With Yext Integration, ShopKeep Looks Beyond Payment Processing
More than 24,000 small businesses using an iPad-based point-of-sale system from ShopKeep now have access to online presence management tools from Yext, thanks to a new partnership between the two firms announced just this morning.
The partnership adds Yext’s platform to ShopKeep’s POS solution, giving store managers a more streamlined way to control the facts about their businesses being published across the web and raising the stakes in ShopKeep’s push to control a greater share of the SMB market.
“ShopKeep has been exploring potential partners to help our merchants with their marketing and customer acquisition efforts,” says the company’s Chief Revenue Officer, Etie Hertz. “There are often missed opportunities between small businesses and digital marketing, and we recognize that for owners, ensuring potential customers can find their businesses is of paramount importance.”
Today’s announcement marks a turning point for ShopKeep, as Hertz says the company has spent considerable time exploring avenues to help its customers become more visible online.
“Coincidentally, it turned out that Yext was also looking for a POS partner, so it all came together naturally,” Hertz says.
With this new partnership in place, ShopKeep becomes the first POS provider to offer an integrated online visibility management tool. Yext benefits from the partnership, as well, with a new way to take business information — such as contact information, hours of operation or menu details — directly from businesses’ POS systems and distribute the data.
The integration also furthers ShopKeep’s expansion from provider of POS solutions to an all-in-one service for small and mid-size businesses. According to Hertz, ShopKeep’s POS is often the most sophisticated piece of technology that its customers have running within their businesses, which speaks to the central role that the company plays within the small business environment.
“As a service provider involved in the most important element of business — how merchants are paid — our customers view us as a trusted partner which puts us in a unique position to offer additional value added services,” Hertz says. “In fact, they look to us to help them solve multiple problems in their business, well beyond POS, from payment processing to financing to improving their online presence.”
Hertz sees the Yext integration as a way to help existing ShopKeep customers get ahead of the search curve, as major players like Google and Bing are most people’s first stop when researching businesses online. The integration should be particularly beneficial for smaller merchants who might not have extra resources or funds to invest in all the complexities of today’s competitive environment.
“With so many different channels to keep up with on the digital side, it makes sense to streamline this information through one source that business owners interact with daily, their ShopKeep BackOffice,” Hertz says. “Giving small business owners the tools in one solution reduces complexities for shop owners and empowers them with resources to grow their business in one central location.”
Stephanie Miles is a senior editor at Street Fight.
