INDUSTRIESI06Retail & Hospitality
The till does not
get to go down.
IT for stores, cafes, restaurants, and multi-site groups. When the point of sale stops, trade stops, and it always happens at the busiest hour of the busiest day. Everything we do here is built around that.
WHAT WE HEAR
The four sentences we hear most in your sector.
- 01
It always goes down on a Saturday.
Because that is when the load is highest and the staff on shift are the least technical. The fix is redundancy and an offline mode, not a faster response time.
- 02
The guest Wi-Fi is on the same network as the tills.
More common than you would hope, and the single cheapest thing to put right. A customer’s device should never be able to reach a payment terminal.
- 03
Every site was set up by a different person.
So every site fails differently, and nobody can fix a problem remotely because nothing matches. Standardising across sites is what makes support possible at all.
- 04
Our loyalty data and our POS data disagree.
Usually an integration that broke quietly months ago. Nobody notices until somebody tries to run a campaign off it.
THE STACK
The systems you actually run.
Not a list of logos. These are the platforms we support, migrate, and get called about in this sector. If yours is missing, it usually means we have not worked with it, and we will say so rather than nod along.
Point of sale
The system trade actually runs on. Offline capability matters more than any feature on the brochure.
- Lightspeed Retail
- Lightspeed Restaurant
- Triquestra Infinity
- Vend
- Kounta
- Square
- Shopify POS
Payments and terminals
Where PCI DSS obligations land, and where network segmentation stops being optional.
- Windcave
- Worldline
- Smartpay
- Verifone terminals
- Contactless and QR payments
Loyalty, ecommerce, and marketing
The customer data you actually own. It is worth protecting properly and it is usually the least governed system you run.
- Marsello
- Shopify
- WooCommerce
- Mailchimp
- Klaviyo
- Gift card platforms
Back of house
Rostering, stock, and accounting. Less visible than the till and just as capable of stopping a site.
- Deputy
- Tanda
- Xero
- MYOB
- Cin7
- Unleashed
- Kitchen display systems
WHERE WE HELP
Four things we do for retail & hospitality specifically.
- 01
Sites that fail gracefully
Connectivity with automatic failover to mobile so a fibre fault becomes a slower afternoon rather than a closed store, and a point of sale configured to keep trading offline and reconcile afterwards. We test the failover rather than assume it.
- 02
One build across every site
The same network, the same devices, the same configuration at every location, so a problem at one site is a problem we have already solved and can fix remotely. Opening a new site becomes a repeatable process rather than a project.
- 03
Payment and guest network separation
Payment devices, staff systems, and customer Wi-Fi on separate segments that cannot reach each other. It is the control PCI DSS expects, it costs very little, and it is missing more often than not.
- 04
Support that understands shift work
Cover that matches trading hours rather than office hours, and instructions written for whoever is actually on shift at nine on a Sunday rather than for a technical manager who is not there.
WHAT YOU ANSWER TO
The obligations that shape the work.
We make the systems match your obligations. We are not your lawyer or your compliance adviser, and where a question turns on interpretation we will tell you to take advice rather than guess on your behalf.
PCI DSS
If you accept card payments you are subject to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. Modern terminals do most of the heavy lifting, but network segmentation, access control, and not storing card data are still yours.
Privacy Act 2020
Loyalty programmes, booking systems, and marketing lists are all personal information, which brings collection, retention, and breach notification duties.
CCTV and the Privacy Commissioner’s guidance
Footage of identifiable people is personal information. Signage, retention, and controlled access all apply, and staff monitoring is a separate and harder question.
WHAT IT COSTS
Per site, per month, plus per till or terminal
Priced per site with a per-device component, so a single cafe and a twelve-store group are quoted on the same basis and you can model what a new site costs before you sign the lease. New site fit-outs are quoted as projects, and because we build every site the same way, the second one is meaningfully cheaper than the first.
WHERE TO START
The services that matter most here.
FAQ
Questions from your sector
01What happens to our point of sale if the internet goes down?
That depends on the system and on how it was configured. Most modern platforms can keep taking sales offline and reconcile when the connection returns, but it has to be set up and tested, and plenty of installations have never had that checked. Payment terminals are a separate question, since many need a connection to authorise. The right answer is automatic failover to a mobile connection so the site stays online at all, plus a tested offline mode as the second line.
02Should guest Wi-Fi be on a separate network from the tills?
Yes, without exception, and it is the cheapest security improvement available to a retail or hospitality site. Guest Wi-Fi should reach the internet and nothing else. Anything less means a customer’s infected phone sits on the same network as your payment devices and your back-office systems.
03What does PCI DSS actually require of a small retailer?
Less than most people fear, if you use modern terminals and never store card numbers. The practical requirements are keeping payment devices on their own network segment, controlling who has access to systems, keeping software current, using individual logins rather than a shared one, and completing the self-assessment your acquirer asks for. We will tell you where you sit and what needs closing.
04How quickly can you get us going again when a site goes down?
Response targets are set in the agreement and matched to your trading hours rather than to office hours, because a fault at seven on a Friday evening is not a next-business-day problem. Standardising every site is what makes fast remote fixes possible at all, which is why we push for it before we promise anything about speed.
05We are opening more sites. How do we make that repeatable?
By defining the build once. A standard network, standard devices, a standard configuration, and a checklist, so opening site six is a known process with a known cost and a known timeline rather than a fresh design. It also means your existing sites get easier to support, since they all look the same.
06Can you work with our existing POS provider?
Yes, and usually we should. Your POS vendor supports the application and we handle everything underneath it: the network, the devices, the connection, the back-office systems, and the failover. Most of the faults blamed on a point of sale turn out to be in that layer, which is exactly why having someone own it helps.
Start with one site.
Let us standardise a single location and prove the difference, then roll the same build across the rest at a known cost.
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