The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Elie Y. Katz Talks NRS Innovations for Small Retail Success

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

Elie Y. Katz Talks NRS Innovations for Small Retail Success Nrsplus.com About the Guest(s): Elie Y. Katz is the President and CEO of National Retail Solutions (NRS). Seven years ago, Elie brought his extensive experience from various industries to establish NRS, focusing on empowering independent retailers with essential business tools. His past involvement includes managing multiple real estate investments and food establishments. Under his leadership, NRS has grown to service close to 30,000 independent retailers across the U.S. with a robust ecosystem of point-of-sale networks and credit card processing solutions. Elie's vision revolves around providing cutting-edge technology to small businesses to help them compete against larger corporate entities. Episode Summary: In this episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Voss welcomes back Elie Y. Katz, the dynamic President and CEO of National Retail Solutions (NRS). They explore the transformative impact of technology on small businesses and how NRS is spearheading innovations for independent retailers. Elie shares insights from his vast experience in creating tools that allow small businesses to thrive in a competitive market dominated by major retailers. Together, Chris and Elie delve into NRS's mission to support these businesses with state-of-the-art solutions. This episode takes a deep dive into the world of retail solutions, highlighting how NRS's products and services are game-changers for small retailers. With a focus on enhancing efficiency and profitability, Elie discusses NRS's wide array of offerings, from point-of-sale systems tailored for various industries to innovative credit card processing services. The conversation also touches on the importance of adopting technology to meet modern business challenges, the role of AI in improving operational efficiency, and exciting future expansions. Chris and Elie make a compelling case for why technology is indispensable for the growth of small businesses in today's economy. Key Takeaways: Empowering Small Retailers: National Retail Solutions offers an extensive range of tools, including point-of-sale systems and credit card processing, aimed at enhancing the operational efficiencies of small, independent retailers. AI and Technology Integration: NRS is integrating AI to assist retailers with product pricing and inventory management, ensuring they remain competitive and informed. Safety and Security: NRS has developed a patented panic alarm feature in their POS systems, which can silently alert authorities during emergencies, thus improving store safety. Expansion and Growth: NRS plans to expand its offerings into the restaurant industry while also aiming at serving international markets, leveraging its technology-backed solutions. Community Impact: Elie Katz emphasizes NRS’s commitment to helping small business owners succeed, highlighting the entrepreneurial spirit that fuels independent retailers. Notable Quotes: "Our point of sale register is the brain. It has all the items… and it's ready to go." "Technology rules the roost… if we don't embrace the technology change, then you better embrace the fact that you may be out of business soon." "With our point of sale register, you're standing there… and that's why these brands love us." "We are gonna be hot and heavy going into the restaurant point of sale register business." "I know the struggles… it makes me proud to help business owners be successful with their business."

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Cause you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain.

Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. And folks, it's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Hello, everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, there are a lot of things that make this a good show. The 16 years, 24 hour episodes of the Chris Voss Show Podcast because we had nothing better to do for 16 years. Anyway, guys, we're further show your family, friends and relatives.

Go to GoodRece.com, Forchess Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Forchess Chris Voss. Chris Voss won on the tickety-tockety and all those crazy places in the internet. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. To an amazing young man who returns to the show for I think his third or fourth episode, Eli Y.

Katz joins us on the show. He is the president and CEO of the National Retail Solutions, NRS. Seven years ago, he brought his many years of experience as an executive at various companies in diverse industries, plus strong leadership, interpersonal and organizational skills to found National Retail Solutions. He also manages real estate properties, commercial mixed use of land, and the food establishments. Thirteen food businesses including bakeries, restaurants, and takeout. Boy, I don't know if I could ever run a restaurant, takeout, or bakery because I would probably eat all the profits. Ellie possesses a keen business savvy with an

understanding the value of investment, generation revenue, and business growth leadership from creation to acquisition. And ah ha ha cameras in front of the screen is a provider of the point and any runs national retail solutions, a provider of point of sale network and credit card processing ecosystem, which services close to 30,000 independent retailers across the US welcome the show. Ellie, how are you? Chris love being back with you. Love having you as well, man.

Give us your dot counts. Where can we find you? I did eat the profits. That was my problem. That's why I had to go into technology. I still have restaurants, but you know, it's a little hard to eat those chew on those credit card machines. Exactly. Yeah. Good point. Good point. But I will tell you what it did do for me. It sensitized me and really gave me good insight into the minds of the independent owner, business owner, and their pain points.

Because their pain points are my pain points. So when I come up with a product or I come up with a solution or a feature or functionality, I really think like, what is it that I would want or need? So give us a $30,000 overview of what you guys do there and then we'll get into some of the new things that are happening. So National Retail Solutions was created for the sole purpose of these independent business owners of which there's about 33 million of them in the U S to basically give them the tools, the features,

functionality of different products that we may have in order to not just level the playing field against the big brick and mortar corporate America, et cetera, but really to compete and you know thrive and that's what we did so you know we'll get into some of our products you know during the show but if you go to NRS plus com NRS plus com you'll see a bunch of our different products that we're offering and we're constantly adding more. So the and then your role at NRS, what do you do there personally? So I'm the president and CEO of National Retail Solutions. I was actually the one who founded the company and today you

know we have employees all over the world in a nice amount but we work very hard to provide these services that I mentioned that are available on our website. But I'll tell you, I just mentioned a couple of them, you know, credit card processing, point of sale register, cash advance, payroll, et cetera. We work very hard to give these tools to these independent businesses. And we understand that they don't have a big, a deep bench, like they say, right? So we also give that white glove service

and act as like a backend, like almost like a corporate backend, right? So for the marketing, for the management, for the apps, for the research, you know, all these different features that we need to give to these stores in order, and these not the stores by the research, all these different features that we need to give to these stores, and these not just stores by the way, businesses, independent businesses to be successful.

Yeah, I mean that's really important. You wanna be successful, you wanna get stuff done, as it were. So Ian, let's see. Ian, the next question I had for you was, now, independent retailers, you helped them survive in these times. How many indie stores does you guys support nationwide? I think we teased that out a little bit. Is that- You teased it at 30,000 and the reality is it's about 36,000 or so

point of sale registers. Some of them are duplicate, so it comes out to be about 31 32,000 But then credit card processing we also have a couple more So you have to imagine that our community is close to about 40,000 or so independent or or you know individual? businesses Yeah, so in taking a look at the businesses tell us some about the tools you provide for local costs look at the businesses, tell us some about the tools you provide for local costs efficient in their stores. We started with a point of sale register specifically for the convenient liquor and tobacco world. That's how we started. We recognized right away that these independents, they were lacking the

technology, they're using the old Casio register or Sharp register that you can get from Costco or BJ's You know with the buttons and I know that because I had that in my bakery bakeries And it really does not provide enough insight or information or features or functionality For the merchant working there to be able to run their store efficiently. It's a great register I'm sure but it doesn't give you all your sales and all your pricing and all the apps so that you could, we have a merchant app

so that the merchant can go shopping and look in their register and see the inventory levels so they can shop properly. But beforehand, they were like, they'd walk into Costco, they'd see that Cheerios, and this is a true story, by the way, I'm really repeating our actual true story. They'll walk into Costco, they see that Cheerios is on sale, they buy all the Cheerios, they bring it back to their store, they bring it to the shelf, and they'd see a bunch of other Cheerios

up there from the last time it was for sale. So those are going to expire, which means you didn't save any money by the sale, and now I'm going to put the new ones sale. So those are going to expire, which means you didn't save any money by the sale. And now I'm going to put the new ones in. So, you know, that's, that's something we can take care of. We can have a merchant. Here's the best. This sums it up the best way with the merchant app. I walk, I walk in, I visit no matter where I go around the country. I like to visit some of our stores and some of our cost customers.

I call them partners of ours because they are. I walked into a liquor store. This liquor store had over 6,000 unique items. I said to the person, real nice guy, smiley guy behind the counter, I said, are you the owner? He goes, no. I said, can I do a video? I like to do videos of how you like in the point of sale register.

He goes, well, I love the point of sale register, but this is my first day. I'm sorry. The owner's not here. This is your first day. And he left you with a store with 6,000 items. I'm not asking like, okay, what are the relationship, how long? But the reason the owner could do that is because our point of sale register is the brain. Our point of sale register has all the items already comes with half a million items in

the register. So you put it in, you plug and play, you put in your own price and you're ready to go, you know, in some other, other categories maybe you want to do. So if that merchant feels so comfortable leaving this beautiful store to someone on their first day, imagine how successful and powerful our point of sale register will be for anybody. Not a bad anecdote, right? Not a bad story. Yeah.

So you have, I think, some new or expanded items that you have coming out now. So in the point of sale register world, we decided to also now build a register for QSR restaurants, the quick serve restaurants, cafes, and vape shops, and barber shops. So that's on the POS side. Then we decided to do a kiosk so people can do self-ordering. Then we also decided to

start working on a restaurant POS. Credit card processing is one of our most popular products because we have absolutely amazing offering for our credit card processing. Free equipment, no long-term contract, free Clean rate so who's smarter? Running the store then that owner so they're not absolutely guaranteed You know saving money if they're not saving money I mean, we don't guarantee them we say money, but they know better if they're not saving money Take the unit put it back in the box send it back to us. What did they lose? Yeah, most people do not do that because most people love our NRS pay product.

That's what it's called. The credit card processing, NRS pay.com. And then we also have a cash advance, right? People need money and we help them get money right away with what's called a cash advance. Then we also have an RS Purple, which is our payroll services. So these are just some of the products that National Retail Solutions has created. We also connect to the pumps if you have a gas station. So I say that if you own a business, it doesn't matter how big you own the business, go to NRSplus.com, scroll down our different products and see what could work for you, what could save you money, what could help you run your business more efficiently.

And we'll be there for you and help you to continue to grow. Yeah, that's pretty freaking awesome. Now you also have, what is this find my business thing or find my biz Once again, it's just it's you know, I mentioned some of the products. These are some of the features I guess it's also kind of a product but it's not enough To have your own website which we create our which we create websites for the merchant and they can and people can go shopping online And it goes right to their point of sale register. We create webs We create marketplaces so that it goes like into DoorDash. I have to tell you, it's unbelievable the success we've had so

far with DoorDash and how it's helping these businesses. The numbers are off the charts and we create the integration so it's seamless. It's all in package in one place with all the reporting, goes into the DoorDash marketplace, goes into the point of sale. But we also let people, we have this, you know, find my business and manage my reviews, we do the, bless you, the SEO and the, you know, the different products that could help these websites get discovered, right? Because there's thousands upon millions of websites out there and you want to get discovered, especially if if you know, you're trying to promote yourself to the neighborhood. Mm-hmm Yeah, yeah getting discovered is really important, especially with as much noise as online. There's only one Christmas

Show and the best and the best voice. Oh, thank you. And the funniest. I'll take the funniest. I have no shame. Now, that's part of the Google integration, the DoorDash stuff. DoorDash has been really huge, these food delivery services and stuff like that. It has.

And by the way, Chris, you mentioned the food delivery services. Remember, most of these stores that we're dealing with right now, not in the future, but a lot of them, they're the convenience stores, the liquor stores, you know, that's, you know, that's not restaurants. Imagine with the successes of the restaurants, whether we have the integration with the point of sale register in our restaurants, you know, although a lot of these stores do have food elements, even, you know, these convenience stores so with these Convenience stores and numbers are off the charts So wildly successful which I'm very happy for right because it complete doesn't complete my mission

But it's another checkbox on my mission of helping these stores. Yeah, that's pretty cool So what else we have the panic alarm remember? I think we talked about that a little bit last. You got a good memory. Tell us about that. So the panic alarm is when you have these quote unquote convenience stores or small liquor stores, they're also prone to unfortunately crime. And if you, depending upon where you are in the country, you know, if you Google, you know, crime and convenience stores, you'll see that, that

they have become targets a lot of these convenience stores, because you think about it, you run in, you run out, easy in, easy out, right? That's the whole point of convenience store, not too many people. And you, you know, you say, open up the drawer. So we have a patented panic alarm, only national retail solutions has this. And if anyone else has it, please call in, send me an email because it's patented panic alarm that when they push the button on the screen to open up the drawer, the way, the special way that they push the button, it opens the drawer and at the same time sends a panic alarm, silent panic alarm to the police

department so that either before they hit the door to go outside or when they just walk outside, they're greeted with white glove service. Why are our most amazing police departments? Oh, like the white glove service there. Yeah. Well, listen, they can just open up their back door of the police car and just, you know, as, they walk out just thank you for coming shopping. We'll take the register back you go go in this Free ride free ride free rides of the patty the patty wagon These merchants work hard these merchants there is no people always oh, what is a common denominator with all your different stores? Thirty-six thousand stores, it's amazing.

What is that? And I say, you know what? There is no common denominator. They're really all different types of shapes and sizes and colors and et cetera. But the one common denominator that they do have is that they all are entrepreneurs that are risking everything to feed their family with the four walls that they have. Pete Yeah.

Pete For them to have to worry about crime, for them to have to worry about someone coming in and taking, it's really taking advantage, you know, you feel violated. Any type of crime, you feel violated. Someone broke my windows of my rental car and stole my friend's suitcase. I felt so violated. I mean, you know? Pete Yeah. Yeah.

And sometimes it can be life and death. I think last time you were on the show last year, you told a story I think of either preventable death or someone, you know, they just had a little shop and, you know, a couple crazy people came in and killed them. David Kramer Both of those stories happened. Pete Slauson Yeah. That's unfortunate. David Kramer And there was another situation by the way, another situation by the way, where the person behind the counter ended up, you know, there's another situation by the way another situation in the by the way where the person behind the counter

Ended up I think killing the person who was trying to do do harm Well, the person behind the counter the one that was working there the one that was being held up or whatever It was a scenario. He's the one who went to jail Wow Yeah, I mean it turned out at the end, you know, there was an outrage and then it, but at first, you know, you got, you went through the whole system, you know, indicted and all that other stuff. I think it was, I don't know the exact final, but you get civil lawsuits too. You get the family of the burglar who you killed, she's crawling in through your window. We'll see you for wrongful death, termination. We all know those

stories. They tripped on your kitchen floor as they broke in through your window. And then they sued you because your wife didn't put away to mop. Yeah, it's just crazy. So we're currently, I should state in June of 2025, there's a lot of tariffs going on. How are the tariffs impacting small retailers you see? And how do you guys help companies with that, deal with that? Tariffs absolutely hit the bottom line.

When I say the bottom line, it's the consumer that's purchasing that new price. Our hopes is that with the efficiencies of the register, with the efficiencies of what National Retail Solutions provides, while we can't obviously defray the cost of goods, we could hopefully create a better efficiency running that store so that they could potentially not lose as much money. And I guess that's the best way to sugar coat the tariffs. Uh-huh. Yeah.

We need a lot of sugar coating for them tariffs. You guys help brands and stores sell products with your NRS digital network on your point of sale consuming facing systems. What can you share about that with stores and brands and how you guys are helping with that? So with all of our point of sale registers, we have also a customer facing screen, right? The customer that's shopping in that convenience store. And we talked about earlier about how a convenience store is a very specific format. Every single customer, when they check out their items has to stare at our customer facing screen because half of the screen is their digital receipt. So they're

watching to make sure everything is, is proper. And obviously when you have to, when you pay, you have to look up and when they look up, they see an ad, whether the ad is for an insurance company, whether the ad is for product being sold in that store, whether that ad is for a service, it's probably one of the most impactful, powerful path to purchase influencer ad network that exists. And I say this, as someone who went through the experience. This was a real story. I was driving to work. I just left my property. You

mentioned how I own properties. I just left my property and I said I need a dumpster and I'm driving to work on the highway. I look up at that beautiful digital billboard and I, you know, from like 50 or 75 feet away and I see a dumpster but I don't see the phone number or I Don't see the name because obviously it's a little smaller. They just show the big dumpster You need a dumpster question mark. I was like yes, and I'm driving and As I got close enough to see the phone number the ad switched Hmm, so I had to make a decision

Do I slam on my brakes cause a collision in the middle of the highway to wait till that it rotates to the next ad, or do I just keep going? And obviously I did the smart thing. I just kept going. But with our point of sale register, you're standing there. If you see an ad for Coke and you're holding a Pepsi, you guess what? You reach back, you swap it out and you grab yourself a Coke. And that's why these brands love us. And that's why we are helping these merchants sell more product, because they can also put their ads on the screens. Something that's about to expire in the Cheerios example. They could, hey, we got Cheerios on sale.

And they can drive traffic to their products. So we really, those ads, that ad network that we have on our point of sale register, in addition to the fact that 148 million eyeballs saw our ads last month, 148 million eyeballs coast to coast, and my ad guy hates when I say those numbers because I'm only quoting the amount of transactions that went through our register, right?

I'm not quoting the fact that Chris and I both went to the store together, I bought Chris's soda. So it counts as like, you know, one pair of eyeballs, you know, or one or two eyes doesn't see it doesn't have Chris's eyes in there only shows one person. Oh, you know, two people are actually getting impacted at that time. So yeah, 148 million eyeballs saw our ads last month and are able to do it in a small convenience store format where the path to purchase influence can go like that.

Right, it's not like standing in the supermarket where you're about to pay and then all of a sudden there's an ad on the register and then you're like, okay, do I want to run to aisle 13, go all the way in the back, try to find this box of spaghetti to save 35 cents and then fight the soccer moms to get back in line? Probably not, right? So what are some of the major changes that you've seen in your guys's NRS plus business

and growth of small retailers? Technology is ruling the roost. Nothing that you and I didn't realize. It's just a matter of whether or not merchants are going to get on board and start following. And some merchants see the value and embrace the value of technology, whether that be the merchant app, whether that be online e-commerce, whether that be a point of sale register or other products. And some honestly say that I've been doing this for 30 years and this is how we've been doing it has been successful and I'm not looking to change today.

So technology rules the roost. And you know, I still drive to the store and pick up my items. I picked up my coffee from seven 11 this morning. Oh, do you? I did. I had a delicious coffee. Yeah, it was excellent. So 11 coffee, seven, seven coffee, this segment's brought to you by seven 11 coffee.

Somebody call seven and I get a sponsor. We're gonna get them a sponsor. But my son, who's eighteen years old will not leave his device and will order directly from the app and it'll come to them. So he's got your money. It's true. It is my credit card. That is true.

It is my credit card. You see what's going on there. But you understand Chris, the evolution, the new the new generations are doing things differently than the older generations and if we if we don't embrace the technology change then you better embrace the fact that you may be out of business soon that's true that's true do you see anything coming down the pike for AI are you guys thinking about that with the 1000% we're already we're I'm really glad you asked that question because you know here I am talking about technology and I and how do I not mention AI right the buzzword of the week right everything is AI right I'm AI at this point I'm not a real person

anymore I've been assimilated I sent my avatar to do this interview. Oh, two bots talking to each other. Yeah, exactly. And that may happen one day, right? It's like putting Alexa and Siri in the same room and just having them chat for hours. But anyways, so we have embraced it in a few ways. On a customer service level, to give more efficiency to customers and information to them and be responsive to them. We've done that on an internal level. And then other internal issues to and other internal stuff inside of our company where we were able to start working with AI.

But on an external, we have a product called product recommendations, AI product recommendations. a product called product recommendations, AI product recommendations, right? So we talked about these small independent business owners, right, and we talked about even Cheerios. How does that owner know what to price the Cheerios at? Because they spent a dollar on each box, they should just like come up with a number and say, okay, I'm gonna charge $1.50.

So our AI product recommendation level engine, first of all, gives that owner a list of like 300 items of these are the top selling items. You know what Cheerios shouldn't even be there. It's like 366. And I'm just, and I'm not knocking Cheerios by the way. This is just a, an example. So I don't want him to sue Chris Foster myself, but Cheerios should not even be there maybe, maybe, right? We all love Cheerios Honey Nut's my favorite. But it gives you the list of the 300 top items that are

being sold in the convenience stores and the average price so that I know how to price it. So that's an AI thing that helps these merchants right away and we're gonna go deeper with other items that we're working on that are merchant facing customer, I guess, I guess our customer facing. So we'll look forward to all that stuff going on. And then, uh, let's see, I'm not sure I understand this from the PR agency. Uh, what, what makes you most product proud of NRS? I think is the, they put product, but I think it's

proud maybe of NRS. Honestly, it's when I help these merchants. I started this interview by telling you that I'm one of those merchants. I'm one of those independent business owners. And I know the struggles. I remember watching an interview with Ted Turner, right? We remember Ted Turner, the owner of CNN, and he was talking about how he used to sweat payroll every single week. He's thinking, you used to sweat payroll? I sweat payroll every week. And he said that,

he's like, I used to sweat payroll every week. And I'm like, I sweat. And so I could relate. And when I see these business owners taking advantage of all the different products and features and functionalities that NRS plus.com has, and being successful with their business with NRS plus.com. It makes me proud. It really does. It makes me feel like, you know what, we're a business, we're not a charity, but this is why we got into this business, to help me type of owners, right? Small business owners. Yeah, well, this should be pretty interesting. Anything on the horizon or the future for coming forward with NTS? Yeah, so we are gonna be hot and heavy going into the restaurant point of sale register business. We did an amazing job tackling the retail world and we're going to use a

lot of the same ingredients and tackle the restaurant world. And we're working on that. And we've made and continue to make a significant investment into that growth. Um, and that's big because there's a lots and lots of, you know, you think that there's a lot of convenience stores in this country. You should see how many restaurants there are. And we are going to be expanding into other countries. And we're going to be looking for new products, new relationships, new partnerships to be

able to help the current businesses that we have, right, by offering them additional assistance. So yeah, there's a bunch of different things that we're cooking up in our lab And I'm excited to come back because I love being here and to share with you and your audience all the great stuff That's going on at NRS sounds good then Well, this sounds really awesome and so good people find a pitch out give them the dot-coms Where can they find out more about you on the interwebs? Best to remember is nrsplus.com. National Retail Solutions is the nrsplus.com, or they can call 833-289-2767. 833-289-2767, but nrsplus.com is the best way to go and they could find all of our great products and offerings and see which one could help your business.

Thank you very much for coming to the show. It was great to see you again. Good to know things are going well over there. I love being here, Chris. Thank you so much for having me. What about that young lady in the beginning that you were working on for the 16 years? 16 years, so the opera singer who sings the Chris Fosh? Can we get some? Can I put in that special request? Can she

sing this out or will that mess up the whole flow of this? I'll look into that. We're actually looking to buy some more sound bites from the people who made the sound bites in the intro for us. There's one we're going to have that's going to be, I'm just here for the brain bleed And of course, it'll be in this radio guys voice because I can't do well But we're thinking about doing some other fun things in a sign out thing But if you want we can just give her one more final thing Is that good that's excellent that was right into the weekend we should we should have like a fade out with her that she says Yeah, I've been listening to the Chris Fos. I don't know whatever all right I'll have to come up with something or other but we're working on some new sound bites

So say to it as the as the Gary Shantley used to say stay tuned no flipping Thank you. Thanks for tuning in go to good reads calm for just Chris Fos LinkedIn calm for just Chris Fos Chris Fos one the tick tock any and all this crazy Place then it be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye