Why point-of-sale (POS) matters to your business more than you think

Firstly, brands need to acknowledge that the role of the store has changed. Rather than a place to simply hold inventory, the store is now seen as a curated gallery or a showroom that is reflective of a brand’s vision and story. And this is supported by research from our Retail Report – close to one-third of shoppers in Australia are looking for interesting or unique experiences in stores.

Transactions may or may not happen in store, and if they do, they need to be seamless and easy for shoppers. To create the best possible customer journey in stores, businesses need to think of how to reduce:

• Waiting time

• POS terminal contact

Here’s where Adyen’s POS solution can help. From countertop POS devices to mobile POS (mPOS), and even POS devices made for self-service counters, the range of our solution caters to different business needs while solving the two pain points above.

Let me share a few examples.

You may want to consider an mPOS system for your sales crew to engage with your customers, and enable checkouts anywhere in your stores. The advantage with a mobile solution is that you won’t have a queue forming in store which is great, as the longer a shopper waits in line, the lower the chance of sales conversion.

Want to give shoppers the freedom to roam around the store and experience your brand? Kiosks and self-service checkouts have become more popular as brands look to automate and streamline the checkout process. Adyen’s self-service POS terminals can be integrated to enable easy checkouts while boosting brand experiences.

Technicalities aside, shopping should always be fun – and as friction-free as possible. Understanding shoppers’ payment preferences is vital. The demand for contactless payments, whether through card or mobile wallet, has obviously grown. Being able to support key payment methods, and having the flexibility to add on new payment methods, is one key advantage Adyen’s POS solution can provide.

Adyen partners with many POS systems globally and has pre-built integrations that our merchants can leverage out of the box. I’d say the best way to find out what works for you is to speak with our team.

Learn more about our POS offerings right here.

What about customers that have experienced your brand online as a first touch? Many of us probably interacted with brands online first, given the advertising dollars spent on digital marketing. Or if transactions don’t happen in store, you need to make sure to capture that sale too, via your ecommerce store or app.

With Adyen’s single platform payment solution that covers in-store, online, and mobile payments, your business will be able to connect payment transactions across all sales channels and enable your customers to shop and transact across different channels seamlessly.

This means transactions aren’t just transactions anymore. Unlike traditional POS payment processors like banks, Adyen POS terminals lets you capture insights on your customers in store – and combine with transactions online and in app, all on the Adyen platform. This gives you a full, unified overview of your business with in-depth payments data and customer insights to make better business decisions or drive marketing efforts. You'll also save time and resources on reports and reconciliation.

For the customer, this unified commerce approach is great too, because it’s now possible for brands to implement technologies like click and collect, buy online and return in store, and even endless aisles where items never run out. 62% of Australian shoppers are more loyal to businesses that let them buy things online and return them in store and 63% are more loyal to businesses that enable them to buy out-of-stock items in stores and have them delivered to their homes.

Because the store continues to be a vital part of any brand experience – no matter the industry you are in – that can extend across sales channels, you’ll need your POS or in-store transactions to give you more.

Bear in mind that sales channels, customers’ payment preferences, and customer expectations will keep evolving, so you need a payments partner that doesn’t just fulfill your immediate business needs. You need one that grows with you and enables you to realise your business ambitions.

Perhaps it’s more obvious in retail than in other industries – the line between online and offline is blurring. Creating brand stickiness, or making it convenient for your shoppers to shop with you, is more important than ever for the competitive retail industry. True Alliance, one of our unified commerce retailers that manages 19 global brands, shares, "A big reason for us working with Adyen was to offer our customers a more unified commerce experience, regardless of the channel where they're transacting with us. So what we wanted to do is basically allow our customers to shop how they wanted to shop with us."

With Adyen's POS solution in the stores of brands like Lacoste, The North Face, Speedo, and Under Armour, shoppers can easily pay with their preferred payment methods. "We were able to add on new payment vendors quite easily – WeChat Pay, Alipay, Apple Pay Express Checkout – which had a significant impact on our business in terms of being able to offer new opportunities for our customers to transact with us," says Noel David, General Manager of Finance, True Alliance.

Not only that, as consumers now shop both in store and online, it's vital for your POS system to recognise that it's the same customer across sales channels. Enabling buy online and return in store, cross-channel loyalty programmes, help create a seamless and frictionless shopping experience that brings shoppers and brands closer.

Speed is key for food and beverage (F&B) businesses, especially for quick service restaurants (QSRs), but don’t just think of a POS solution that lets you take payments fast. Like all industries, it’s ultimately the customer that you need to focus on and how you can create a great dining experience. From an industry that depended mostly on in-store counter ordering to one that now adds kiosks, app, and self-checkout, to its stores, you can expect the POS demands for F&B brands to change quite drastically.

F&B businesses noticed that diners were transitioning away from cash, with 86% of Australian consumers preferring to pay with a debit or credit card. As casual Mexican dining chain Guzman y Gomez (GYG) shares, “We’re seeing fewer and fewer cash transactions. Customers these days prefer contactless and mobile payments. It’s super easy – we just need to tell them to tap their cards or devices on the Adyen POS terminal.”

Speedier transactions is one key benefit, and as Josh Bell, Principal, GYG, says, “Having the Adyen infrastructure in place meant that GYG could seamlessly and effortlessly adapt to tectonic shifts in consumer behaviour and payment preferences.”

We’ve also seen some significant changes in the hospitality industry when it comes to POS.

Thanks to our partnership with Raffles Hotel, we’re now enabling quicker and smoother transactions via our mPOS solution with portable terminals which the team can bring around. Reconciliation is also quick, without all the manual matching of receipts – making it even simpler for the team to expand their audience reach beyond just having POS terminals within the hotel premises.

Of course, when we talk about POS for the hotel industry, it’s more than just the hotel stay. There is the front desk solution as well as the F&B establishments and wellness establishments like the spa.

So yes, the world is going through a lot of digitisation, but that doesn’t mean the store is obsolete or POS is no longer relevant. Brands need to stay on top of consumers’ demands and preferences across channels. Recognising the new role of physical stores as a place for brand experience is a good first step, and unlocking the full potential of your stores along with your in-store payments solution will be the key to realising your business ambitions.