So there we were at the Himalaya Bakery in Daylesford having a pretty nice lunch of soup and fresh baked bread, and of course there then came the moment when we had to pay.
Now I’m notorious for never having any money on me as most times all I do is use my card at a supermarket or servo for petrol, so not surprisingly I only had five bucks on me and the bill was more like twenty or twenty five.
No worries I thought, I’ll use my debit card as I could see that the cash register – really just an old Dell computer with some cash register software, had a card reader attached.
Ah, says the man, our card reader’s down. And before I could mumble something about going down the street to the ATM, he whips out an ipad from beneath the counter, hands it to me, asks me to type in my email address, takes my card, types in the number and the authorisation code and some magic number of my own and we’re done.
He’s got his money, I’ve got a receipt mailed to me and no one had to go down to the ATM.
Pretty good, and the first time I’d encountered that.
Strangely enough the NYT had an article recently about some cafes in Oregon using the same sort of system – wonder how long it’ll be the norm for your waitperson to whip out an ipad mini rather than these older windows ce tap and click units they use …
Now I’m notorious for never having any money on me as most times all I do is use my card at a supermarket or servo for petrol, so not surprisingly I only had five bucks on me and the bill was more like twenty or twenty five.
No worries I thought, I’ll use my debit card as I could see that the cash register – really just an old Dell computer with some cash register software, had a card reader attached.
Ah, says the man, our card reader’s down. And before I could mumble something about going down the street to the ATM, he whips out an ipad from beneath the counter, hands it to me, asks me to type in my email address, takes my card, types in the number and the authorisation code and some magic number of my own and we’re done.
He’s got his money, I’ve got a receipt mailed to me and no one had to go down to the ATM.
Pretty good, and the first time I’d encountered that.
Strangely enough the NYT had an article recently about some cafes in Oregon using the same sort of system – wonder how long it’ll be the norm for your waitperson to whip out an ipad mini rather than these older windows ce tap and click units they use …
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