Is It Time to Stop Thinking About POS Replacement… and Start Thinking About Unified Commerce?

Over the last decade, bricks and mortar retailers invested heavily in eCommerce platforms, capabilities and operating models. COVID-19 accelerated that shift. Today, for many bricks-and-mortar retailers, 10–20%+ of revenue now starts online.

As that wave of digital investment stabilises, attention is turning to another ageing cornerstone of retail technology: 10–15 year-old legacy Point of Sale (POS) platforms. These systems were designed for a world where every customer journey ended at a checkout lane. That world no longer exists.

The Modern Store Supports a Multitude of Ways to Shop

  • Traditional checkout
  • Self-checkout
  • Mobile POS and clientelling
  • Scan and Go
  • Smart trolleys
  • Just Walk Out shopping
  • Click and Collect / in-store pick-up
  • Shopper assistant
  • Endless aisle
  • Drive-through

Each of these is not just a feature. It is a distinct transaction interface with different operational workflows and technology touchpoints. Over time, retailers have layered stand-alone niche technologies to support these capabilities. The result? Every new feature — loyalty, pricing, promotions, identity, returns — becomes a multi-system integration exercise.

Customisations multiply. Costs escalate. Time-to-market slows significantly. And the customer experience remains fragmented. Even simple journeys — such as returning an online order in-store — often expose the cracks between systems and processes.

The Right Question

This is where the opportunity lies. As retailers consider the next 10+ year investment cycle in POS and back-office platforms, the question should not be:

"How do we replace our POS?"

But rather:

"How do we design a unified commerce backbone that supports every way of shopping — consistently and flexibly?"

What Unified Commerce Actually Means

  • A single pricing and promotion engine
  • A unified customer identity
  • Real-time inventory visibility
  • Channel-agnostic returns
  • Shared order orchestration
  • A unified payments platform
  • A common smart search engine
  • Modular components deployable across interfaces

Adding channels does not create unified commerce. It increases integration complexity. True transformation requires rethinking the architecture beneath the interfaces.

The Physical Store Is More Important Than Ever

Ironically, as eCommerce grows, the physical store becomes more critical — not less. It is no longer just a point of transaction. It is a distributed fulfilment node, a service centre, and an experience platform.

Mulberry Group is working with leading retailers to make the next decade of retail investment deliver a unified commerce experience — easier for the team and better for the customer. Are we replacing POS… or redesigning the commerce backbone for the future?

To discuss unified commerce strategy for your organisation, get in touch.

By Dimitrios Bairaktaris PhD | March 3, 2026

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