Your shop,
always taking payments.

It's almost always the connection, not the terminal itself: Wi-Fi saturated by customers' phones, a home router that was never designed to handle payments all day long, or cabling put in hastily when the shop was fitted out. We separate the till network from the customer and back-office networks, each on its own segment, so that a rush of people on the shop Wi-Fi doesn't eat into the bandwidth needed for payments. And for the moment the main line fails — which, sooner or later, happens with any provider — it's worth having an alternative route that kicks in by itself without anyone having to do anything at the counter, because a shop that can't take payments at peak time loses sales that never come back. We explain this in backup internet for your business, written precisely for this kind of situation.

Yes, and it's best seen as part of your business security, not a nice-to-have. We set up a separate network for customers that doesn't touch the till, the card terminal or the systems holding your data at any point: even if someone connected to that network tried something, they'd have no technical way of reaching the rest. Beyond security, it improves the experience: people browsing or watching videos on the Wi-Fi don't compete for bandwidth with payments or with the cameras, which in many shops also depend on the connection. We configure it with its own password, easy to hand out and change without touching the rest of the network, and separated at a technical level, not just with a different network name. In shops with several outlets we set it up the same way everywhere, so a member of staff who moves between branches always finds the same setup and doesn't have to improvise at each one.

It depends on the size of the premises and where the points that really matter are: entrance, till, stockroom and, where relevant, the fitting-room area or higher-value products. There's no point covering every corner if that means spending on cameras that add nothing and complicate the system; nor does it make sense to skimp on the entrance or the till, which are the points that almost always end up mattering when there's an incident. We visit, look at how people actually move through the shop and tell you exactly what you need, no more and no less, with access from your phone for remote viewing and GDPR-compliant recording. In shops on several floors or with a stockroom separate from the sales floor, the approach changes quite a bit compared with a single-room shop, so there's no one figure that works for every case. We go into it in how many cameras I need for my premises.

The most common mistake is framing them to identify faces rather than what you actually need to see: hands at the till, who comes in and goes out, the stockroom. Unless there's a very specific and justified reason, it's best not to point a camera straight at the face of every customer who walks in, whereas the till camera should clearly capture the area where cash and the card terminal are handled. In the stockroom the approach is different: there, seeing entrances and movement matters more than faces, because it isn't a customer-facing area. There are also places that must never be recorded, such as fitting rooms or toilets, without exception. We position the cameras on that basis, not according to where the cable runs most easily, and adjust the angle during the same visit before fixing them in place. We explain it with concrete examples in where to put cameras in a shop, including which areas are off limits.

Yes, and it's compulsory regardless of how many cameras you have or whether they record people close up or just passing by. The sign must be visible before entering the recorded area, not tucked away to one side, and must state clearly that CCTV is in operation and where more information can be requested. It isn't a decorative formality: without it, the whole installation is exposed even if everything else — encrypted recording, limited retention, restricted access — has been done properly. We always include it in the installation, with the model and position chosen so it's seen without being intrusive, and we check the wording meets what the regulations require. In shops with several entrances — a street door and a staff or goods entrance, for example — you need a sign at every point of entry to the recorded area, not just the main one. We explain it in CCTV signs: what's required and how to get it right.

It can be done, and it's one of the cases where the difference between an installation designed for one shop and one designed for several really shows. With more than one outlet, the network, cameras and tills should follow the same structure at every site, so a member of staff who changes shop finds the same thing, and so checking recordings or the state of the connection doesn't mean logging into a different system at each one. Centralised visibility also helps: seeing from a single login which shop has lost its connection or has a camera offline, instead of finding out because someone rings from the shop. As the number of shops grows, it's usually worth bringing support under one provider too, so you don't depend on each branch having sorted out its own connectivity and security problems on its own and in its own way. We look at this in detail in business solutions, with the sector-specific approach that applies to retail.