Current State And Trajectory Of Point-Of-Service Software Adoption We present our data and insights about POS software in three areas: 1) satisfaction levels with the current vendor; 2) plans for replacement; and 3) current and future approaches to POS software adoption.

Market Definition The traditional retail point of sale — scanning merchandise and taking payment at a single point in the store — has evolved into a point-of-service (POS) solution that embraces the entire shopping experience and the tasks that store workers must accomplish to keep business moving. The latest generation of POS solutions anchor their offerings in both the store worker and consumer experience by orchestrating new checkout flows, customer engagement, and associate productivity.

Figure 6 Supplemental Material Related Research The Point-Of-Service Solutions Landscape, Q2 2026 Demystifying The Technical Functions Of Point-Of-Service (POS) Solutions

This report applies Forrester’s Function-First Buying Framework to point-of-service (POS) technology.

Leading vendors in the point-of-service market are propelled to the top by great user experiences. They have broken the shackles of a slow-to-change market by reestablishing POS as a key technology in the broader commerce ecosystem. For our 2024 Forrester Wave™ evaluation of nine top POS vendors, we asked 18 reference customers of those vendors about their experiences implementing and managing a POS. This report highlights what matters most to modern POS users.

We intend this evaluation to be a starting point only and encourage clients to view product evaluations and adapt the findings based on their priorities using Forrester’s interactive provider comparison experience. Forrester Wave™: Point-Of-Service Solutions, Q4 2024 This graphic plots vendors by their overall ranking, determined by current offering and strategy scores. This graphic has an associated spreadsheet that includes all data presented. Please access the spreadsheet for details.

Market Definition The traditional retail “point of sale” — scanning merchandising and taking payment at a single point in the store — has evolved into an enterprise point-of-service (POS) solution that embraces the entire shopping experience.

Current State And Trajectory Of Point-Of-Service Software We present our data and insights about POS software in three areas: 1) adoption; 2) budgets; and 3) the trend toward SaaS models. Digital leaders use these insights to clearly understand software markets’ maturity, trends, and the accelerators and inhibitors to future market adoption.

Examples of specific data sources: customer database, web analytics, mobile app analytics platforms, point-of-sale system, ecommerce platform, customer service ticketing system, marketing automation platforms, survey platforms, social media platforms, billing systems, inventory management systems, market research firms, data aggregators, and more.

Several platforms also covered backend systems, desktop applications, legacy interfaces, mainframe applications, cloud applications, and domain‑specific environments, such as point-of-sale systems, ATMs, other mobile devices, Salesforce, and SAP. The users of platforms that support a wide range of landscapes said they were able to use the same tests across different architectures, devices, and types of hardware (see Figure 6).