As retailers seek to improve the experience in their stores, what is most important to them when they are choosing a new EPoS system, asks Joanna Perry

EPoS checkout

A decade ago high streets were full of stores with fairly new EPoS systems.

Why? Well not because retailers suddenly decided to splurge on IT, but rather they were compelled to upgrade due to the dire warnings about EPoS system failures caused by Y2K bugs.

10 years on and the reasons why retailers replace EPoS systems are not dissimilar. They do so when they have no other choice. But, when they do, they find tahat the additional benefits they can get from the functionality and flexibility in the latest systems is substantial.

Richard Goodall, sales and marketing director at software supplier PCMS, says that some retailers are changing systems because their existing software or supplier is just no longer suitable. He explains: “They are changing because they have fallen out with their current supplier, or the current system can’t easily be made PCI-compliant, or because the hardware is at the end of its life and so they decide to change the software too.”

Goodall adds that retailers that have been with the same supplier for 10 years or more can start to feel taken for granted. But even if a retailer is happy with their existing system, if it can’t cost-effectively be made compliant with PCIDSS then this can force change. “50% of retailers are ignoring PCIDSS, and 50% are taking it very seriously. If you have an EPoS system that’s five years old or more, PCIDSS could very well end up being the reason why you change it in the next 24 months,” he says.

Derek Hough, retail director at EPoS solutions provider Wincor Nixdorf UK, agrees that retailers still only change either their EPoS hardware or software for fundamental reasons. “There are only two reasons why people are trading up, either they have sweated their assets for so long that they can’t go on any longer, or because of legislation, and principally PCIDSS compliance.” However, he points out that once the decision is made to invest for one of these reasons then retailers do try to ensure that the new system will be future-proof for its lifecycle.

For many businesses looking to ensure their system is going to do everything they might need it to in the next few years, top of the list is to deliver multichannel services.

John Lewis is to install PCMS Vision Beanstore as part of its push to create a fully integrated multichannel offer. Marks & Spencer is also rolling out the application at its tills and will improve processes such as returns management as a result. Goodall says that retailers can’t justify a new EPoS system on a multichannel integration business case alone. However, he says it helps towards the business case; and when combined with some other functionality, such as loyalty, mobility and customer relationship management, begins to become more compelling.

The customer journey

BT Expedite director of consulting services Charleen Benson says that the customer journey of the future will see a change in the way consumers interact with retail brands. She says: “It is very focused on multichannel integration, social media and mobile.” She adds that retailers are beginning to think about point of service, rather than point of sale.

Two users of BT’s EPoS system, New Look and Aurora’s fascias, have both expressed a commitment to begin delivering multichannel services through their stores - such as click-and-collect - in the near future.

Tony Hammond, point-of-sale product manager at software supplier Torex Retail, says the visibility that EPoS integrated with other systems and channels provides is also important for improvements in metrics such as sell-through.

“You can take an order from anywhere and source product from the warehouse that can be sent to stores.

If you want to be able to place orders through the point-of-sale we can facilitate that,” says Hammond.

He says up-to-date stock information is the crucial first step in any click-and-collect roll-out. From here, whether click-and-collect runs smoothly is partly down to the culture in stores and the business processes put in place, as you may have to pick stock from the shopfloor and then send a message back to a customer to confirm that their order is ready to be collected.

Again the point-of-sale can be the conduit for this information, with messages going to the tills in between transactions, or to mobile point-of-sale devices.

And Hammond adds: “We want to be able to sell stock from the web in one transaction with goods in-store, but you would only take pre-authorisation on a payment card for goods that haven’t yet been dispatched.” This means the tills need to connect to the ecommerce payment system.

Tony Bryant, business development manager at software supplier K3, says that there is also renewed interest in EPoS to deliver CRM and clienteling at the point of sale, whether from behind a sales desk or on mobile devices around the store.

He agrees that EPoS systems are starting to support the customer journey much more. “Provided you have the person’s name you can join all three channels at the point of sale. The next stage is CRM data capture. At a high level this brings the call centre functionality on the point of sale; then you can have all the history about what the customer has spent and done.”

K3 supplied the retail system in use at George Davies’ womenswear brand GIVe. Although this is not yet delivering CRM at the point of sale, customers are already benefiting from multichannel services, particularly through the kiosks in stores and concessions. Kiosks are not just a way of delivering the website in store, and are used by staff as a sales tool as well as for customer self-service.

“If you pick up an item and scan it, it goes into catwalk videos of the product and then looks at live availability for that store. If it is not available in your size then it searches online and you can complete the transaction there and then. If it is not available in-store or online then it gives information on when it will be back so you can pre-order it,” says Bryant.

Benson says that it is increasingly important for systems to be extended to mobile devices. “There is not one size fits all, but mobile will supersede kiosks in some instances, and the price points of tablet devices are becoming more affordable,” she says.

As an example of how this could work, she says: “We are working with a customer that has implemented click-and-collect. It has been fantastically successful, but it is causing congestion at the point of sale. Mobile devices could help here.”

And a much wider range of retailers are considering whether they could adopt self-checkout in some form in their stores. Hough explains: “If your primary goal is labour-saving then automated checkout suddenly becomes very interesting.” He says business cases have been made for different retailers purely on reducing labour costs and on releasing staff for customer service.

Whatever the particular issues and drivers in a retail business, the one thing that appears common when retailers upgrade is that they are looking for maximum flexibility. Benson concludes: “If you have a good solid foundation, it is scalable and extensible, it allows you to grow with your business. A lot of the work we are doing with existing customers is how they take what they have to the next level.”