We built a POS for European stores that charges 0% per transaction.

The problem: the flat card rate everyone advertises (1.69%–1.75%) is built for bigger baskets. On a 4 euro sale it's ~7 cents. Feels like nothing. Run 200 sales a day and that's roughly 410 euros a month gone before you've paid for anything else. The rate stays the same; the pain scales with how small your tickets are. Corner shops are the worst-case basket for a percentage model.

So that's what Zahlo (zahlo.eu) attacks. The pitch in one line: low-cost QR-payment POS for independent German offline merchants, 0% transaction fees, no chargebacks, no mandatory terminal, no new bank account. Customers pay by scanning a QR code, so there's no pricey card reader to buy in the first place. Built-in inventory + automatic reconciliation so the end-of-day count stops being a chore.

The chargeback piece matters more than people expect. Even the merchant-friendly providers still expose you, you fight the dispute, you wait, you hope. For someone selling 3 euro snacks, one chargeback plus an admin fee can wipe out a morning's margin. We took the whole category off the table.

If you run an offline business or know someone who does, share this; it may save your €/£/$ a year!
What would make you switch off a flat-rate reader, or what would stop you?