In the first two articles in this series about the “state of the store today, ” I’ve referenced the fact that retailers know they are in a tough spot. Not only do they know that stores are in desperate need of systems overhauls (both customer and employee facing technologies), but they admit that they just don’t know how to get to where they want to be.

This problem is only exacerbated by the fact that they  continue to purchase store technologies without even ascribing high value to those very solutions. But what about the elephant in the room? After all, no report on the state of technology in stores would be complete without an examination of the single largest technology investment in most retail stores and sadly, the one most often in need of dire update – the Point of Sale.

In an apparent turning of the tide, retailers tell us in our most recent Store Report that they have come to terms with the fact that the current generation of POS technologies won’t survive – no matter how much ancillary mobile technology is put into employees’ hands.

Figure 1: The POS Exit Strategy

Source: RSR Research, June 2014

Certainly mass merchants and supermarket retailers have fewer challenges with their POS: after all, people just want to get done and out of the store by the time they reach the checkout stand. But all other retailers have a real problem.

For fashion retailers, the cash wrap will remain a critical component of any legacy, modern, single channel, cross-channel or hybrid in-store POS system. The question becomes not how – but when – will a single platform that can extend from the store (meeting all of its specific requirements) out to every digital channel (and all of its specific requirements) ultimately emerge? And if that day is still a ways off, what can you be doing to ensure that all of those varied requirements are being met, even if disparate (and likely non-harmonious) systems are required in the meantime?

It’s not a rhetorical question: the customer is already demanding that you do.