Having Started with Eateries, Revel Unveils an iPad POS System for Groceries

The rapid insinuation of tablets into the retail point of sale took another big turn this week when Revel Systems Inc., a San Francisco-based startup, unveiled an iPad-based POS system designed for supermarkets. The new system has already been adopted by Marty’s Markets, a Pittsburgh grocery store, and another half dozen grocery companies are expected to go live on it next month, Chris Ciabarra, Revel’s co-founder and chief technology officer, tells Digital Transactions News. All told, 40 supermarket companies should be live by year’s end, he adds.

The move into groceries represents a major move by Revel, which started out chiefly selling its system to restaurants. More than 300 locations are using its software. “Ever since we started two years ago, supermarkets have been hitting us,” says Ciabarra. To reach the new market, he says Revel is working with value-added resellers, and has deals so far with “a couple” of VARs.

The Revel system for supermarkets includes an iPad along with peripherals such as a card swiper, cash drawer and scale, and scanner. These can be purchased singly or as a bundle, with the bundle running $5,000. A software license for a single checkout costs $2,000. The recurring cost is a service fee of $100 per license per month. For payments, the software includes an integration with alternative providers, including Dwolla and LevelUp, both of which were added because of grocery customers’ requests, Ciabarra says.

Lawrence Capozzolo, head of IT at Marty’s Market, says ease of training has been a major advantage to the Revel product, which the store has installed at six checkouts. “I can pull someone off the street and easily train them to do a basic checkout in 10 minutes,” he says. “That’s quite a bit of man-hours eliminated from a weekly budget.” He adds that Revel’s costs and fees were also lower than other tablet-based systems.

Revel worked with Marty’s to make its system work with the store’s inventory management and other systems, Capozzolo says. As a result, Marty’s became a beta site for Revel’s grocery strategy and helped shape the product the company unveiled on Tuesday. One complication for the technology startup was allowing for peripherals commonly used in supermarket checkouts. Making these work with the iPad, Ciabarra says, was something that had “never been done before.”

The company has paid extra attention to the card reader, for which Ciabarra wanted instant encryption capability. For fixed locations, Revel uses a reader it developed on its own to encrypt upon the swipe and later adapted to work with one from ID Tech, a Cypress, Calif.-based maker of smart card readers and other POS equipment. ID Tech recently acquired the reader division of ViVOtech Inc., a pioneer in mobile payments. For mobile use, Revel has adopted the iDynamo device from Seal Beach, Calif.-based MagTek Inc., which also encrypts at the swipe. “We chose it because of the encryption,” says Ciabarra, who has a background in digital security.

To be successful with grocery stores, however, Revel may have to overcome substantial skepticism about its ability to link its system to older, data-intensive systems that manage and track everything from stock-keeping units to loyalty points, experts say. After all, most merchants, they say, are looking to install new systems to work with legacy systems. “There aren’t that many green-field merchants,” says one payments researcher. Marty’s, for example, opened only last month.

Still, Capozzolo says the combination of cost, ease of training, and versatility could help Revel overcome this obstacle. “Revel was within range or a little less [in cost comparisons] and was willing to work with us,” he says. As for installations with larger chains, he adds, “I don’t see where [Revel] can’t go there.”