Most retail EPOS demos show the same thing: a fast sale on a clean catalogue. What separates suppliers is everything the demo skips. Bring your own products, your own barcodes and your own awkward cases, and the decision usually makes itself within twenty minutes.
Ten minutes that decide it
Scan five of your own products, including one with a supplier barcode the system has never seen. Sell a mixed basket with a discount and a refund. Add a new line at the counter. Take the network away and see what happens. Print a shelf label. A supplier who can do all five on your stock is a supplier who has thought about shops rather than about software.
What retail EPOS should include as standard
A product catalogue with variants, VAT handling, discounts and promotions, staff logins with permissions, a day end report, and card acceptance. Anything above that, purchase ordering, multi site transfers, loyalty, ecommerce sync, is a tier or an add-on, and worth paying for only when you can name the weekly task it removes.
What it costs to run a single till shop
Published UK software tiers put a working single till shop between zero and about 100 pounds a month. Hardware on the published component bands is a few hundred pounds for a screen, printer, drawer and scanner. Card acceptance runs from 0.79% to 1.75% on the published shelf. Those three lines are the whole cost, and a quote should show them separately.
Questions people ask about epos system for retail shop
What should a retail shop EPOS include as standard?
A product catalogue with variants, VAT, discounts, staff permissions, a day end report and card acceptance. Stock ordering and multi site features are usually a higher tier or an add-on.
How much should a single till shop pay?
On published UK tiers, between zero and about 100 pounds a month for software, plus a few hundred pounds of hardware once and the card rate on your takings.
What happens to a shop till when the internet drops?
It varies by supplier and it is the question most often skipped in a demo. Ask whether sales continue offline, whether card payments continue, and how the system reconciles when the line returns.