Cashing In On POS Keyboards

With increased programmability, a smaller footprint, and inexpensive price, new point of sale (POS) keyboards are becoming an easier sell for VARs. However, integrating the right keyboard with the right application is the real trick. A properly integrated POS keyboard should make the learning curve for employees and the POS transaction process faster.

Benefits Of New POS Keyboards

• More Programmable: Vendors offer programmable touchpad keyboards with a "one button" key feature that can change the keyboard functions in seconds. For example, a restaurant changes its menu from breakfast to lunch. "With the touch of a button, the keyboard configuration changes to match the new menu," says Jackson Lum, president of Logic Controls (New Hyde Park, NY), a vendor of PC-based POS systems. "After pressing one button, restaurant employees simply slide a new cover with key labels over the touch pad matching the new menu, or a single cover can have the information for both menus on it."
  
  Programmable keyboards are not limited in the number of functions each key can contain. In the above example, each key would have two functions (one for breakfast, one for lunch). Some of the new keyboards can accommodate more than a hundred functions per key. "Newer keyboards far exceed the expected programmability of most end users," Lum adds.
   
• More Intuitive: In the POS retail market there is high employee turnover. Employers want a keyboard that will be easily adopted by new employees. "New POS keyboards provide a very simple transaction process," says Pat Jones, director of marketing for Rapid Transaction Interface (Dallas, TX), a vendor specializing in the development and manufacture of fully dynamic keyboards. "Dynamic keytop displays guide end users through the steps needed to quickly complete the transaction."
  
  In the past, sales clerks often needed to hit a series of keys to perform one step in the transaction process. According to Jones, this is no longer the case, as most of the new POS keyboards have more buttons that are labeled and use one key for each step of the transaction process.
   
• Smaller Footprint: New POS keyboards are much more compact than their predecessors, occupying much less counterspace. Dimensions are typically 7.5" wide by 17" long and sometimes even smaller. "This allows more stations to be put on the same amount of counter space, therfore increasing the number of terminals which allows more transactions," says Lum.
   
• Cheaper Price: POS keyboards' primary competition are touch screens. Lum and Jones agree that both keyboards and touch screens are useful depending upon the type of retail operation in question. "It depends upon the end users' budgets and what they have a need for. Of course, a keyboard is less expensive than a flat LCD (liquid crystal display) touch screen," says Jones. Lum adds that keyboards are "less than half the price of a standard touch screen."
  
  What Do These Benefits Mean To VARs?
  Jones would like to see VARs look at the POS keyboard as the "gateway" to a POS system - the first line of interaction between the sales clerk and the system. "VARs should not sell their POS systems short by throwing in a cheaper keyboard. They need to invest in a custom keyboard that best complements their application," Jones says. "Retail clerks who may not be experienced will need a keyboard that is easy to follow. The keyboard is the first thing they see and it should not scare them off."
  
  Lum would like to see VARs put more of an effort into staying updated on what is available in the POS keyboard industry. "With POS keyboard technology rapidly moving forward, it is a challenge for VARs to stay informed. They need to read vendor literature and industry trade magazines."
  
  What The Future Holds
  Lum says that Logic Controls is currently working on a POS keyboard with even more multi-function features. POS keyboards currently offer many attachments or built-in functions, such as mag stripe readers, check readers, bar-code scanners, and more.
  
  According to Jones, the future will present the industry with more advanced hybrid keyboards with LCD keys that act like touch screens. RTI is already producing keyboards with this ability, according to Jones.