POS market to approach $6 Billion this year

A report from the IHL Consulting Group found an 8% increase in the size of the point-of-sale market, which isn't bad for a market that traditionally increased by about 4%. Still, it's a healthy drop from the double-digit growth of recent years, reports eWeek.

The recently released North American POS market report says that the largest boosts are coming from new store shipments for specialty retailers, particularly for clothing, home improvement and car aftermarkets. Substantial POS device purchases by Kroger and Wal-Mart were specifically cited as helping to drive the numbers.

IHL also found that many retailers are looking to cut costs and/or take advantage of new services and are thus buying new POS units with touch-screen LCDs which help to reduce power costs.

VeriFone has installed its PAYware Merchant system in more than 600 Argos stores in the UK, reports Retail Technology. The system allows Argos to process 50 transactions per second, more than 100 million transactions every year.

Argos has implemented the PAYware Merchant system nationwide as part of its move to EMV Chip and PIN, enabling secure authorisation of payments, within seconds, and providing sophisticated management and reporting capabilities, including a comprehensive audit trail.

VeriFone says the system is designed for medium and large scale retailers which need a secure, reliable, and easy-to-implement credit and debit card authorisation and settlement solution that supports EMV Chip and PIN.

Like it or not, more technology is coming to a store near you. ATMs, self-checkout counters and price-check kiosks are only the most basic examples of how technology is changing the consumer's shopping experience and reshaping the retail industry, reports ColumbiaTribune.

Retailers, which have traditionally been slow adopters of technology, are beginning to understand the value of investing in new software and systems that can improve customer service, day-to-day operations and sales, experts say.

Research shows that customers who receive better service often decide to revisit a store time and time again.