Thumbzup launches Sunmi mPOS solution for retail

Retailers may be fully aware and motivated by the opportunities that new retail trends present, but making the leap to implement these is often difficult.

Thumbzup and Sunmi, in partnership with Tactile Technologies, have developed a solution that is easy and cost-effective to implement. It delivers on enterprise mobility, payments, POS (point of sale) and more.

Introducing the Sunmi P2 Lite and P2 Pro

The collaboration has resulted in a Smart mPOS solution, consisting of two Android devices from Sunmi, a leading producer of business mobility products. These are fully mobile devices with features and functions that deliver on the latest retail trends.

Tactile Technologies is the distributor for Sunmi products. With its local presence and high level of support, it is an ideal partner. Its broad expertise and deep experience ensure a solid foundation for the long-term growth of this product range.

Trends for retail in 2020

Queue-busting and taking payments on the move is a key focus area and now has an even greater relevance due to the demands for social distancing. Retailers recognise the importance of closing the sale and this needs to be done in a way that suits the customer.

Unified commerce is the term given for initiatives that improve and unify the customer experience (CX). Smart mPOS is a key element of CX. It supports omni-channel applications and supports sales staff with improved customer engagement techniques such as assisted selling, up-selling and cross-selling. The addition of click and collect capabilities and alternative payment methods further reduces any friction encountered in concluding a sale.

Enabling technology

Sunmi builds enterprise mobility devices on the Android platform. Developed to withstand challenging conditions, these robust devices are ruggedised without compromising portability. Capable of running any number of enterprise applications, the devices have high-speed scanners for bar codes, QR codes and RFID tokens. They are NFC-enabled and can communicate over WiFi, 4G or a combination of both, and this failover capability is supplemented by their long-lasting batteries.

This technology supports an easy transition from in-store to a warehouse to delivery.

Payment – the new frontier

Card and digital payments are initiated on the Thumbzup patented Android Payment Application and are securely processed through the Thumbzup cloud-based switch. The solution is EMVCo certified, P2PE certified and PCI DSS compliant. The P2PE certification reduces compliance requirements for retailers, thereby simplifying communications infrastructure when making payments on the move.

Payment can either run as a standalone app or in an integrated manner with several POS applications.

All enterprise mobility applications, including the Thumbzup Payment Application, are managed through the Thumbzup app store and the hardware is tracked and monitored through a cloud-based MDM service.

Business benefits

Besides the ability to leverage the latest retail trends, the Thumbzup Smart Sunmi mPOS solution enables retailers to replace their physical POS and PED (PIN entry device) with a portable device that delivers more than the combined functionality of the two units. It offers this at a fraction of the capital cost and low operational impact.

In addition, retailers are now able to free up wasted space of multiple till areas and increase valuable retail and display space.

Store assistants can be empowered with a light, professional, state-of-the-art and ruggedised mobile device that can do stock lookups, inter-branch transfers, workforce management and also close a sale and take payment.

The customer experience is unhindered by physical barriers, resulting in reduced purchase dissonance and improved customer engagement.

In the current tough economic conditions, hyper-sales engagement, business mobility, contactless mobile payments are no longer nice to have, but have become a business necessity.