This product basically enables me to do what I already do as a shopkeeper and maintain existing efficiencies while I also have the opportunity to digitize my transactions. I think it could be a game-changer.
Full disclosure: I grew up in a tiny town in India, and this was pretty much 100% of my retail experience!
I've read income tax evasion is nearly endemic there, but don't know how reliable that was. In retail the more likely problem is avoiding collecting sales taxes etc, but India has a goods and services tax which means most of that is baked in by the time you hit retail.
Perhaps a stupid question on my part, but I wonder whether it'll really help you "maintain existing efficiencies". I'd imagine that a classical calculator-based workflow has efficiencies of the following kind:
- Approximately zero latency on I/O. Whether it's adding a digit or performing a calculation, screen updates instantly. This is something no smart device I've ever seen offers, because modern tech stacks make it near-impossible to achieve.
- Optimized for speed. Beyond no latency, this also means error-tolerant workflow. You can feel when you make a mistake, and it's easy to nuke the entire calculation you're doing and re-do it again. On the product site, I couldn't find a video showing how it's actually used, but going by the diagrams alone, Tohands seems to be effectively committing every time you press the "=" button. That feels like adding a pain in either having to undo things, or having to be super careful.
Please tell me if I'm wrong about the product, or the calculator-based workflow. I didn't work in retail, but I did observe people doing calculator-based retail and accounting in the past.
I agree that the calculator is literally in every one of these stores because of zero latency. The design question is how can you build something that has greater digitization and data storage capabilities (and I/O to connect to payments/phones) while keeping latency as low or close to a calculator. I'm just saying this comes close, where every other $100MM VC funded play wants to add significant latency to the design and thus have seen much lower adoption.
As someone that has worked a cash register both with barcodes and scanning, and doing the same thing with a calculator when power/computers crashed, I don't know how you can say a calculator is more efficient than a proper POS.
Labour efficient? Time efficient? Tax avoidance efficient?
I assume that it is organized well enough, maybe just not in a conventional western way.
Disclaimer: I am working as a freelancer for their next version of hardware that will be based on Linux.
I think any operating system over complicates and encumbers the idea with un-needed dependices.
The prime problem is latency, which becomes both noticeably larger and unpredictable. Both those aspects cause huge loss of ergonomics. It's quite easy to tell whether a piece of hardware is doing things directly in firmware, or if it's running a full OS with a software stack - the latter has neither instant nor predictable feedback.
A good example would be phones, for anyone who remembers the transition from feature phones to iOS and Android smartphones. That transition is where we lost predictable input latency, and thus ability to develop muscle memory and operate device without looking at it. E.g. texting people while keeping the phone in your pocket was a typical thing teenagers did, that became impossible with modern smartphones.
Just a thought. I like the design! Keeping it simple & familiar, calculator works (or almost, just missing feature), no need to reinvent that part. :)
Is the calculator being manufactured fully in India or shipped from China? Curious.
Love the WiFi connected ability. Does the user have any choice on what api they want to export to? Or it has to be a specific app?
Even in the US, 90+% of gifts bought for Christmas are made in China. Almost anything containing electronics, plastics and some kind of plush fabric / faux leather seems to be made in China.
I wish the world didn’t depend on China so much.
Anuj Deshpande
So Anuj is probably what you wanna call him on first name basis :)
- Denser display with full color range (current one is monochrome)
- USB support
- Cellular modem built-in (WiFi isn't always available in stores, shopkeepers mostly end up using phone hotspots. It will still have WiFi though)
- Speakers
Few suggestions: 1. Change/Update your logo. I find it hard to read it the font is not best for alphabets. 2. In the product itself, the brand name is reversed for the shopkeeper. I initially thought maybe it's some smart name that could be read in reverse as well (like 1300135 lol). It is overengineered, just keep it simple it. 3. Add a real use-case demo in your website. It is currently filled with garbage/gibberish.
but it is not reversed for the client, who may be a potential future buyer of this product.
Edit: Also looks like it has a display underneath for "TO". As I said, this is overengineering, removing it will save cost.
Congratulations to whoever came up with this.
If you mistakenly cash in/out, is there an undo?
I get the logic of it, but I wouldn't put those two buttons right next to each other.
Still very cool and there are UX benefits to this device.
It's very much a cultural thing - punch numbers into the calculator and pass it back and forth when negotiating on a price, or add up the costs on a physical calculator on your market stall. You aren't giving receipts or anything, so hard to keep track.
I'm in the UK so don't see it often, but if you go to India / Vietnam / Thailand etc you see lots of people punching numbers into calculators everywhere rather than using some sort of POS system.
Asking why you don't just use your phone with a numberpad is missing that the selling point here is that the user interface IS a calculator.
What challenges have you had developing hardware for this population? (Literacy, cost, picking what to focus on, etc?)
That seems like a useful feature.
Also, unlike a phone, the advantage of a single-purpose device is that it doesn't need to be switched back to the right app, is unlikely to crash, and isn't something you depend on for a whole load of other things in your life.
I went through it, played a couple noisy videos, I could not even read the labels of the 3 first rows of buttons, I have no idea how it exactly works...
Surely just adding and subtracting like the video shows doesn't record cash in hands etc?
* If your browser viewport is narrower than 1024px wide, the above-fold page section (i.e. the top, before you start scrolling) doesn't have a product pic. If the viewport is between 768px and 1024px wide, the main pic is left aligned and there's a chunk of empty space.
* Most people will view this page on a phone, which means that - unless there's a product pic - the headline alone has to do the initial work of explaining who this is for. The photo shows the ideal customer: a shopkeeper. It should be above or alongside the headline even when viewed on a phone.
* Top headline is about one of the main features but doesn't grab you with an obvious concrete benefit (e.g. time saved, not having to learn a complex new tool). "easily" is too relative. "Track your sales without any extra work" is more concrete (and I don't think it's a great slogan either, but it's better)
* The notice about "Unable to take orders" should be lower down the page, maybe on a separate page entirely. Let people click "Order Now" to see it, and you can track the clicks to see how well the page sells
* The Instagram videos are good but take up too much of the page, especially on mobile
* The YouTube videos don't explain anything well at all. The "Calculate Record Sync" video at least shows the ToHands in action but goes too fast and doesn't walk through clearly, step by step. There's a blue text bubble that had lots of text in it that looks useful but it disappears far too fast. This video should be at least a minute long and walk through multiple different steps.
There's a lot more to say about this and I'm not even a marketer, I'm a software engineer! But I'm happy to chat for a little longer about it if you'd like - let me know.
1. if they are registered with GST, they should probably start maintaining inventory and for that,this device is not useful.
2. if they are NOT registered with GST, they can't even bother with this because nowadays UPI is becoming the norm and all sale gets recorded there anyway.
this would only serve the niche of "not-registered for GST and using cash" but knowing how big india is, with the right marketing, this should blow up in a good way
Wouldn’t this segment have an incentive to not digitize their records as they’re evading tax?
This was the case several years ago, not sure if still relevant anymore. People evading tax were only interested in non-cloud solutions for their records.
What the end dealer does when he is nit registered for gst is avoid 18% tax on HIS MARGIN. thats peanuts compared to 90% of the product cost. That if end dealer gets 10% profit.
You only evade taxes in gst if you purchase imported goods outside of tax chain in cash or from manufacturers who sell in cash or service provider who sells in cash.
If you pay by bank, the gst is almost always paid beforehand
Now you are talking.
The website does NOT explain this. I read about the app which is meh. You end up like thousands of copycat khata apps that do single entry accounting.
Didnt test your app but that is quite difficult to do on its own so if you are able to connect with existing accounting softwares, then it can be much better.
