Our Transition from POS Value Added Reseller to POS Software Developer

Our transition from POS value added reseller to POS software developer started in earnest with a common question that all entrepreneurs face: what if there’s a better way? 

At POS Nation, we’ve sold POS systems for nearly 20 years — but as a reseller, we were entirely dependent on third-parties to provide software to meet the ever-changing needs of our customers. While we stand behind the POS software we’ve sold in the past, we felt that there were gaps beginning to form between what the software could do and what our customers were demanding. 

We speak to thousands of retailers each month, and we feel like we’re very attuned to the current challenges these small- to medium-sized businesses are facing. And for a company that literally has ‘Obsess About Being Great’ and ‘The Customer Deserves Now’ painted in a giant font on our wall, continuing to rely on someone else to develop a product that addresses the needs of modern retailers simply became unacceptable. There has to be a better way…

Once we decided that we needed to take control of the software we were offering our customers, the next decision was if we should develop our own software or acquire a software developer. Ultimately, speed to market became the deciding factor, we chose the acquisition route. 

There are dozens and dozens of software developers in the market, but we were hyper focused on two qualities when we looked for a partner. First, and obviously, the software had to be a natural fit for our core industry verticals. While we anticipated investing heavily in development to really round out the feature set, we knew the core functionality needed to already be in place. 

Second, and maybe not so obvious, we had to find a partner that aligned culturally with POS Nation. My colleagues at POS Nation are literally my best friends, and one of the reasons I love my job so much is because I love working with my coworkers. The comradery that’s developed at POS Nation is what drives us and what keeps us going on those long days, and no software partnership was worth disrupting the culture we’ve built.

With our criteria in place, it quickly became apparent that there was only one partnership we needed to consider. We’ve known the team at CAP Retail for years, and we were very familiar with their product. CAP Retail is tailor-made for the industry verticals we serve, and it’s a clear fit to combine our distribution capabilities with their product and development capabilities. 

CAP’s management team was also fully behind the idea of not trying to serve everyone in the market, but instead building the platform to be the best POS software for the specific verticals we serve. ‘Nail your niche’ as we say. From a cultural standpoint, integrating our two employee bases has gone even better than expected, and the collaboration has already yielded new ideas and new processes that will allow us to better serve our customers.  

So what can our customers expect from the partnership? It goes right back to delivering a product that meets the needs of modern retailers. From mobile reporting and virtual back office management to inventory pricing recommendations and an improved user interface, our product development roadmap is based on the feedback we’ve directly received from our customers. 

But customers can expect more than just a new product. We’ll now be extending 24/7 support and offering one-on-one onboarding assistance to all of CAP’s customers. The partnership will also allow us to offer even more competitively priced solutions with a variety of pricing options, and as always, we’ll continue to offer everything on a month-to-month basis — no long-term contracts, period. 

What started as a simple question — what if there’s a better way — has now culminated in our partnership with CAP Retail. We’re incredibly excited about what our future holds, and we can’t wait to show the market what we have to offer