It may surprise you to know that most of us will utilise an EPOS on a daily basis
and yet there is probably quite a few people who don't even know what an EPOS is. That is mainly down to the fact that there are so many acronyms today that it is difficult to keep up with what everything means.
EPOS stands for Electronic Point of Sale and basically that in short means a till or checkout. If you have been to the supermarket today or just down to the local shops then it is more than likely that you have utilised the services of a till that is electronic and computerised. The EPOS retail sector has expanded rapidly over the last few years with more and more companies making the switch to more technically advanced versions of the till system.
There are even a number of EPOS retail systems now that allows customers to serve themselves. Simply by scanning in their products across the barcode and paying via the allocated cash or card slots. Obviously this has in some cases made checkout easier and quicker to manage and maintain and also there is a requirement for less employees. One member of staff can sometimes supervise up to four self service checkouts. Obviously though with the EPOS retail systems moving to a more electronic/computerised system there has been more of a need than ever to have technical assistance nearby.
Most of the EPOS retail self service tills that have been rolled out throughout Europe operate via a touch screen panel. These systems will have a basic computer operating system installed in the background and will then be running a some form of flash application to allow the consumer to correctly manage and checkout their purchases. The system is a lot more complex than it might first look. There is a weighing table on the right hand side of the checkout that looks for the product once it has been scanned. Basically when the product is scanned the barcode is checked against a database of products and the weight in the database is checked against that of what is on the scales. If the machine can't find the product that has been scanned then the EPOS retail system issues the user with a automatic response telling them to load the product into the loading area.
If you think that your company could benefit from EPOS systems in 2010 or you need to find a reliable service company then there are a number of companies to be found with a quick search in Google.