I’m excited to announce The Forrester Wave™: Level-of-Service Options, This autumn 2024. After we final evaluated this market in 2018, new cloud point-of-service (POS) options supplied the security and pleasure of reliability, plus options to have interaction clients. The objectives for POS haven’t modified a lot in these six years. Then and now, retail corporations anticipate POS to drive omnichannel gross sales, ship model consistency throughout the empowered client’s path to buy, and enhance retailer affiliate productiveness.
What has modified is the web’s influence on offline retail gross sales and the demand for seamless omnichannel companies. Even within the grocery sector, customers use digital touchpoints in-store and respect handy checkout and achievement choices. Because of this, extra retail corporations are assessing their POS applied sciences and changing sluggish or limiting POS options that may’t sustain with evolving expectations.
Buyer references for this Wave talked about fashionable structure, ease of use, and interoperability as key necessities for his or her new POS. However technique and companion relationships typically sealed the deal. References shared feedback resembling “We knew we might inform a number of the means [the vendor] constructed [the POS],” “The seller shared a compelling imaginative and prescient and has delivered on that imaginative and prescient,” and “They hold including options to fulfill our wants.”
At this time’s POS consumers aren’t simply on the lookout for a bunch of options to test off their record. They’re additionally on the lookout for a strategic companion that is aware of their enterprise and is dedicated to serving to them develop and quickly adapt to no matter lies forward.
So what do you must know when choosing a brand new POS? Distributors differ in how they:
- Assist conventional and rising checkout experiences within the retailer. Though most POS distributors present a responsive UI, they don’t equally assist mounted, cell, self, and automatic checkout. Some provide complete self-checkout programs with specialised interfaces, kiosk integrations, administration instruments, and many others. Others excel in cell experiences, using native capabilities resembling push notifications for pickup orders. Few have in depth deployments throughout all touchpoints.
- Leverage integrations to offer worth past in-store checkout. A related and knowledgeable POS that simply integrates with adjoining options is desk stakes. Retail corporations anticipate their POS to not solely “see” what’s occurring throughout the enterprise, nevertheless it should additionally expose that information to customers in a means that’s maximally helpful. This implies smooth interfaces and instruments which might be purpose-built for value-added capabilities resembling clienteling, retailer achievement, and stock administration.
- Empower nontechnical practitioners to customise the POS expertise. Distributors differ in how they equip customers with no-code/low-code instruments. Some distributors provide refined visible editors that allow nontechnical practitioners to simply modify the entrance finish, resembling modifying the checkout circulation, configuring promotional gives, or updating digital receipts. These instruments allow fast modifications with out requiring technical experience.
You may learn our full Wave analysis right here and our market overview analysis on the 2024 POS panorama right here. We’ll additionally host a webinar in early 2025 for Forrester shoppers about learnings from this analysis — keep tuned for particulars.
Manufacturers and retailers: Please schedule a steering session with me to see how one can use this analysis to establish the best-fit options in your wants. I’ll stroll you thru my findings and show you how to tailor the analysis to your must establish the distributors that ought to make your shortlist.
POS distributors and commerce-related answer suppliers: Please schedule an inquiry or advisory session with me to debate what my findings imply for the trade and your providing.
