Point of sale

POS or PoS is an abbreviation for point of sale (or point of service). This can mean a retail shop, a checkout counter in a shop, or a variable location where a transaction occurs. In Europe, the acronym EPOS for Electronic Point Of Sale is used in preference.

Traditional stores

A check-out counter, checkstand(UK), or checkout is the aisle where people place items they have chosen to purchase from a store, such as a supermarket or department store. This is typically a long counter, which usually contains a moving belt or sometimes a rotating carousel, and a photocell to stop it when items reach the end. The cashier rings up each item on the cash register and obtains the total. The items are placed in bags and the customer can take them after paying.

Marketers design special advertising vehicles, called point-of-sale displays that may be found near a checkout counter, however, the term also applies to displays strategically placed in a store for special promotions. This type of display is designed to stimulate impulse purchases or they may be tied to various seasonal marketing promotions, such as "Back to School", "Tax Time", or holidays.

Point-of-sale technology

The term is often used in connection with hardware and software for checkouts, and in the case of variable locations, with wireless systems.

POS systems evolved from the mechanical cash registers of the first half of the 20th century. Examples of this type of register were the NCR registers, operated by a crank, and the lever-operated Burroughs registers. These registers recorded data on journal tapes or paper tape and required an extra step to transcribe the information into the retailer's accounting system. The next step in evolution was to move to operation by electricity. An example of this type of register was the NCR Class 5 cash register. In 1973 new registers that were driven by computers were introduced, such as the IBM 3653 Store System and the NCR 2150. Other computer based manufacturers were Regitel, TRW, and Datachecker. 1973 also brought about the introduction of the UPC/EAN barcode readers on the POS systems. In 1986, the POS systems became based on PC technology with the introduction of the IBM 4683.

During the late 1980s and throughout the 90s stand-alone credit card devices were developed so credit card processing could be more easily and securely added. Some popular models include the VeriFone Tranz 330, Hypercom T7 Plus, or Lipman Nurit 2085. These relatively simple devices have evolved in recent years to allow multiple applications (credit card, gift card, age verification, employee time clock) to reside on one device. Some wireless POS systems for restaurants not only allow for mobile payment processing, they also allow servers to process the entire food order right at tableside.

In 2005, retail POS systems are among the most sophisticated and powerful computer networks in commercial use.

Early POS software

The early electronic cash registers (ECR) were programmed in proprietary software and were very limited in function and communications capability. In August of 1973 IBM announced the IBM 3650 and 3660 Store Systems that were, in essence, a mainframe computer packaged as a store controller that could control 128 IBM 3653/3663 Point of Sale Registers. This system was the first commercial use of client-server technology, peer to peer communications, Local Area Network (LAN) simultaneous backup, and remote initialization. By mid-1974, it was installed in Pathmark Stores in New Jersey and Dillards Department Stores.

Programmability allowed retailers to be more creative. In 1979 Gene Mosher's Old Canal Cafe in Syracuse, New York was using POS software written by Mosher that ran on an Apple II to take customer orders at the restaurant's front entrance and print complete preparation details in the restaurant's kitchen. In that novel context, customers would often proceed to their tables to find their food waiting for them! This software included real time labor and food cost reports.

In 1985 Mosher introduced the first touchscreen-driven, color graphic, POS interface. This software ran on the Atari ST, the world's first consumer-level color graphic computer. By the end of the 20th century Mosher's promotion of his unpatented software paradigm had resulted in its worldwide adoption by cash register manufacturers and other POS software developers as the de facto standard for point of sale software systems.

Today, most of the major retailers of the world use POS software.

POS hardware interface standarization

Initiatives to standardize development of computerized POS systems have been made to alleviate interconnecting POS devices. Two such initiatives are OPOS and JavaPOS, both conforming to the UnifiedPOS standard, a standard led by The National Retail Foundation. OPOS, short for OLE for POS, was the first commonly-adopted standard and was initiated by Microsoft, NCR Corporation, Epson and Fujitsu-ICL. OPOS is a COM-based interface compatible with all COM-enabled programming languages for Microsoft Windows. OPOS was first released in 1996. JavaPOS was initiated by Sun Microsystems, IBM, and NCR Corporation in 1997 and first released in 1999. JavaPOS is for Java what OPOS is for Microsoft Windows and thus largely platform independent.

POS communication command protocols

There are several communication protocols POS systems use to control peripherals. Among them are

EPSON Esc/POS
UTC Standard
UTC Enhanced
AEDEX
ICD 2002
Ultimate
CD 5220
DSP-800
IBM dumb terminal
ADM 787/788.

There are also nearly as many proprietary protocols as there are companies making POS peripherals. EMAX, used by EMAX International, was a combination of AEDEX and IBM dumb terminal.

Most POS peripherals, such as displays and printers, support several of these command protocols in order to work with many different brands of POS terminals and computers.

External links

Payment systems | Distribution, retailing, and wholesaling | Marketing | Sales promotion

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