Global POS terminal transaction values will total US$17 trillion this year and grow by 25% to $21.1tn a year by 2028, Juniper Research has forecast.

“This growth comes despite the recent POS outages in some retail store chains across the globe; forcing a number of temporary store closures,” the analysts say. “Significant financial and security risks were exposed during these faults; continuing the demand for smart POS terminals to replace outdated legacy systems.”

Many retailers are insufficiently prepared to address issues with their legacy POS systems, such as terminal outages in physical retail stores, the study found. 

“Avoiding systems failures from legacy systems must now be a key consideration for retailers when upgrading POS technology; targeting maximum processing efficiency and customer satisfaction,” Juniper says.

Smart POS solutions, which offer enhanced functions over traditional POS such as staff management, loyalty card processing, inventory management and shop synchronization with other outlets in the same chain, are identified as the key to mitigating the problem.

“Despite the higher cost of implementation in comparison to traditional POS, embracing Smart POS will secure a return on investment for retailers; preventing system failures alongside enhanced business integrations,” research author Daniel Bedford concludes.

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