Retail & Restaurants
Keep POS and QR payments running when the fiber drops, plus customer Wi-Fi and phone-viewable CCTV for shops, minimarts, cafés and multi-branch restaurants.
What makes this sector hard
- More customers in Vientiane pay by QR every year. When the internet drops at lunchtime, the queue grows and some people walk out.
- Stock and cash go missing, from customers and from inside. Without a camera on the counter, nothing can be proven.
- Owners want to check cameras and sales at every branch from their phone, including when abroad.
- There's no IT person at the branch. When something breaks, the person in front of it is the cashier.
- The staff Wi-Fi password gets given to customers, and then customer phones are on the same network as the POS.
Reference IT design
The branch kit
For multi-branch shops and restaurants we use the same kit at every branch, so it can be configured in advance and fixed remotely:
| Device | Job |
|---|---|
| Small cloud-managed firewall/SD-WAN | Router, firewall and VPN in one box; shipped to the branch, pulls its own configuration (zero-touch) |
| Fiber + 4G backup | Automatic failover within seconds so POS and QR keep working |
| Compact PoE switch | Power and network for APs, cameras and receipt printers |
| One or two APs | Customer and staff Wi-Fi on separate SSIDs |
| Small UPS | Carries router, switch and POS through short cuts and evening brownouts |
VPN to head office for inventory and accounting.
Keep the POS away from customers
- Separate VLANs for POS/payments, staff, customers and cameras.
- Customer Wi-Fi through a captive portal, with time and bandwidth limits and client isolation. Nobody needs the staff password any more.
- Web filtering and IPS on the firewall.
- Endpoint protection on POS terminals and office PCs, with unused USB ports disabled.
- Email security and MFA on email, the shop's Facebook page and online-sales accounts.
Cameras
- IP CCTV at the counter (covering the cash drawer and POS screen), shelves, stockroom and back door.
- AI video analytics for people counting, heatmaps and queue alerts. Footfall compared with sales shows which branches turn visitors into sales.
- View every branch through the system's official app with MFA-protected accounts, and keep recorder firmware updated. Recorders with ports opened straight to the internet are a common target.
The rest
- Digital signage for menus and promotions, updated for every branch from one place.
- Public address for background music.
- Time attendance for shift staff.
- IoT temperature monitoring of freezers and cold rooms. A 3 a.m. power cut nobody notices can cost a full freezer of fresh stock.
In the kitchen, don't mount APs or switches above the stove or near the extractor hood. Heat, grease and steam finish them quickly.
On accounts: give every employee their own login, and disable it on the day they leave.
On a tight budget: backup internet and UPS first, then separate POS from customer Wi-Fi, then cameras on the counter.
Opening a new branch? Send us the shop layout and we'll have a pre-configured kit ready before opening day.
Send us a floor plan or a few photos of the site
We’ll come back with a few questions, then a first design. The first consultation is free, in Lao, Thai or English, on WhatsApp or our Facebook page.