The register is not the job anymore
For decades, the store associate’s relationship with technology began and ended at the register. Scan, tender, receipt, next customer. The POS was a transaction machine, and the associate was the person who operated it.
That era is over. According to Forrester, the majority of U.S. retail sales will continue to occur in physical stores through at least 2028, and retailers are increasing their technology budgets to $113 billion in 2026, up 6.6% year over year. A significant portion of that investment is going directly into associate-facing tools and point-of-service modernization.
The reason is straightforward: the best-performing specialty retailers have figured out that the store associate is not just a checkout operator. They are a stylist, a consultant, a relationship builder, and increasingly, an omnichannel seller. The associate who helps a customer try on jewelry on a Saturday afternoon is also the person who can email that customer a curated selection on Tuesday and close the sale without the customer ever walking back into the store.
That is not a future state; it is happening now, and it is redefining what a point of sale actually is.
Selling beyond the four walls
The concept of omnichannel has been part of the retail vocabulary for over a decade. But for most of that time, the conversation centered on the customer: buy online and pick up in store, return in store what you bought online, browse on mobile and finish on desktop. The customer got flexibility. The associate mostly stayed behind the counter.
The shift in 2026 is that omnichannel is finally becoming a two-way street. The associate is no longer waiting for the customer to come to them, through any channel. Instead, they are reaching out. They are the ones initiating the sale.
Think about what this looks like in practice: a customer visits a boutique, tries on 3 dresses, loves all of them, but is not ready to commit. In the old model, that is a lost sale until the customer decides to come back or make a purchase online. In the new model, the associate pulls up those items on a tablet, adds a pair of shoes that would complement the look, and sends the entire selection to the customer’s inbox as a shoppable link. The customer checks out from their couch that evening. Meanwhile, the associate gets credit for the sale, and the store gets the revenue.
Or consider consignment: a high-end retailer sends out pieces from a designer on consignment, and the associate needs to manage that inventory differently: tracking what has sold, what is owed, and what needs to be returned. When the POS handles consignment natively, it stops being an operational headache and becomes another revenue stream the associate can manage confidently.
Then there is remote payment: a customer calls to reorder a product they bought 6 months ago. The associate looks up the purchase, confirms the item is in stock, and texts the customer a secure payment link. Done. No need to read a credit card number over the phone. No need for the customer to visit the website and hunt for the product. The associate handled the entire transaction from the POS in under 2 minutes.
The POS is the bottleneck, or the opener
Why do many retailers, then, hit a wall? They know their associates are capable of more. They know the customer relationship extends beyond the store visit. But the technology they have in place was designed for a simpler era: ring up the sale, close the drawer, move on.
Legacy POS systems were built around the transaction. Modern POS needs to be built around the associate. That means giving them the ability to curate and send product selections, process consignments, generate payment links, access real-time inventory across every location, process loyalty points and see a customer’s full history, all from a single device on the sales floor.
When the POS can do all of that, the associate becomes the most productive sales channel a retailer has. When it cannot, the associate is stuck doing what registers have always done: waiting for someone to walk up and buy something.
Forrester’s 2026 U.S. retail technology forecast put it plainly: retailers need to equip store teams with unified inventory visibility, consistent omnichannel policies, and real-time product information. The report specifically called out investments in point-of-service modernization and associate productivity tools as critical to both operational efficiency and customer experience.
The competitive advantage is on the floor
Specialty retail has always been a relationship business. The brands that win are the ones where a customer walks in and says, “Is Maria here? She always knows what I like.” That human connection is something no algorithm can replicate.
What technology can do is extend that relationship beyond the store visit. It can give Maria the tools to follow up, to curate, to close a sale after the customer has gone home. It can let her manage complex transactions like consignments and special orders without switching between 3 different systems. It can make her faster, more informed, and more effective, without taking away the personal touch that makes her great at her job.
The retailers pulling ahead in 2026 are not the ones with the flashiest e-commerce sites or the most sophisticated AI chatbots. They are the ones who have invested in the people on the floor and given them a POS that matches their ambition. Because in specialty retail, the associate is the brand. And the brands that understand this are turning every customer interaction, in store or remote, into revenue.
AUTHOR BIO
Josh Goodelman is CRO at KWI, the unified commerce platform trusted by leading specialty retailers and brands including Pandora, Hurley, Oscar de la Renta, and Bluemercury. With more than 12 years in retail technology and over 12 years in specialty retail at brands like Dolce & Gabbana, Josh is focused on helping brands turn every customer interaction into a selling opportunity, whether it starts on the sales floor, continues over text, or closes after the customer walks out the door. Josh is based in KWI’s Melville office.
