I serve as the manager for a bookstore at a University in the US. My direct boss works in a different department and has no experience in retail, so I have been given complete freedom to run the store as an actual business owner. Unfortunately, I have no experience as a business owner and I feel like a fish out of water.
Can someone explain to me like I'm 5 what the following are/how they differ/what they do:
- POS system (my understanding is it's the hardware used to complete sales such as the register)
- Merchant Services
- Payment Solutions
- Stored Value Solutions
We currently use MBS for our POS and are looking at switching next year (we pay over $10k per year & I'm not really sure what that's for).
We get an invoice annually from Paymetric for $1,500 for Xisecure(?).
An invoice from Worldpay for $814 for "Gateway Annual Service Fee"
And are paying SVS a minimum of $10/month to have/use gift cards.
Basically-- I don't understand what services we are paying for, but there's got to be a way to save on costs here.
Help!