Tablet-POS Maker Revel Systems Delves into Mobile Commerce with a Consumer App

Known for its iPad-based point-of-sale system, Revel Systems said Friday it is making a mobile-commerce app available that merchants can use with their own brands.

The app—available now for iOS and Android devices—enables merchants to more easily allow consumers to access product information, check loyalty data, place orders, and pay from within the app. Dubbed the Revel Directory App, it can be branded with a merchant’s logo and design and integrates into the Revel POS system, says Chris Ciabarra, Revel Systems co-founder and chief technology officer. Currently, Stanford University is using the app at most of its 30 campus restaurant locations, Ciabarra says.

Revel Systems developed the app to help merchants take advantage of the ever-growing affinity for smart phones among consumers, Ciabarra says. Earlier this year, orders placed on smart phones accounted for 18% of all online orders, according to the Demandware Shopping Index.

The app enables Revel to add another sales channel for merchants using its POS system, and to offer them a way to unify all of their commerce data, Ciabarra tells Digital Transactions News. This so-called omnichannel approach is important to merchants because, when they use Revel Systems, they don’t have to use multiple vendors, and it enables consumers to have more ways to interact with a merchant, he says. “You can attract online and offline users,” Ciabarra says. “You can get analytics on this information. You couldn’t really do it before.”

Among the app functions designed for consumers are a store locator, personal profile creation, notifications using geo-location technologies, the ability to browse inventory, check account balances, and pay with credit and debit cards, in-app Apple Pay, or PayPal, and place orders in advance for later pick up.

For merchants, the app provides another method to present information to consumers, enable in-seat ordering at stadium venues–currently in use at six stadiums—and provide a central location for consumers to interact with the merchant.

Revel Systems merchants pay an $8,900 one-time set up fee, then $119 per store per month for the app. Revel Systems also provides marketing support in the form of social media training, by placing a promotion for the app on receipts, and on customer-facing displays.

Revel Systems says merchants have installed almost 20,000 of its POS systems.