PayAnywhere upgrades iOS client to keep hold of existing merchants

Rating: We reckond the single screen for tip & signature is best feature

It seems that PayAnywhere is determined to attack the mobile merchants sector so it has released an improved version of its app for the iOS community – iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Naturally, the company claims the improvements are the direct result of the “valuable feedback” it has received from its merchants. One of these is the ability to process hassle-free refunds in-app for greater transaction flexibility. Another is an ‘enhanced Heat Map’ feature. In essence, this facility enables merchants to see very quickly and clearly where all the action is taking place.Marc Gardner, CEO with PayAnywhere, claims the latest version is now, “Packed with all the bells and whistles a merchant needs – coupled with 24/7 customer support – for the most feature-rich mobile POS solution available for merchants of any size.”

What these guys almost certainly neglect to say is that this offering is only available in North America.

GoMobile News can detect no obvious sings of European or Asia Pacific versions, for example.

PayAnywhere seems to promote other features in front of this one but we think it is really advantageous for the typical ‘merchant-in-the middle-of-a-field’.

The company describes it as “merged tip and signature”. This behaves exactly as it sounds – sales transactions are sped up with the tip and signature facilities on the same screen.

This next feature should help merchants to move onto the next customer much faster. Better detection for Star printers should help speed things up, too.

The company is obviously proud of the new ‘revamped heat maps’ facility. This enables the user to zoom in and out on regions and view individual or grouped transactions.

Hopefully, this will provide merchants with greater visibility to where their sales are taking place.

We also reckon that merchants will like the ‘ hassle-free refunds’ feature whereby merchants can issue refunds for specific items or to adjust the price on particular items from directly within the app.

PayAnywhere loves to emphasise the fact that there are no hidden fees; plus no setup, monthly or cancellation fees.

PayAnywhere merchants enjoy a low 2.69 per cent swiped transaction fee along with fast payouts and with funds typically deposited into merchant accounts within two business days.

That’s a dead giveaway that the system is aimed at the USA not Europe where Banks take ages to pay funds into your account for no discernible reason.

Anyway, there are versions of PayAnywhere for both Android and BlackBerry smartphones. We’ve no idea when or if the above features will be added to the non-iOS versions of PayAnywhere’s offerings.