Every time you look up from your smartphone these days, someone is pointing to the cloud as the technology solution of choice. It seems to matter very little what problem you’re trying to solve. The cloud is the answer.

Whoever named the cloud must have had the soul of a poet. It’s a romantic image for what amounts to thousands of servers in climate-controlled data centers scattered around the globe. But there’s nothing poetic about the underlying reality. By opting for the cloud, you’ve given someone else control of your data, and made them responsible for storing, managing and protecting your information.

Is “cloud” just another name for fog?

Many point-of-sale (POS) system providers offer cloud-based systems, claiming that they give customers greater flexibility, reliability and security. When we were designing our portable POS systems at Shopbox Retail, we took a long, hard look at the cloud option and chose to go another way.

Here are four key reasons why we decided to keep Shopbox Retail, and our customers, out of the cloud:

Privacy
The big thing with the cloud is figuring out who owns your information. When you put your data into someone’s cloud-based system, they own it (by contract, in most cases). And they anonymize your data and share it or sell it to others. If you’re a retailer using a cloud-based POS system, the inner workings of your store, up to and including your customer data, is no longer yours. If you have any privacy concerns about your customers and their data, you shouldn’t use the cloud.

Functionality
The Internet can accomplish incredible things, but what you can do online will always be limited by bandwidth. When you move data from a local server to a cloud server, your system will be immensely slower, anywhere from 100 to 10,000 times slower. It’s limiting. You can’t have large product databases. You can’t process large invoices with multiple products. Transfering photos and other images requires a lot of bandwidth. That works fine in a local environment, but things can slow down significantly if there are any Internet issues.

If you’re doing pop-up stores and other temporary retail events, which are our expertise, bandwidth becomes an incredible liability. It limits where you can hold your events—not only by ruling out most remote locations, but also by making it hard to stage a successful event in crowded venues where multiple users reduces the bandwidth available to you. Even if you have a physical connection, you’re still sharing it with other users. As demand increases, your share of bandwidth decreases. And if Comcast goes down, you can’t make any sales. You can’t process transactions or ring up customers.

Reliability
Depending on the size of your company, your IT department may be just you or it may include a number of people. Despite the hype, cloud services sometimes do go down. When that happens, neither you nor anyone else can do anything about it. You have no control. For example, a cloud-based POS system (we won’t name names) went down for four days in 2015. For four long days, no one who was using that system could make any sales.

With a locally hosted system, you control updates. That’s incredibly important for two reasons:

• Companies used to be able to have a stable version of their POS system. That’s no longer possible in the cloud. One of the selling points of cloud-based systems is that you always have the latest version, because of frequent updates that are released as soon as they are available. The problem is that there are no longer any early adopters. Everyone is an early adopter. There is no opportunity to let companies work out the kinks before a widespread rollout—and you can’t roll back to a previous stable version if something goes wrong.

• Chances are you’ve invested a lot of time and money in training your employees to use your POS system and the specialized interface that goes with it. Cloud services historically have had no reservations about updating their systems, with no customer consultation and often no warning. They may even change the interface. As a result, you may come in on a Tuesday morning and find that your system is completely unrecognizable and requires you to retrain all your employees.

Security
From a security standpoint, the problem with putting all of your data in the cloud is that you’re running without backups, putting all your eggs in one basket, and trusting that the cloud system will never be corrupted. There is no backup-and-restore system in the cloud, so your POS system is vulnerable. If there is a security issue, you have no way to recover. If your data is gone, it’s gone.

With cloud-based POS systems, you can’t archive or protect your data. If someone hacks your email, you can restore your password and recover your mail. If someone hacks your POS system, you’re done.

Breaking through the cloud People today often talk about the cloud as though it is the future, and therefore inevitable, the only possible solution to nearly any problem that involves data. It isn’t. There are alternatives that offer equal or greater benefits with fewer liabilities.

It’s also worth remembering that along with whatever benefits the cloud may provide, it is also responsible for many of the unwanted advertisements and other intrusions in our personal lives and a number of unacceptable and unnecessary risks that businesses currently face.

When we started Shopbox Retail in 2010, we set out to build an outstanding point-of-sale (POS) system that businesses of all types and sizes could use to stage successful pop-up stores, warehouse sales, and other temporary retail events. We accomplished that goal, but at first we didn’t give much thought to packaging or ease of use. We were just focused on creating great technology.

In the beginning, when a client wanted to stage an event, we put all of the register and server components in a box and shipped them to the event site. When the box arrived, all those pieces had to be assembled, plugged in, and configured correctly. That meant we had to go to every event. Every time. Because the people staffing the events didn’t have the specialized knowledge necessary to put together a secure system. Clearly, we needed a different strategy.

We approached this problem the same way we would tackle a software development project:
Identify assumptions and dependencies based on actual pain points Assess what needs to happen to address all relevant issues Design a path forward to achieve those goals.

We knew from experience most of the problems that can occur at retail events. Time and space are often limited. There’s no time for troubleshooting or replacing lost parts, the right tools are rarely available, and there’s no room to set up complex systems with a tangle of cords running between multiple components. There’s also no guarantee of a reliable power source or Internet connection, and it’s unrealistic to expect the on-site sales staff to have specialized IT knowledge.

We knew that our next-generation POS systems would have to solve all of these problems to provide a seamless, worry-free experience for our clients. We also knew one other thing with absolute certainty. Our system would have to work. Every time. No exceptions. Failure was not an option.

We decided to automate everything and eliminate human error as much as possible. Everything that a human could potentially mess up, we bolted down or automated.

We designed a portable, durable case for our POS systems, which is both waterproof and shockproof when closed. Everything is pre-assembled and preconfigured, and all of the components are bolted into the case so that parts don’t get lost. Just take off the lid and plug it in. Simple.

We based everything on laptop versus desktop technology, so instead of forcing our clients to struggle with towers and peripherals while crawling under tables on their hands and knees to set up the POS system for their event, everything is already integrated and ready to go when they flip the switch. Each register gets a unique fingerprint, and the network is set to turn on registers and assign addresses in the right order. It’s like a string of Christmas lights; you plug it in and everything just works.

What we ended up creating is a turnkey solution for pop-up stores that takes the stress and risk out of two of the most complex tasks of any retail event—setting up and tearing down—so our clients can focus on other priorities. Even the most inexperienced person can set up one of our POS systems correctly and have it operating in minutes. In addition, every component is configured to work with everything else, so we can split off registers and servers as needed and ship them to different client events without reconfiguring. And event staff can submit sales information to the retailer’s backend system with one click of a single button.

We don’t claim that Shopbox Retail POS systems are all things to all retailers. They’re not meant to handle every possible retail contingency. Our systems are designed to provide fast, secure transactions in almost any location, and to be extremely easy to use and virtually foolproof. In the unlikely event that something does go wrong, after six years and hundreds of events it’s almost certain that we have seen and solved that something before. Our support personnel are there to fix it – in real time.

We went with “just remove the lid” because at events and pop up stores our clients need to focus on customers, not IT or point-of-sale problems.

Pop-up retailing—sometimes called “flash retail” or “temporary retail”—is revolutionizing the retail industry as merchants look for new ways to connect with customers, build brand awareness, test new products and increase customer loyalty.

The big question is why?

The idea of pop-up retailing isn’t new. It’s as old as the ancient caravans. Back then, a group of merchants would travel an established trade route, stopping at each town along the way to set up a temporary market where they could sell their goods. After a few days, they would strike their tents, load their camels, and move to the next town. Today’s pop-up stores operate on the same principle. A merchant identifies an event or location that is likely to attract potential customers, sets up a temporary store, and keeps selling until either they run out of merchandise or customer interest starts to fade. Then, they look for the next opportunity.

What’s new about today’s pop-up retailing is the technology. That’s our business.

At Shopbox Retail, we apply state-of-the art technology to the time-tested practice of bringing products to wherever customers gather to create the world’s only go-anywhere, sell anything POS (point of sale) system. By providing custom retail solutions, we enable our clients to realize the benefits of pop-up retailing, which can include:

1. Targeting a niche audience

2. Building brand awareness and customer loyalty for new product lines

3. Testing new products and markets to gain valuable consumer insights without a big investment

4. Generating buzz about their business

5. Taking advantage of an agile business strategy that offers a flexible, cost-effective alternative or supplement to a permanent retail installation

6. Increasing revenue and reducing losses by selling surplus inventory that would be hard to move through traditional retail channels

7. Aggressively marketing products during high-intensity, low-duration retail periods related to specific events, holidays or seasons

8. Creating a sense of urgency with short-term sales events that pique customer curiosity and drive their desire to purchase merchandise while it lasts

We started Shopbox Retail in 2010. Our first customers were tent stores and small pop-up shops. Since then, we’ve improved and optimized our technology. Today, we offer compact, portable, rugged and fully integrated POS registers and handheld devices that leading retailers trust to manage high-volume stadium events, marathons and festivals where they host as many as 100,000 guests.

We believe all retailers should be able to sell anywhere, and all customers should be able to buy anywhere. Technology should make every sales experience easy, no matter where a transaction takes place—in the desert, in a stadium or in a mall.

As a result, our solutions don’t rely on Internet access, the cloud, or even external power sources. With Shopbox Retail, our clients know they can just open the box and be ready to create powerful retail experiences anywhere on the planet.