According to Fortune Business Insights, the world-wide POS market is projected to grow from US $ 25.24 billion in 2022 to US $ 70.75 billion in 2029, growing at a CAGR of 15.9 per cent during the forecast period. Till recently, a POS system’s core function was limited only to processing of payments but the modern POS solutions are increasingly becoming hubs connecting all software business tools right from scheduling, payroll to accounting and inventory management. Through mobile, Cloud-based POS and SoftPOS technologies, retailers can now move away from checkout counter and make transactions on the spot anywhere thus leading to greater productivity within very less time.
Keeping in mind that customer engagement is the key for success of any business, the best POS systems today ensure that personalisation experience goes beyond only adding names and e-mail ids of customers. Paymob’sSoftPOS solution is one such example which requires only a smart device and an app to function and it will work as any regular POS, capable of accepting contactless payments and mobile wallets.
mPOS systems
mPOS (mobile Phone system) is a portable hardware and software system that processes sales. A tablet or a smartphone is all that you require for this POS software to function and it enables you to take orders at trade shows, off-site locations, curbside and sync with your main store. There are expected to be around 85.6 million mPOS users in the US by 2025. And, the average mobile transaction value is expected to increase from just over US $ 7,000 in 2020 to US $ 11,755 in 2025, signalling the continued and growing prevalence of untethered shopping.
Square POS
With its affordable price point and easy-to-use software, Square has been at the forefront of mobile POS technology for more than a decade. It is known for providing an innovative payment solution to businesses in 2009, allowing an average employee to accept payments by plugging the Square Reader into their mobile device via the 3.5 mm headphone jack.
Its plug-in card reader was an instant hit, replacing the bulky cash register and allowing businesses to accept payments efficiently via Square’s app. At present, Square POS has advanced to offer a slew of hardware devices including a barcode scanner, NFC reader and several others.
More than 2 million businesses across the globe, use Square mPOS solutions, making it the best mobile POS system undoubtedly. It works smoothly with both iOS and Android devices, and you can also link it with your e-commerce store.
Shopify POS
Shopify POS is the best in-class e-commerce platform and is an excellent choice for businesses because of its smart omnichannel and inventory tools, user-friendly interface. It is known to offer one of the best mobile POS solutions to businesses in many parts of the world.
More than 1 million businesses use Shopify’s mobile POS solutions because of its smart inventory management which includes creating purchase orders, demand forecasting, inventory analysis and sale item suggestions. Its omnichannel selling experience is also highly lauded as it includes diverse features like local pick-up and delivery, buy in-store and ship to customer and buy online, exchange and return in store. With Shopify Payments, the worry about discrete payment processors ends as all modes of payments are accepted including Interac Flash, Apple Pay, Google Pay and a lot more.
Lightspeed POS
This cloud-based solution is known to be the best for the retail industry whether it is apparel, footwear, bike, jewelry, sporting goods, home décor. Lightspeed’s fully integrated, e-commerce platform offers inventory management, retail store management, customer profile access, payment processing, purchase order management besides also providing accounting software integration and integration with POS hardware. Apart from allowing customers to manage in-store and online inventory, this retail POS system offers multi-store capabilities such as inventory sync across all locations and customer service features such as profiles, sales history logs, and customer insights.
The Lightspeed Retail POS iPad app enables businesses to create an iPad POS system within their retail store to process payments, perform returns, accept gift card payments, apply discounts and more, and it can also be used in offline mode.
Vend POS
Vend is a web-based POS system that can operate on Mac or PC both online and offline. The company provides tailored solutions to industries like Health and Beauty, Sports and Outdoor, Small business and Fashion Boutique POS. The software is easy to use and can be effortlessly integrated with most of the POS equipment and hardware as well as with any payment providers.
Tailored for fashion retailers, the Fashion Boutique POS is designed considering the requirement of the apparel retailers. As the products in the fashion industry are very dynamic that keep on changing every season, the Vend POS provides data analytics that helps retailers understand which products are the most liked by the customers and promote them for better sales. The solution provides real-time reporting for better insights and taking data-driven decisions.
The solution has features like reporting and stock management which also makes it easy to add, edit and remove any product in the software. The software’s cloud capabilities allow easy integration with leading e-commerce, marketplace and mobile platforms, sharing real-time inventory and sales across different channels. It also has other features like customer management, staff targets, inventory and integration with the leading accounting software.
Vend POS allows easy integration of online stores with the offline ones, so that the entire inventory and customer profiles can be handled from one platform. All the product information can also be synchronised to a centralised database which makes it easy to manage operations through a single platform.
The Vend POS system comes with an in-built loyalty programme that can save the customer details or offer them incentives and discounts to sign up after they leave the store. The programme also rewards them on their next purchase, encouraging them to shop more. The powerful reporting provides an accurate view of sales, customer, product performance, staff performance, identify trends and help identify areas that needs improvement. Connect your sales, customer and product data in real time to a marketplace of business apps. Streamline and automate your retail operations, save hours of time each day, avoid double entering of data, and trade seamlessly on multiple channels.
The company helps their customers with a trial period of 14 days where they can check how the software is performing and then opt for the implementation. Few of its customers like Crane Brothers Auckland and Number Six have been successfully leveraging the technology. “Vend has saved us an equivalent of 40–80 hours a week in productivity. That’s the equivalent of two full-time people,” informed Murray Crane, Crane Brothers Auckland. At the same time, Jake Hardy, Number Six, London, said, “Being firstly from the tech side of fashion, I have used a lot of different point of sale software packages, but Vend is without a doubt the best in the market right now.”
FOCUS POS
It is a GST-ready solution that comes with numerous capabilities like easy-to-use interface, touchscreen and keypad-controlled features, making it easier for use as per the customer preference. It accepts payments from different options and can support multiple currencies. It has an integrated inventory software to automate and manage stock transfers and reconciliation, identify reordering needs, etc. The system is capable of generating powerful reports through the in-built advanced report designer. The report is synchronised information of the sales and products across different sales channels, thus, maintaining a centralised database which can be used to manage information across different channels.
Moreover, it has 9 comprehensive modules to manage sales, pre-orders, reservations, home deliveries, purchase orders, inventory transfers, customer tracking, discounts schemes, promos and loyalty programmes, data synchronisation, security and all other aspects of a retail business.
The cloud-based POS system can be customised as per the need of the customers including the dashboard to have the important KPIs attached.
The software also helps managing customer profiles through configurable member module, and recording the customer data to offer those tailored discounts and recommendations. The solution can also be easily integrated with the ERP solution, allowing efficient tracking of customer buying preferences, accommodating retailers to build various dynamic customer loyalty programmes that can improve customer experience and encourage them to visit the store again. By enabling businesses to build a better customer engagement, these solutions give them the right tools to raise the customer transaction to a great extent, thereby speeding up sales.
