Card processing, Clover point of sale, and reputation tools for convenience stores. Set up around a fast counter, a deep shelf list, age-restricted items, and a fee structure that punishes small sales.
Nothing here is itemized anywhere. It shows up as a margin that does not match the volume going through the door.
A per-transaction fee is the same on a soda as on a full basket. At a few dollars a ticket and hundreds of tickets a day, the fixed side of the fee is a larger number than the percentage, and almost nobody is shown it.
Most of a convenience store's card volume is debit. Which network that debit runs over, and how it is priced, is one of the largest levers on your statement, and it is usually bundled so the choice never surfaces.
Thousands of items across coolers, shelves, and the back counter. Without scanning tied to counts, the gap between what you bought and what you sold arrives as a number nobody can explain.
An ID check done carefully at seven in the morning and done casually at eleven at night is not the same control. The inconsistency is the risk, and right now it lives with whoever happens to be working.
We start from how the store actually runs, then match the hardware and the program to it. These are the setups that commonly fit an independent convenience store.
A Clover Station with a scanner, a drawer, and a customer-facing screen, set up so the morning rush keeps moving and the card price and cash price are visible before anyone pays.
A Mini running the same item list, opened for the morning and the hour after work, so one slow customer counting change does not hold up eight people behind them.
Scanning tied to counts so you can see what actually moves, what sits, and where the difference between purchases and sales is coming from before it becomes a habit.
ID scanning at the point of sale gives the same check regardless of who is on shift, and leaves a record that the check happened.
Both prices go on the shelf tag. The register rings whichever one matches how the customer pays, so the cost of taking cards sits in the posted price rather than in a margin that is already thin on a two dollar item.
If you sell alcohol or tobacco, those are card present sales at your counter. We board the account on that basis rather than promising a channel that underwriting will not allow.
Read commonly fit as exactly that. A single-register corner store and a store with four lanes and a deli counter need different setups, and a store with fuel out front is a different conversation again.
What fits comes down to how many people are through the door at seven in the morning and how many items are on the shelves. These three cover most independent stores.
Scanner, drawer, and a customer-facing screen in one place. The second screen earns its keep here, because the card price and the cash price stay visible while a basket rings up, and because the age prompt appears where the clerk is already looking rather than on a sticker by the till.
The morning rush and the hour after work are a different store from two in the afternoon. A Mini opens a second lane on a counter with no room for another station, and it runs the same item list and the same reporting as the main register.
If you run food service, a hot case, or a counter away from the front register, the Compact rings those sales without a second full setup. It all lands in the same numbers, so the deli becomes a department you can measure instead of a guess at month end.
If your store has fuel out front or four lanes inside, say so, because both of those change the answer.
You do not need an enterprise back office to run an independent store well. You need scanning, counts you trust, and a register a new hire can learn in one shift.
Every shelf tag carries two numbers, a card price and a cash price. The terminal works out the correct total at checkout, which matters more here than almost anywhere else, because a fixed cost per sale hurts most on the small tickets that make up your day.
Both prices are on display before a customer reaches the counter, which is why almost nobody asks about it.
The terminal applies the right total. Your team keeps doing what they already do.
Program setup, signage, and terminal configuration are handled as part of onboarding rather than left to you.
An illustration of the arithmetic, not a quote and not a promise.
The numbers are invented but realistic for a busy independent store, and the math is 7.50 times 9,000, then 3.2 percent of that total. Look at what the fixed side does inside that figure, because 9,000 sales at a ten cent per-item fee is $900 on its own, a little over two fifths of the whole cost, and your real effective rate depends on debit share, ticket size, and the program you choose, which is why we quote from an actual statement.
Actual savings depend on your card mix, average ticket, and the program you choose. We will quote your specific number from a recent statement rather than a range from a website.
Your customers are in and out in ninety seconds and a lot of them come in daily, so a surprise at the register is the thing to avoid. Posted on the shelf and on the door, it stops being news inside a week.
Both prices go on the tag, on the cooler door, and on a sign at the entrance. In a store where the same people come in five days a week the price gets learned quickly, and the complaints in this trade come from surprises at the register, not from posted numbers.
On a four dollar ticket the difference is a few cents. That is a very different conversation from a large purchase, and the people you see every morning are buying on convenience and proximity rather than deciding on a number that small.
If you are on a corner with two competitors inside a block and your shelf prices are the reason people pick you, this deserves real thought before you commit. We will quote traditional pricing from the same statement so you are choosing between two real numbers.
A convenience store lives on being the closest good option and on being open when people need it. Cajoon covers the messages that keep that true, and every one of them points back to your counter.
People ring to ask your hours on a holiday, whether the deli is still serving, or whether you carry something before they drive over. When the counter is busy, an automatic text goes back and you answer after the rush instead of losing the trip.
Your page is probably built out of two complaints from customers you will never see again. A short text after a visit asks your regulars to say something, and the request goes out on its own instead of a clerk asking across the counter.
A holiday schedule, an early close, a new hot food item at lunchtime. One message to the list you already have, aimed squarely at the trip that would otherwise go somewhere else that day.
If you make sandwiches or breakfast, that is the best margin in the building and the easiest thing to build a habit around. A weekly message about what is on costs almost nothing, and near enough nobody in this trade is sending it.
An online application that takes about five minutes.
We confirm the program and finalize the rate sheet with you.
Your Clover devices arrive configured for your business.
Plug in, run a test ticket, and you are live.
The agreement stays yours until you cancel it, so get the early termination figure in writing before anything else. Terminal leases are frequently a separate contract with a separate exit, and plenty of stores are paying both. Send us both with a recent statement and we will tell you whether moving now beats waiting the term out.
Both prices sit on the tag and the register applies the correct total when the customer pays, so nobody at the counter does arithmetic. The real work is retagging the store, and in a shop your size that is a project rather than an afternoon. We plan that with you before go live instead of handing you signage and leaving.
Often. Most USB scanners carry over, and an item file with UPCs can usually be imported rather than typed in again. Drawers and older receipt printers are the more common snag, since some use connectors current hardware does not have. Send a photo of the back of your setup and we will check before you spend anything.
Pump payments are their own world. Dispensers run on separate controllers with their own certification and security requirements, and that is not what a Clover at the counter does. We can handle inside sales, and pay-at-pump normally stays with a fuel-specific provider. Two arrangements is a normal answer here rather than a failure.
No. Alcohol and tobacco are card present sales at your counter, and we will not board an account on a promise that underwriting reverses a month later. ID scanning at the register makes the in-store check consistent and leaves a record, but it does not replace staff judgment or whatever your state requires.
More than any other single thing on your statement. Debit can route over more than one network and the cost is not the same on each, and most statements bundle it so the choice never surfaces. At your ticket size, the routing and the per-item fee together are usually a bigger number than the headline rate. We will point at those lines on yours.
There is no meeting to sit through before the number. We go through your most recent processing statement and tell you what you are actually paying, line by line, including how your debit is being routed and what the per-item fees add up to.