Gartner POS 2025 guide: the criteria that are truly useful for choosing a unified commerce platform

Why the Gartner POS guide matters to retailers

The point of sale is evolving rapidly: between unified commerce, omnichannel strategies, and the rise of AI, the POS is becoming a central element of the retail system, but it is also more complex to scale and evolve (integration, data, customer experience).

In this context, the Gartner® Market Guide 2025 brings value with a structured overview of the market: key trends (AI-augmented POS, cloud, modular architectures), essential functionalities, a vendor panorama, and modernization recommendations.

What is the purpose of the Gartner POS guide?

To structure decision-making: understanding the options, prioritizing needs, and framing a POS modernization strategy tailored to your retail challenges.

The Gartner POS 2025 guide: a compass, not a ranking

Market Guide vs. decision grid

Gartner’s Market Guide on unified commerce is neither a prize list nor a turnkey comparison of the best software vendors.

Unlike a Magic Quadrant, it does not position players according to a logic of leaders, challengers, or visionaries. Its objective lies elsewhere: to provide a structured analysis of a market, explaining its dynamics, its major categories of solutions, its evaluation criteria, and its technological evolutions.

The risk for a retailer would therefore be to misuse it as a simplistic decision grid by looking for “the best tool.” In reality, the guide serves instead as a compass to understand the available options and ask the right questions.

What a retailer must take away from the Gartner POS 2025 guide

To make it a useful tool internally, focus on the essentials:

• Your functional priorities (what really creates value in-store and across omnichannel channels).

• Technological trends to anticipate (AI, cloud, APIs, etc.).

• Market maturity (level of risk and innovation).

• Integration challenges with your IT ecosystem.

• The ability of suppliers to support you.

In short: use the guide to structure your thinking, then adapt it to your field realities before deciding.

The criteria that are truly useful for evaluating a POS solution

1) The POS as a hub for unified commerce

Today, the POS is no longer just used for checking out: as the nerve center of unified commerce, it must make it possible to orchestrate sales, inventory, returns, clienteling, loyalty, and store data all at once.

This translates in particular into seamless integration with other systems: Order Management System (OMS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software…

2) Real-time data and a unified customer view

Collecting and analyzing real-time data across all channels stands out as an essential criterion for a good POS solution.

Acting as a true bridge between inventory, orders, CRM, customer history, and loyalty, customer data analysis offers a unified customer view, which is essential for managing in-store sales, but also other processes like Click & Collect and Ship from Store.

3) Cloud, modular, and interoperable architecture

To facilitate data exchange, a POS must comply with the main principles of MACH architecture (microservices, API-first, cloud-native, headless):

• Connected: designed to be optimized within an ecosystem, it works in real time with OMS, CRM, and e-commerce systems, following an API-first approach.

• Modular: it features functionalities that can be assembled, replaced, and evolved independently.

• Open: each component is documented and independently observable.

4) In-store mobility and sales associate experience

A modern POS provides sales associates with mobile tools and centralized interfaces (“super-apps”) that streamline tasks and offer a unique view of real-time data across all channels. This improves employee productivity / efficiency, but also the customer experience thanks to reduced waiting times, a smoother checkout experience, or even more personalized support.

5) Useful AI, without gimmicks

POS software is no exception to the Artificial Intelligence phenomenon, which opens up a multitude of new possibilities. However, beyond the marketing argument, it is necessary to identify the AI features that bring real added value, notably:

• Generating forecasts and personalized offers, allowing to increase sales and automatically activate rewards and discounts during the checkout experience.

• Automating markdowns, optimizing replenishment, and reducing waste thanks to predictive monitoring of inventory-related signals.

• Better coordination of workflows related to sales, services, and marketing.

• Simplifying real-time decision-making and predictive analysis.

• Empowering sales associates and personalized customer engagement.

• Detecting fraud and anomalies.

6) Scalability and internationalization

Finally, the best POS software stands out for its flexibility, resilience, and capacity to adapt to future developments. Therefore, a modular and scalable solution should be prioritized, allowing for a progressive deployment while guaranteeing data and payment security.

In the context of international development, supporting multi-country tax and country compliance is also a crucial aspect.

How to transform these criteria into an evaluation grid?

Orisha Commerce: a recognized player in unified commerce

Recognized for the second consecutive year in Gartner’s report on artificial intelligence and unified commerce, Openbravo POS is a modular, cloud-native solution designed to interoperate seamlessly with all types of OMS (Order Management System), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and e-commerce systems.

Would you like to try the features of Openbravo POS?

How to use the Gartner POS 2025 guide internally?

Gartner’s market guide should not be read as a study, but as a decision-making and alignment tool between the IT department and business lines. To derive maximum value from it internally:

• Build a criteria scoring system (architecture, real-time data, mobility, AI capabilities) aligned with your business priorities.

• Conduct an objective benchmark of the software vendors identified in the guide: use it to frame your request for proposal (shortlist, requirements, evaluation grid).
• Contrast these best practices with the pain points identified in-store (checkout time, stockouts, lack of customer visibility) in order to anchor your transformation in reality.