High street optician Specsavers has placed a£1 million order with Wincor-Nixdorf to replace the retailer's ageing EPoS system across its 560-store estate.
Specsavers' existing EPoS solution, which is based on Fujitsu TP2000 hardware and Windows 95, was installed in 1996 and has now reached the end of its life.
Specsavers is undergoing a period of expansion and needed a PoS system that could support this growth. The retailer plans to grow by 70 stores next year.
Wincor Nixdorf's Beetle system was chosen because Specsavers IT director Michel Kahn was satisfied that it could support the retailer's strategy of getting more customers through the door.
Kahn said: 'Whereas most high street opticians operate on the basis of relatively low customer volumes, Specsavers is dedicated to providing a high level of customer service with much larger volumes.
'It is this that creates a business case for the deployment of a powerful architecture that can meet all our operational requirements and support in-store activities at point of sale,' he said.
The new system continues to support Windows and is also compatible with the Linux open-source operating system.
The£1 million investment is a significant part of Specsavers' annual spend on IT.
Retail Knowledge Bank's IT in Retail report puts the company's annual budget for IT at£8.6 million.
However, the system will not be part of the retailer's Chip and PIN strategy.
Specsavers will continue to process card transactions through PDQ bank-owned terminals, which will be upgraded to comply with Europay, Mastercard, Visa (EMV) standards.
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