Bitcoin Magazine recently learned of Quetzal’s development and decision to start working with the Bitcoin currency. Quetzal issued the following press release on their decision:
Quetzal retail system: Bringing Bitcoin to the Global Village
Doug Stewart and Greg Naçu have been building web-based point of sale for retail since before high-speed internet was widely available. Beginning with consignment textbook operations on Canadian University campuses, then expanding into retail operations, they pioneered the way the web can be harnessed for real-time, multi-location inventory and customer management.
With their recent product, Quetzal, they have taken the pioneering approach one step further.
“By making Quetzal a multi-lingual, multi-currency system from the ground up, the true power of a cloud-based system can be realized and bitcoin plays a huge role in this,” says Stewart from his location in Oaxaca Mexico where adoption is steadily growing in this Spanish speaking part of the world. “The global village is really becoming a reality. We are finding savvy retailers here in Mexico, parts of Africa, south-east Asia interested in the benefits of a cloud-based, iPad retail management system with integrated credit-card systems as well as bitcoin.”
Bitcoin is integrated into the Quetzal payment side of the transaction process. At the time of sale, the retailer selects the Bitcoin payment button and the customer scans the QR code with his bitcoin wallet. “At this stage of the cycle, the ability to accept bitcoin gives our customers the extra bit of notoriety which is a great thing in a competitive retail space. Aside from the pure practicality of bitcoin, there’s a certain caché which speaks of forward-thinking and hipness that the retailer can message to his customer,” says Stewart.
Also in the US, brick and mortar retailers from Orange County, California to downtown New York City can now easily accept bitcoin for all or part of their sales. Through the Quetzal system, the retailer gets funds in his local currency as though it were a credit card sale – but at a fraction of the transaction cost.
“In order for bitcoin to truly emerge as a viable currency it has to be used by real people for real, everyday purchases,” says co-founder Greg Naçu from the Quetzal corporate offices in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. “If I can walk into a store and buy a shirt or a pair of winter boots using my bitcoin wallet it will make my life easier. If the transaction cost is lower for the retailer, the price I pay can be eventually lower too.”
Quetzal is a full-featured iPad/web-based retail point of sale system for retailers helping them to manage their inventory and customer information. It features real-time warehoused reporting, offline and mobile transactions as well as completely integrated payment systems including bitcoin. It comes in eight languages and is available in over thirty countries. There is an attractive, pre-configured hardware bundle which can be shipped anywhere in the world from their hardware partner in Florida making setup a breeze – “just plug it together and it works,” says Naçu.
For more information about this innovative retail bitcoin system, go the Quetzal website at www.quetzalpos.com
