Its really tough to market to restauranteurs because there are tons of scammy companies out there...
My company helps SMB's find the best credit card processor, so in theory Restaurants would be great customers because they are often getting screwed. In reality, we don't convert restaurants well at all.
I've been to trade shows like the NRA (Nat'l restaurant association), Pizza Expo, etc, and a new trend is well-funded companies offering a "free" POS system. It's free because they include the merchant account, and they KILL you on the fees. Almost all of the POS vendors are partnered with http://www.mercurypay.com/ which is a very expensive solution with hidden fees/upcharges etc.
Restauranteurs become lured in with the free POS and are locked into a shitty payment processor. I think being on iOS is a strength though - maybe there are ways you can focus and optimize your ranking on the app store? Participate in blogs/forums whenever you can.
We've had some luck getting in publications (QSR, Food News Today, etc), which has been very useful in getting the word out. You should try to get in QSR.
Huh, fascinating, my involvement in the restaurant business has been limited to mostly waiting and somewhat being aware of what was going on in the back end with processors, but I've only worked at one restaurant so my experience was limited. I had no idea they were gouging that much, we're actually looking into using iDynamo ( http://www.magtek.com/v2/products/secure-card-reader-authent... ) in our app, which would make it dirt easy to just pick the best payment processor and run with it. I'll have to drop you a line when we're done with that, probably in the next four weeks.
Thanks for your feedback, and the information about publications, it's been hard for me to figure out what publications exist and which ones exactly matter.
It feels like app store ratings isn't going to be the driving force here. There aren't enough restaurants out there downloading iOS PoS software to drive you to the top of anything but a small and inactive category.
In this case, the App Store is just a distribution method, and all of the marketing and discovery is up to the company themselves. As Wil Shipley once said, the App Store should be a warehouse, not a storefront.
My company helps SMB's find the best credit card processor, so in theory Restaurants would be great customers because they are often getting screwed. In reality, we don't convert restaurants well at all.
I've been to trade shows like the NRA (Nat'l restaurant association), Pizza Expo, etc, and a new trend is well-funded companies offering a "free" POS system. It's free because they include the merchant account, and they KILL you on the fees. Almost all of the POS vendors are partnered with http://www.mercurypay.com/ which is a very expensive solution with hidden fees/upcharges etc.
Restauranteurs become lured in with the free POS and are locked into a shitty payment processor. I think being on iOS is a strength though - maybe there are ways you can focus and optimize your ranking on the app store? Participate in blogs/forums whenever you can.
We've had some luck getting in publications (QSR, Food News Today, etc), which has been very useful in getting the word out. You should try to get in QSR.
Drop me a line if you want to talk further.