Updated on January 4, 2022
Clover Mini Introduction:
- Compact design
- Access to Clover app market
- Flexible and customizable
- Accepts virtually all forms of payment
- Portable
- Cloud storage of reports, customer data, etc.
The Clover Mini is the third product in the POS hardware family; it was lunched in the early summer of 2015, by First Data. It has a small design, and it is more accessible version of the popular Clover Station POS system, it also comes along with a built-in receipt printer, a USB hub so as to interface with peripheral hardware, a customer facing camera, a merchant keypad as well as a cash drawer. Just like the Clover Station, this Clover Mini is more or less a replacement for a standard POS terminal That provide necessary support for advance payment interfaces such as Apple Pay. It is also fully EMV-ready, and comes equipped with an integrated QR reader, an on-screen PIN pad with signature capture and a front facing camera. It is adaptable to various kinds of industries, and has the ability to grow and develop with time, a big thanks to Clover App Market, which keep on improving on the existing version. In short, it can be anything you want it to be. Clover Mini as well as other Clover product like Clover Station and Clover Mobile is always sold along with a merchant account. American Merchant Service was the first company beside First Data to offer Clover products to its customer base in 2013, followed by PNC Merchant Service. Clover Mini can now be bought over 3,000 major banks in the US, including SunTrust, Citibank as well as Fargo. Clover products can also be bought from small business suppliers that offer merchant’s services. Clover Mini looks like an ideal POS solution- it’s flexible, portable, and functional but customers have been leaving negative feedback over the year, most especially due to the unsavory reputation of First Data. Read on to find out if Clover Mini worth the risk.
Price:
The retail price of Clover Mini is around $200-$400, depending on where you make your purchase; this makes it cheaper than Clover Station. When you buy Clover Mini, you can choose from the two service plans available: We recommend you look at Dharma Merchant Services for both the Clover Mini and their processing service. They are highly recommended by Best of Category reviews and other sources across the web.
The first one is 2000 service plan and can be utilized with Clover Mobile and it enables you to get to every one of the capacities of a standard charge card terminal and also:
- Support for EMV and Apple Pay
- Ability to issue refunds
- Manage tips, tabs, and authorizations
- Closeout reporting
- Cloud Syncing
- Optional employee permissions
The Pro Service Plan (can likewise be used with Clover Mobile or Clover Station) include everything above, plus additional features like ability to:
- Ring up orders
- Charge taxes
- Apply discounts
- Create Items
- Manage Customers
Clover Mini is different from other POS system as earlier mentioned in the way it is marketed and sold. It must be sold along with a merchant account, because of this it can be bought from thousands of different banks, business suppliers, and merchant services providers instead of being available in a single location with a fixed price, and each one of them will offer different swipe fees and hardware costs.
The card processing rates and swipe fees varies from one place to another, and can range from 0.30% + 5¢ to 2.5% + 15¢ or higher, depending on the service provider. Some may offer flat-rate processing fees. Generally, the rate received depends on your own credit rating as well as the sales volume of your business.
Those of you who have a current business banking account might be best served by checking with your own bank to see whether it offers Clover products. It’s conceivable to purchase the POS outright and obviously, yet most sellers likewise offer in-house financing. You might have the capacity to meet all requirements for a credit or loan as well.
Cloud-Based or Locally-Installed:
Clover Mini is cloud-based and stores your data in the cloud. You have the decision to run your gadget with either a Wi-Fi connection or 3G/4G (HSPA+) wireless connectivity. In any case, if your Internet service goes down, the Mini can keep on functioning offline for up to seven sequential days, lining up transactions until the point when the Internet is reestablished. In the event that despite everything you haven’t reconnected to the internet after the seven day time frame is over, card transactions will be denied starting from that time.
Specific Industry:
Clover Mini is best for restaurants–both snappy service and full-service–and specialty retail stores. It can likewise be utilized for service business (like hair/nail salons) or for organizations in the hospitality industry (inns, motels, resorts, and so forth.). Just because of its design, the Mini can fit into any business condition.
Specific Size of Business:
Clover Mini can be used for small to mid-sized businesses with limited budgets.
Ease of Use:
No-Hassle Set Up
I can guarantee you from my very own perceptions, and in addition general feedback from clients, that Clover Mini is very easy to use and also easier to set up. It arrives nearly prepared to-go (with a preloaded menu), and there are just a couple of pieces to assemble.
Short Learning Curve
As it is obvious from the image underneath, the fundamental screen on any Clover gadget is exceptionally natural, and looks like a computer screen or cell phone. Contingent upon what function you need, there are different applications on the screen which you can open with a touch of your finger.
Employee ought to have the capacity to get all that they have to know about Clover Mini following 15-20 minutes of basic training. A large portion of the applications (at any rate the most widely recognized: reporting, customers, inventory, and so on.) are obvious and labeled clearly. The pleasant thing about a truly all in one POS system, similar to Clover Mini, is that the greater part of the equipment operates normally. For some entrepreneurs, Clover truly removes the greater part of the guesswork from things.
Hardware and Operating System Requirements:
Clover Mini accompanies an inherent printer, a front-facing camera, and the capacity to peruse scanner tags/QR codes. If you need extra equipment, you can connect to an integrated weight scale or a barcode scanner utilizing one of the USB ports.
With regards to hardware, there are no prerequisites. The Clover Mini is prepared to go when you get it–all you have to provide is some kind of Internet connection. Access to the web dashboard works best with Chrome, Safari, or Firefox.
Features:
The Clover Mini is so versatile, and can be altered with such a wide assortment of applications, that it is hard to discuss features generally, yet in the event that you’re interested, here is a general guide. The components included with your specific Clover setup will be characterized by the applications you pick and the functions you require–including the ability to take payments, open and close bar tabs, approve credit cards, monitor tips, transaction history, and perform closeouts. The accompanying is a portion of the components liable to be valuable to most sorts of business:
Basic Features
Interface: The Clover Mini interface is genuinely simple. As I earlier said, it is reminiscent of a cell phone screen, including an assortment of applications. Tap on an application with your finger, and it opens up.
App Market: Applications basically run everything for you in Clover Mini, which is itself just a collection of applications customized to your need. As an organization, Clover gives retail and eatery specific applications for everything from your register to voice approval, bar tabs, discounts, rebates, representatives, and stock management. There are wide assortments of 3rd party applications accessible too that offer gift cards, loyalty software, eCommerce integration, the capacity to check workers in and out, et cetera. It ought to be noticed that while some of these applications are free, others will cost you every month.
Permissions given to Employees: There is availability of adding workers to the Clover Mini account whenever you desire, and depict each and every one of them by their information which will appear on the customer receipt. The most ideal approach to oversee employee consents is by assigning out role to every worker. You may need a few employees to have access to touchy data, while confining others to fundamental register function. The diverse roles you make will naturally accompany distinctive levels of access to the POS so assigning roles to employee immediately “empowers administrators to enable or disable permissions in bulk for their workers by fragments.”
Payment Options: Clover Mini is said to be the most exceptional payment terminal available in the market, and can accept any payment type, including: Google Wallet, EMV, debit, credit, Apple Pay (In-App and In-Person), gift vouchers (both virtual and physical) as well as and EBT. You can likewise enter card numbers physically or take sales via telephone utilizing the Phone Sales application. With respect to Apple Pay, all Clover gadgets can acknowledge iPhone 6 In-Person payment; the In-Person payment option let clients utilize their Apple Pay-registered iPhone to pay for the purpose of sale. For both contactless cards and chip cards, Clover Mini can be used, Receipts can also be printed at the time of the transaction or messaged to the client for future reference.
Advanced Features
Inventory: Adding stock to Clover gadgets is more required than I would like, and could be simpler. You should download a stock spreadsheet, open it in MS Excel (or whatever other spreadsheet application, as long as the format is .xlsx), and fill in fields for price, item name, price type, value unit, tax rate, business cost, product code (standardized tag ID), SKU, modifier group, quantity, labels, et cetera. Things can be portrayed with variations, (for example, color) and option, (for example, size), and sorted out into classes or marked for quick access. Those of you in food service can make modifiers for every item. New items can be made with or without variations and be sold by a settled or variable price, or evaluated per unit (oz, g, kg, lb).
Reports: Clover’s revealing application gives respectable tools, including a “By Payments” report (see underneath) which demonstrates to you a summary of finished transactions set aside during a specified minutes time frame. There are additionally reports for net payment insights, cash reports, payment via card type, worker activities and statistics, discount, taxes, order and many more. All reports can be arranged by date/time and filtered for particular requirements; once made, reports might be sent out and also printed for further examination. Reports can likewise be accessed on this device or on the Clover’s merchant dashboard wherever you are once you are connected to the internet.
Customer Management: Clover Mini gives you the capacity to collect client data during the sale. Afterward, you can scan for clients by name and date or look into a client’s request history.
Web Dashboard: After the creation of a dashboard account, your Clover data can be accessed anywhere you are by using your email address and password on a system that has internet access. Clover stores each report, arrange worker check in, inventory modification, and so on in the cloud, which guarantees that the data is constantly kept current.
Integrations and Add-Ons:
Clover’s App Market enables you to pick and choose the components and additionally tools your business requires, for example, coupon processing, virtual PIN pads, gift card management, employee management and advanced reporting. The majority of the applications are totally free, however many are accompanies by a little expense. Moreover, on the off chance that you have certain necessities and might want to design your own application, the Clover API is accessible to developers.
Compatible Credit Card Processors:
The Clover Mini (and all Clover products) is vertically incorporated with charge card preparing. It is sold along with a merchant account from Citibank, Restaurant Depot, Bank of America, and other First Data Independent Sales Organizations otherwise known as (ISO).
Customer Service and Support:
Client service with regards to payment and any merchant account issues is likely going to originate from whichever merchant services provider you end up using (unless you link up directly with First Data). Hence, it’s vital to be watchful about the bank/supplier you purchase from. Then again, technical support with respect to the genuine software and equipment will come directly from Clover (or all the more precisely, First Data), which is where you begin running into problems. To start with Data has generally had issues on the merchant services side of the business (over the top expenses, account terminations, withheld reserves) so you’re rolling the dice with regards to software and hardware bolster.
Clover additionally gives a self-serve help center with aides, FAQs, and troubleshooting tips. This material is useful, generally; however some of it is inadequately composed or potentially not exactly sufficiently intensive to be of much use. There are a couple of videos accessible too. You can find a selection of them on YouTube, however I didn’t observe any of them to be as detailed as I would have preferred. Assistance with individual 3rd-party applications is overseen by the application providers themselves.
Clover additionally has a Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and GitHub that all seem, by all accounts, to be to be active.
Negative Reviews and Complaints
Although clover Mini is still new, it however, has some negative aspect to consider:
Cost: One of the greatest grievances I’ve heard (from clients and reviewers) is that the forthright expenses can be prohibitive. On the off chance that your business needs more than one terminal, for instance, it could run you upwards of $2-3k immediately. This counterbalances one of the advantages tablet-based programming for the most part holds over the locally introduced terminal systems. Basically, the greater part of the best cloud-based POS software will keep running in light of an iPad or potentially Android tablet, implying that in the event that you try out one system and it doesn’t work for you, you can progress to another system without investing in new equipment. Clover, on the other hand, is run only on First Data exclusive equipment, implying that you can’t test the system out without investing $500 forthright, and disregard a modest switch in the event that it doesn’t work out.
Purchasing Market: Another negative of Clover Mini is that there is no single place to get it, yet you are limited to a solitary merchant service provider. Therefore, you will get diverse rates, distinctive costs, and diverse client service alternatives at every location, yet regardless of which affiliate you go through, despite everything you’re constrained to having First Data as your processor. I’d be careful around any POS that exclusive incorporates with one processor, however this is especially an issue with First Data as a result of the undeniably negative reactions they have been getting from their clients. An ever increasing number of individuals are apparently being hung out to dry by First Data and its re-sellers. Despite the fact that some re-sellers (like Payment Depot) have figured out how to keep up an incredible reputation, they can only help on the payment/merchant account side of things. For specialized help, you’re still helpless without First Data service.
Customer Service: Client service (or the deficiency in that department) is a major complaint among numerous Clover clients. This is where doing your research on which supplier you pick can spare you lots of headache in the long run. Lots of clients complain of being helped by impolite representative (on the off chance that they are even ready to get tightly to anybody) and others even report feeling misled by client service reps.
Not Being Upfront: Feedback about nonnegotiable contracts concealed charges and the system not being what they expected are also common.
Positive Reviews and Testimonials:
The positive reviews about Clover Mini include the following:
- The ability to negotiate competitive pricing
- Aesthetically appealing design
- Small, compact design
- Little to no learning curve
- Wide variety of apps so you can adapt to nearly any industry
- Multiple layers of security and data protection, including mutually-authenticated SSL/TLS solutions.
Final Thoughts:
Clover Mini’s compact, smooth outline implies that it can go where customary POS systems fear to tread. At times, making a gadget smaller and more streamlined signifies additional dollars and cent for the consumer, however for this situation, smaller does really mean less expensive. There is very little to scrutinize about the Clover Mini as a product. It’s not frequently you see a POS solution that can be customized, intense, inexpensive, and appropriate for practically every kind of payment, yet with Clover Mini, many things come in little package.
One of my greatest concerns with Clover Mini is the way that it is sold by several banks, merchant service suppliers, and small business providers. Generally, I cheer a system that is set up for aggressive pricing/rates; however there is something lost when an organization quits offering help (and even gear) for its own equipment. I’m agitated by disconnect between Clover, as a company, and the general population who utilize Clover Mini. I am worried that there might be issues conveying client criticism to the real designers. Also, the impediments set on Clover users (both in terms of hardware and choice of a processor) are definitely negative.
Furthermore, we’ve been getting a ton of negative criticism from Clover clients recently with respect to Clover’s parent organization, First Data. Numerous clients gripe about being deceived into costly contracts and dealing with next to zero client service response; they feel just as they’ve been scammed. Hence, we’re shaving stars off of Clover Mini’s evaluating until the point when we see a positive change from First Data.
All things considered, those of you who need a basic, appealing POS arrangement and wouldn’t mind taking risk with payment processing could do worse things than Clover Mini. Simply make sure to work with a merchant you believe (our most loved is Payment Depot), and research their help/technical assistance.
