HP Targets Small Merchants with New Android-Based POS Solution

(Pictured above: The HP booth at the NRF Big Show.)

NATIONAL RETAIL FOUNDATION BIG SHOW — HP plans to bring its point-of-sale (POS) portfolio to small and midsize retailers and hospitality operators with a new lower-cost POS system designed for partners to provision easily.

Set for release next month, the company is previewing its new HP Engage One Prime system to partners and prospects at the National Retail Federation (NRF) Big Show in New York, which began Sunday and runs through Tuesday. As part of its new effort to target these SMB operators, HP also is partnering with PayPal to offer payment processing with the new device for merchants in the U.S.

While HP is known for its POS systems for large retailers, the company sees a new addressable market of an estimated 600,000 small and midsize operators in the U.S., 98 percent of which have fewer than 50 employees.

HP’s line of POS systems has typically been out of reach for these SMBs, said Aaron Weiss, HP’s VP and general manager for retail solutions.

HP’s Aaron Weiss

“We’re leveraging the success and the experience that we’ve had with some of the upper tiers of the retail and hospitality market and bringing that experience [and] the technology together in a way that will address some of the unique needs of the SMB retailers and hospitality operators,” Weiss said.

The new system aims to address the issue of affordability and the lack of IT resources these SMBs typically face with a focus on providing turnkey solutions though a broad ecosystem of ISV partners. Among those HP has referenced include talech, eHopper, Extenda Retail, Wynd, Systopia, Protel, lontech, iRipple and Meridian IT.

The HP Engage One Prime is a compact but modern system with a 14-inch, backlit HD color touch display that weighs about eight pounds and is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core processors. They have 4 GB of RAM and are available with 16 GB or 32GB of internal storage, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support and four USB connectors including one Type-C port. Some configurations offer an optional, secondary customer-facing display.

HP Engage One Prime POS system

Until now, HP’s POS systems were targeted at larger merchants and were not practical for smaller retailers and quick service restaurants (QSRs), said Vladimir Basin, general manager and head of product at eHopper, an ISV that offers a point-of-sale solution for small retailers.

eHopper’s Vladimir Basin

Basin said when HP reached out to him about the new Engage One Prime, he took the call, though was skeptical the company had something that could reach its demographic of small businesses.

“When we saw the device, it was pretty cool and very modern-looking, and we were impressed with the performance,” he said.

Basin said it’s the first time eHopper has agreed to resell an HP POS system. While HP isn’t revealing the unit price, Basin said it’s affordable for SMB customers.

HP is offering a variety of optional peripherals including a receipt printer, barcode scanner, I/O hub, fingerprint scanner, iButton and cash drawer. The partnership with PayPal allows merchants to accept payments, while also allowing them to create financing arrangements.

“They are a trusted adviser,” HP’s Weiss said. “We see that this combination with the right ISV partnerships for each of the different individual subsegments of the market as the right way to deliver a complete solution.”