At the start of August, Qashier's Singapore head office launched its new flagship POS terminal, the QashierX2 (currently on sale in Singapore and Malaysia only), along with the pocket-sized QashierXS, both built to support SME businesses.
Christopher Choo, CEO and co-founder of Qashier, gave an interview to the e27 website about the new POS launch and the company's intention to help SMEs through new products and services.
Qashier's calling card has always been a POS terminal for running a shop with a distinctive design that brings every solution and every essential feature together in a single device.
"Because our goal is to help SMEs succeed, we launched the Qashier SME Support Package in Singapore. Any newly registered retail business in Singapore receives a discount from Qashier of up to 53%," says Christopher.
"This initiative lets Qashier reach a far wider group of merchants and help them take their businesses digital."
That success also earned Christopher a place on Forbes magazine's ‘Forbes 30 Under 30’ list of successful young achievers for 2023.
So how has Qashier grown the business, and what comes next? Read the interview between e27 and Christopher below.
Q: As a growing startup, is your business approach and strategy different now compared with the early days?
– In the early days the priority was to build a product that met the deep needs of our target group as precisely and as quickly as possible. We kept asking ourselves how to build something that would solve a real problem and that customers would happily pay for.
With that in mind, Franklin (Franklin Zhao, co-founder) and I spent months talking to several hundred SME merchants across the country to understand their problems and obstacles, then gathered those insights and used them to build our first product, the QashierX1.
Now that the company is in a growth phase, the intention is to develop the product in far greater depth, answering what merchants need so that we can reach more of them.
Q: What is your approach to scaling the business?
– We believe that our merchants' success is our success, and we pay relentless attention to what merchants and shops need and to whether they are succeeding — helping them reach their goals by raising profit, cutting costs and making operations more agile. Personally I believe in "think big, start small, and above all move fast".
Q: What is your revenue model, and how did you arrive at it?
– Qashier's revenue comes from two streams: software subscriptions and payment processing fees. Because we focus specifically on serving and empowering SMEs, we have designed our pricing model to be affordable too.
Q: Tell us who your customers are and how you find them.
We mainly serve SMEs in food and beverage, retail, beauty, events and services. Our customer acquisition channels are both inbound and outbound, along with referrals from existing customers and business partners.
Q: Which part of the business has mattered most in building a sustainable company?
Franklin and I started Qashier to solve problems that merchants genuinely face and to create real value for them. We listen continuously so that we can improve both the hardware and the software of Qashier and keep pace with needs that change constantly in today's digital economy.
Q: What is the most valuable piece of advice you have received about keeping a technology company sustainable today?
– In any organisation, people are the greatest asset. From day one the intention was to build a culture that values openness and transparency, drive and excellence, speed and innovation. Our hiring process is rigorous, and we look for talented people whose values fit the culture of the company.
Today Qashier has 150 team members across four countries in Southeast Asia, and we are immensely proud to have built a team that is both capable and genuinely enthusiastic. Qashier could never have come this far without the dedication and commitment of the Qashier team.
Q: How have the various global crises affected your business, and how have you handled them?
– I am proud to say that we are flexible and adapt well, which means we can respond quickly when the market and our merchants change.
For example, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, just a few months after Qashier started trading, Franklin and I rapidly turned Qashier into an omnichannel platform — exactly what shops needed as they were forced to move their business online. From there we introduced solutions such as online ordering, QR ordering for food through to integrations with food delivery services and e-commerce as well.
For Qashier users in Thailand, you can experience Qashier's latest innovations today and make running your shop easier: a POS system for store management that comes in a range of form factors, from the QashierXS or QashierX1 you can carry anywhere to the big, powerful QashierXL, as well as the Qashier POS app that turns your phone or tablet into a store management POS in moments.
If you would like Qashier to be the assistant your retail business needs, get in touch for more information. We are ready to support both shops and restaurants with POS terminals for retail, an efficient POS system, and support from our team seven days a week.
For more information, reach us on Line Official: @qashier.th or call 02 544 0267