What business and operational environment will your POS system function in?
POS systems for retail are simpler of the two. In the retail environment, products are standardized and there isn’t much variation in features, pricing, etc. This is unlike the hospitality industry where products / services may be customized and identical products may be sold at varying price points.
Systems meant for retail selling will probably need to be able to handle special deals like 4 items for the price of 3 (these are called ‘kits’) as well as refunds, exchanges, etc. Depending on the merchandise, they may need to support digital scales.
These systems may also need to support a product matrix. For instance, one kind of shoes will be sold at one price. But there will obviously be variations of size, color, etc. The POS system should be able to keep track of sales and inventory by size, color and other variables.
Within the hospitality industry, requirements vary depending on the kind of establishment. For instance, for casual / quick service restaurants, speed and efficiency are the key factors.
One source of error in old-style sub shops and casual hotels was the errors that crept in when hastily scrawled orders were passed onto the kitchen for execution. POS systems for these environments now relay the order details right into the kitchen as soon as the order is finalized -- this cuts down time and eliminates most of the errors.
POS systems for up market restaurants / fine dining kind of establishments are a bit different. They have other requirements like being able to create and store open checks to enable ordering over time, matching servers to specific tables at different points in time, etc.
Large hotels need to assign charges for meals from the restaurants to specific room numbers at the touch of a button. Most POS equipment designed for such establishments can do this.
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