Toss Place, challenging the offline payment market by entering the payment terminal market, has garnered attention within a year of launching its product due to the following reasons:
1. It focused on the usability of payment terminals, which are essential for transactions and a critical touchpoint between stores and customers, but had not seen much innovation for a long time.
2. By identifying the limitations of a supplier-centric terminal market, it expanded the role of payment terminals into a service platform that includes facial recognition payments, focusing on solving problems for small business owners and self-employed individuals.
3. It understood the ecosystem of the terminal distribution market centered around VAN and VAN agency, and built a partnership of trust by sharing a vision of co-prosperity with VAN agency.
4. The hardware and software teams collaborated to design terminals with a neutral design that is aesthetically pleasing while ultimately highlighting the various services embedded in the device.
5. By analyzing customer feedback and conducting field tests, it quickly updated terminal features such as kiosk mode and point accumulation services, thereby increasing shopkeeper’s satisfaction.
Payment terminals are the heart of offline payments. Hundreds to thousands of credit card payments are made in stores every day, and the livelihoods of small business owners depend on them. But in the 40 years since payment terminals were first introduced in the 1980s, there hasn't been much user-facing innovation in this market. While the number of payment methods has grown from credit cards to various online payments, the design and usability of the terminals at the heart of payments hasn't changed much. The ugly machines, which take up space on the tiny checkout lanes, were an integral part of the store, but one that retailers wanted to ‘hide’ as much as possible.
However, Toss Place, a subsidiary of big tech company Viva Republica (hereinafter referred to as Toss), has introduced Toss Front, a minimalist and sleek payment terminal that can be proudly displayed at the front of the checkout counter. Unlike previous devices that can only make payments, Toss Front is a new concept that can be updated with various service functions other than payments by installing an app. For example, it displays payment history when making payments, images of new menus or events when paying, and kiosk mode when staff are busy, allowing them to customize customer service according to the situation.
Toss Front is spreading rapidly by word-of-mouth among young entrepreneurs who are running solo or small businesses in industries like cafes and bakeries. According to Toss Place, since its launch in March 2023, the cumulative number of Toss terminals, including Toss Front and Toss Terminal, a payment terminal that also prints receipts, has exceeded 30,000 merchants in less than a year. The average monthly growth rate of new merchants was 43% in the year since launch. As of May 2024, the cumulative number of merchants is 40,000, and in May alone, the number of new merchants was 5,260, which is about 15% of the estimated 36,000 new merchant market per month. While Toss Place terminals still account for a small percentage of the total market, the rapid growth is considered unusual for this market.
This content was translated into English by AI (using DeepL) from an article that was originally written in Korean in the DBR (Donga Business Review). Therefore, please understand that there may be some awkward expressions.
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