Young Leitrim entrepreneurs new AI-powered point of sale system could reshape retail

Two young entrepreneurs from Manorhamilton, Leitrim have come up with a new electric point of sale (EPOS) system that could revolutionise the way small to medium enterprises (SMEs) do business. 

Connor Feehily and Peter Boyle, of Quantum POS, have developed Ireland's very first artificial intelligence (AI) EPOS system which is set to redefine how retailers manage operations, data and profitability. 

Conor and Peter are now supported by a team of three other people.

Connor, who attended St Clare's Comprehensive School in Manorhamilton, told the Leitrim Observer that he developed the system to "help out smaller independent shops without the big costs" after working in retail for three years on the tills, in the back office, dealing with stock and systems.

He told us: "One thing I have seen a lot of managers struggle with is when deliveries arrive and they had to input them one by one in the back office and sometimes it may not save and then the margins wouldn't be right causing problems. It would take hours on end for them to do when they could be doing something much more productive. So the feature I added allows you to take a photo of the delivery docket on your phone and it will automatically upload onto the back office and put it into the right department, sub-department and sort out any errors that it finds within the margins to make sure your pricing is correct."

At the heart of the system, is QBOT, a proprietary artificial intelligence engine that transforms the EPOS from a basic transaction processor to a real-time business intelligence hub. 

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He said: "It will help with your forecast demands and also detects pricing errors too and recommend profit maximisation. It will also help with the marketing side of things; I think small shops don't market themselves enough and it will have a feature that will design posters using the shop's logo that can be used for deals etc. It's not too complex; we made it as simple as possible but it has all these advanced features in it to help out small retailers as much as possible."

Connor, who is currently taking part in Enterprise Ireland’s New Frontiers programme, told us that he didn't pursue a college course because "after I left school, I kind of knew what I wanted to do, which was originally graphic design."

He launched his first business right after school which was called Feehily's Designs and earned national recognition including the Rising Star in Graphic Design accreditation from the All-Ireland Business Foundation. 

He said: "I taught myself about graphic design during lockdown. I still do graphic design. I got into software development from looking up things up late at night and realising that it seems to be the highest global markets and that's when I decided to make the jump. My co-founder Peter Boyle had come back from Germany after working for his uncle over there in software development. I said that we could set up a company and we did and it's going well so far. "

They saw a gap in the market where SMEs were being left behind by legacy systems and outdated processes with many still relying on pen-and-paper methods to manage inventory and pricing. "During May, we decided to try and get into EPOS development."

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The pair have only launched the system three weeks ago but are already receiving interest from customers. "We are talking to a number of customers at the moment who seem to be very interested in it thankfully. We are just raising awareness about it at the moment but we are going in wherever we can and working with customers and make sure it works for them. We give them a demo first so they can test it out."

He explained: "Everything in the back office has a form of AI in it even the likes of inventory management; it'll make sure that certain products won't fall too low and you can set it up to get an alert if it goes below ten items of stock left for examle. It'll also do smart reordering; so it'll detect which products you should reorder and which ones you shouldn't. If a product isn't going to sell, it isn't going to sell so there's no point reordering it."

With a student accommodation crisis in full swing, what would Connor say to those who have decided against college?

He said: "If you have an idea, don't be afraid to try it, especially if you are young. What's the worst that can happen? You still have your whole life ahead of you. It's worth the try. You will be happy that you've tried no matter what. Even the graphic design for me; I did it part-time in school when I was in fifth year and it took four attempts to try and get it off the ground and start getting customers."

He said he credits lockdown with his interests becoming a career. "During lockdown, I was playing games and that looking online and then thought maybe this is something I would be good at."