A longtime champion for small businesses, GoDaddy is known for helping entrepreneurs get online fast. In recent years, the company has expanded its offerings to include resources that empower business owners to grow their customer base: think email and social media marketing, content creation, and e-commerce.
In late 2020, GoDaddy announced its acquisition of commerce and payments facilitator platform Poynt, rounding out its suite of products and services to include point-of-sale (POS) systems proven in market with tens of billions of dollars in transactions prior to the acquisition. In June 2021, the company launched GoDaddy Payments, its own payments provider, and in September 2021, GoDaddy launched Smart Terminal, as part of its fully-integrated, omnichannel solution that brings the brand’s POS offerings and e-commerce tools together in one place.
“We’ve been increasingly focused on building and integrating connected commerce capabilities for small businesses, both in terms of what people can do with their GoDaddy online stores as well as their brick-and-mortar operations,” says Greg Goldfarb, vice president of commerce products at GoDaddy. “Because ultimately, the way consumers are engaging, buying, and paying is traversing the online/in- person divide, and businesses—including quick-serve restaurants—are bringing digital experiences into brick-and-mortar locations very intentionally.”
Due to the pandemic and shifting consumer preferences, restaurants are making the switch to become more tech-friendly, including QR code menus, self-order kiosks and the ability to order online. In fact, a recent GoDaddy survey found that four in five millennials (82 percent) say they are more likely to purchase from a small business where they can place their order for delivery or pick up.
While the GoDaddy Smart Terminal offers buy online pick-up in-store capabilities to help attract those millennial customers, the POS can also save operators a considerable amount of money in credit card processing fees, as it boasts one of the lowest transaction fee options out there. With GoDaddy Payments, fees for in-person transactions are 2.3 percent; e-commerce sales are 2.3 percent plus 30 cents; and keyed-in transactions (like orders made over the phone) are 3.3 percent. Overall, these low transaction fees can result in saving a small business thousands.
“Part of GoDaddy’s core focus is to champion the growth of businesses, and we want to make that as approachable and simple as possible,” Goldfarb says. “We believe in growing with our customers, so we launched a point-of-sale solution that allows business owners to save money and focus on expanding their business.”
With Smart Terminal, operators can set up background imagery, branding, and even customized receipts. This expanded e-commerce model also makes it easier for restaurant operators to integrate third-party delivery services, while still managing all orders from one centralized location. “Whether a customer starts their order online or they order inside the store, restaurant owners need to be able to easily transition between the two, and operators need one place to manage those orders,” Goldfarb says.
New modes of consumer behavior demand digital capabilities. For consumers, these interactions feel modern, fast, and efficient. For operators, Smart Terminal offers smarter, more streamlined workflows that capture store activity in the cloud. This offers operators greater real-time visibility into what’s happening in their store.
Having a fully-integrated POS system that works with other programs such as loyalty and delivery apps is critical in the increasingly-competitive and data-driven restaurant industry. “The merge of online and in-person experiences is a key part of the journey for consumers,” Goldfarb says. “It’s part of the central way operators should look at their business.”
To learn more, visit the GoDaddy website.
