Groupon vs Square In The Battle for POS Dominance

One-time social commerce now general e-commerce player Groupon has yet another established e-commerce player in its sights. The evolving online “everything” store has already dipped its toe into competing directly with Amazon with its bulk shipping program. Now it is going after a slightly different market and cutting into a different player’s established territory. With the release of Gnome, Groupon, it seems wants to compete in the point-of-sale marketplace with Square. 

The iPad-based point-of-sale solution features an “all-in-one” cash register that can accept traditional payments as well as Groupon vouchers, accounting software and  integrated customer relationship management software. The release also seeks to solve a problem that merchants have had with Groupon in the past, which is that it only helped to attract one-time consumers who showed up to cash in a deal, never to return. The integrated CRM module in the new POS is designed to allow merchants to better track customers and thus build better reward programs that actually encourage loyalty, as opposed to mercenary shopping.

“Gnome is an amazing piece of technology that plugs our merchants into the Web and helps them form relationships with every customer that walks in their front door,” said Eric Lefkofsky, CEO in a released statement. “When it’s complete, Gnome will serve as an operating system for merchants to run their entire operation and enable them to create real-time promotions that bring customers into their business when they need them the most.”

Gnome will soon integrate with popular accounting software programs such as QuickBooks and Xero and offer a suite of customer relationship management tools.

 

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