The Daily App: Mobile Retail for iPhone

We’ve long been impressed by the number of mobile apps that enable retail, Point-of-Sale solutions on an iPod touch or iPhone – and we expect that there will be more of them and they will begin to compete aggressively.

Mobile Retail for iPhone is a handy app that ties into the back-end service of a company called Brand Retailers. This app can combine with Line-pro 4 POS hardware to swipe credit cards on site, or it can accept PayPal information to complete a sale in that manner. (We didn’t look at the solution with the Linea-pro 4, but the PayPay functionality is straightforward.)

But this app also supports up-to-date inventory management (so you’re not selling stuff you don’t actually have), as well as electronic shopping cart functionality, email receipts and even sales reporting. While Mobile Retail is a free app, know that Brand Retailers will take $1.75 per sale off the top and limits you to 10,000 sales per day. While that may not be ideal for many businesses – including businesses with lower-priced merchandise – for ad hoc situations like fundraisers, flea markets or mobile sales scenarios where higher-priced inventory is involved, it could fit the bill without a lot of overhead.

While better POS solutions exist, Mobile Retail will provide a quick solution and a mobile one with little overhead or complexity.