needs the flexibility to move to where customers are, it necessitates a very different approach to the tools, supplies, and equipment you will use to serve people. Food truck operators and pop-up restaurants know this all too well, as their success depends on it. Space is limited, speed matters, and convenience is critical.

This is particularly relevant to the essential business tasks of accepting and processing payments. It’s just not feasible to carry a full-size countertop point-of-sale solution in a compact food truck. Alternate payment technologies must be used in order to provide the fast, secure, and convenient experience needed to attract more customers and drive repeat visits. In fact, there are many reasons why a modern portable POS system is such an important part of mobile restaurant and food truck businesses. Let’s explore some of the most influential recent trends affecting portable payment processing.

Mobile Payment Processing Trends

One of the most prominent trends occurring worldwide is the decline of cash payments in favour of alternate cashless and digital payment methods. At an increasing rate, consumers are preferring alternate payment types to cash for nearly all transactions, and it’s easy to see why. Cash payments are only viable for in-person transactions, and are restricted by the amounts physically carried by customers. Furthermore, cash payments are less secure than card-based and digital payments, as there is no identity verification or authorization process involved with cash. It’s also a slow payment method, necessitating the counting of cash and change for both the customer and the merchant. For these reasons and more, credit cards, debit cards, and digital payments are preferred by customers and businesses alike.

Even among cashless payment methods, preferences are evolving as new payment types are introduced to the market. While previously focused mainly on credit cards and debit cards, cashless payments now include a variety of alternate methods including e-transfers, QR code payments, and digital wallet apps such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. These newer payment technologies are seeing rapid surges in adoption, particularly for mobile payments. For example, it’s far easier and faster to have loaded multiple credit cards, rewards cards, and bank accounts into a single digital wallet app on your smartphone than it is to carry each and every physical payment card associated with them. Simply select your preferred payment method from the list, tap your phone to the contactless payment terminal, and you’re done. Transactions are safe, secure, and incredibly fast.

Cashless Payment Trends Demand Flexible Mobile POS Solutions

With these trends in mind, mobile restaurant businesses and food trucks need to select payment solutions that will provide all the functionality they need to accommodate a wide variety of payment methods, and do so in a way that’s fast, efficient, secure, and portable. While this may seem like a tall order, today’s mobile POS terminals are compact, powerful, and highly customizable to suit a diverse array of business applications.

To handle a broad range of cashless payment methods, a mobile POS terminal must have a combination of different payment technologies integrated into a small, portable form factor. These terminals must have card readers that are able to process cards using magnetic strip swipes, as well as NFC tap-to-pay style cards. In addition, NFC technology is what enables digital wallet apps on smartphones to be used to make payments through the terminal. Using the NFC chip inside the smartphone, digital wallets act just like tap-to-pay credit and debit cards at the point of sale.

Furthermore, the functionality of your mobile point-of-sale system is directly tied to its ability to be used anywhere you take it. In this regard, the best portable POS terminals will have built-in wireless connectivity in the form of WiFi compatibility and cellular LTE SIM cards. Cellular LTE connectivity is essential for food trucks and mobile restaurants as they will not always be in a location where they will have easy access to a reliable WiFi network. With this added capability, no matter where your customers are located, your on-the-go POS terminal will be fully functional and ready to process transactions quickly and securely.

Portable Point-Of-Sale Systems That Do More than Just Accept Payments

Of course, running a pop-up restaurant business or food truck successfully requires more than just the ability to process payments in remote locations. Managing all the various tasks associated with the business can consume a great deal of time if you don’t have efficient systems in place to handle them. Inventory management, pricing, scheduling, online order processing, and sales reporting are all examples of the critical tasks needed to maximize the profitability of your business.

Rather than use separate systems to manage these operational tasks, today’s mobile POS systems can be configured to perform all these functions, and more, from a single, easy-to-use platform. Not only will this save you a great deal of time by eliminating the need to switch between different systems to do everything you need to do, but it will also save money by reducing the number of systems you need to maintain. Costs and time related to software updates, hardware upgrades, and general maintenance will be dramatically scaled back by being able to consolidate and simplify your approach to these tasks.

Now, when the time comes to make the choice between the various mobile POS systems that are available, it can be difficult to determine which option is really the best one for your specific business. Plus, when selecting a merchant services provider to install, configure and maintain your POS solution, you’re also going to want to consider the quality of customer service and technical support that they will offer your business. With all these things in mind, let’s explore the advantages of choosing MONEXgroup as your merchant services provider for mobile point-of-sale terminals.

On-the-Go POS Systems for Food Trucks & Mobile Restaurants from MONEXgroup

Here at MONEXgroup, we are proud to carry a comprehensive range of payment processing solutions for businesses of all types, including mobile restaurants and food truck vendors. For business owners looking for an easy-to-use all-in-one payment processing system that can go anywhere, the Clover Flex portable POS terminal is the ideal choice. Compact, fast, secure, and highly customizable, the Clover Flex features an intuitive interface and can be enhanced with a variety of apps to perform all your critical business tasks. A long-lasting battery, built-in WiFi and cellular LTE capabilities ensure that you are always prepared to process payments no matter where you may be.

Another popular option for pop-up restaurant vendors and food trucks is the Virtual Terminal payment solution from MONEXgroup. This web-based payment system does not require a separate device, but rather runs on any existing smartphone or connected tablet. Accepting credit cards and debit cards on your existing connected devices is fast and easy using a virtual terminal, with no additional hardware investment required. Virtual terminals offer the same level of speed, convenience and security as physical POS terminals, and can also be used to access add-on apps to perform many other important business functions.

All clients of MONEXgroup also benefit from industry-leading customer service and technical support so that you’ll always have the help you need, any time. Our team knows that every second counts when you’re serving customers, so it’s our mission to make sure that your payment processing system operates with reliability and consistency. From start to finish, our client service group will work with you to configure your mobile POS terminals for optimum performance, consistently giving your customers the fastest, easiest, and most secure transaction experience possible. With MONEXgroup on your side, your mobile restaurant or food truck business will be poised to achieve its growth objectives, and drive profits higher.

Get a free quote for mobile POS systems from MONEXgroup and equip your business with the best portable payment processing tools!