Retail

Retail POS Modernisation: Faster Checkouts Across 60 Stores

Replacing a decade-old till estate with a cloud POS that keeps trading offline and updates prices in minutes.

• Faster checkout

  Average transaction time at the till dropped after the checkout redesign.

• Price updates

  Price and promotion changes now reach every till within minutes instead of overnight.

• Trading through outages

  No lost trading hours due to connectivity problems in the first six months after rollout.

• Stock accuracy

  Improvement in stock record accuracy measured at quarterly counts.

Summary

Northwind Retail Group moved all 60 stores from ageing on-premise terminals to a cloud-connected modern POS system in seven months, without closing a single store for the switchover.

Lessons learned

• Design for the bad day first. Offline trading was the requirement store managers cared about most, so we built and tested it before any reporting features.
• Agree sync conflict rules with operations, not just IT. Deciding what happens when a price changes mid-transaction is a business question.
• Roll out in waves. Eight to ten stores per wave meant each group of store teams could learn from the previous one, and support stayed manageable.
• Keep card data out of scope. Using a certified payment terminal integration simplified compliance considerably.

The retail operations team now treats the POS as a source of live data rather than a till that only reports overnight. If you are weighing up options, our guide on how to choose POS software covers the questions worth asking early.

• Engagement

  • Client

  • Industry

  • Duration

  • Team

  • Services

• Technologies

  • ASP.NET Core

    ASP.NET Core is our default framework for secure web applications and REST APIs: fast, cross-platform and well suited to complex business logic and integrations.

  • React

    We build responsive, accessible React front ends for dashboards, portals and SaaS products, backed by clean APIs and a component library you can maintain.

  • SQL Server

    SQL Server and Azure SQL power many of our ERP, POS and reporting systems, offering strong transactional integrity, rich tooling and tight integration with .NET.

  • Microsoft Azure

    We design, build and run applications on Microsoft Azure: App Service, containers, Azure SQL, Functions and Azure OpenAI, with security and cost control built in.

The challenge

Northwind's checkout estate had grown piecemeal over more than a decade. Most stores ran Windows-based terminals that were no longer supported by their vendor, and replacement parts were becoming hard to source.

The bigger problem was data. Each store's tills synced with head office once a night, which meant:

• Price changes took a day to land. Promotions agreed on Monday often did not appear at the till until Tuesday, causing mismatches with shelf-edge labels and customer complaints.
• Stock figures were always stale. Buyers ordered from yesterday's numbers, so fast-moving lines ran out while slow lines piled up in stockrooms.
• Outages stopped trading. When a store's broadband dropped, the tills could struggle to authorise transactions, and some stores reverted to handwritten receipts.
• Checkout was slow. Cashiers navigated several screens for common tasks such as returns and multi-buy offers, lengthening queues at peak times.

The group needed a replacement that would work on standard hardware, keep trading through outages and give head office a live view of the business, all without disrupting a busy trading calendar.

Our solution

We designed and built a cloud-connected POS platform made up of three parts: a till application, a head-office back office and an integration layer.

Offline-first tills

Each till keeps a local transaction store. Sales, returns and cash-ups are recorded locally and synced to the cloud through a queue as soon as a connection is available. Conflict rules, for example which price applies if a change arrives mid-basket, were agreed with the retail operations team during discovery.

Central pricing and promotions

Head office manages the catalogue, price bands and promotions in a web portal built with React on ASP.NET Core. Changes are published to all stores, or selected store groups, and reach the tills within minutes.

Faster checkout

We redesigned the checkout flow with cashiers, reducing common tasks to one or two taps. Returns are processed against the original receipt, and supervisor overrides are logged.

Payments and integrations

Card payments run through a certified payment terminal, keeping card data out of the POS. Sales and stock movements feed the group's existing inventory management and finance systems through documented APIs.

The platform runs on Azure with SQL Server, monitored centrally so issues at any store are visible to the support team before staff report them.

What we built

Key features

• Offline transaction store

  Tills record every sale locally and sync automatically, so outages no longer stop trading.

• Store-group promotions

  Prices and offers can target all stores or specific groups and go live within minutes.

• Streamlined checkout flow

  Common tasks such as returns and multi-buys take one or two taps instead of several screens.

• Certified card payments

  Payment terminal integration keeps card data out of the POS and reduces compliance scope.

• Central till monitoring

  Support staff see till health and sync status for every store in one dashboard.

Delivery

How we delivered it

• Discovery and store visits

  Observed checkouts in six stores, mapped pain points and agreed offline and sync rules with operations.

• Build and internal testing

  Built the till app, back office and integrations in two-week sprints with regular demos to store managers.

• Pilot in four stores

  Ran the new POS in four representative stores, fixing issues and refining training materials.

• Phased rollout

  Rolled out in waves of eight to ten stores, each with a weekend parallel run and on-site support.

• Handover and optimisation

  Trained the internal support team and tuned performance using real transaction data.

Gallery

Inside the solution

• Redesigned cashier checkout

• Store rollout monitoring

In the client's words

• We used to lose half a day's takings every time a store's broadband went down. Since the new tills went in, outages barely register, and head office can change a price at lunchtime and see it on every shelf-edge promotion by the afternoon.

Project

Related projects

• Modern POS System for a Regional Retail Chain

  A cloud-connected point-of-sale platform with offline tills, central pricing and real-time stock visibility, built for a 60-store retail chain replacing ageing on-premise terminals.

• Manufacturing ERP Rollout

  A custom ERP for a mid-sized metal fabrication manufacturer, connecting sales orders, production planning, inventory, purchasing and finance in one system.

• Clinic Appointment Mobile App

  A patient booking app and clinic scheduling back office for a group of private outpatient clinics, with online booking, reminders and secure pre-visit forms.

Solutions

Solutions used

• POS Software

  Configurable point of sale software for retail and hospitality: fast checkout, multi-store stock, offline mode, loyalty and real-time reporting, tailored to how you sell.

• Inventory Management Software

  Inventory management software for multi-location stock control: barcode scanning, purchasing, batch and serial tracking, stock takes and demand-based reorder suggestions.

• Customer Management Software

  Customer management software that unifies customer profiles, service history, support tickets, loyalty and communication so every team sees the full customer picture.

Services

Services involved

• POS Development

  Custom POS development for retail, hospitality and multi-store businesses: fast checkout, offline mode, inventory sync, loyalty and reporting across tills, tablets and web.

• Cloud Application Development

  Cloud application development and migration on Azure and AWS: cloud-native architecture, containers, serverless, infrastructure as code and cost optimisation for reliable, scalable software.

• ERP Development

  Custom ERP development for manufacturers, distributors and multi-site businesses: inventory, purchasing, production, finance and reporting in one system built around your processes.

More results

Other case studies

• AI Support Assistant for a B2B SaaS Company

  How a B2B SaaS company deployed a grounded AI support assistant that resolves 42% of conversations on its own and hands the rest to agents with full context.

• School Group Digital Transformation

  How a five-school trust replaced six disconnected tools with one school management platform and parent app, cutting admin time on attendance and fees by around 40%.

Modernising your tills?

See how an offline-capable cloud POS could work across your store estate.

See how an offline-capable cloud POS could work across your store estate.