Actinic Enters EPOS Market with Acquisition of Checkout Retail Systems

SMEs to get first low cost, integrated multi-channel sales system

Actinic Software, the UK's best-selling supplier of ecommerce software for small and medium retailers, today announces its purchase of Checkout Retail Systems Ltd, a supplier of electronic point of sale (EPOS) systems to SMEs, and the merging of the two companies. Actinic will be investing in a significant marketing and development programme for Checkout, and intends to offer the first low-cost integrated ecommerce and EPOS offerings, as well as driving down the cost of EPOS in the entry level market.

With buyers increasingly wanting to shop across multiple channels, Actinic has found significant customer interest in implementing a broader retail platform. This interest has been growing as conventional retailers move online, and some of the most successful online retailers develop an offline presence. Bringing together two leading ecommerce and EPOS solutions is a natural progression, and will enable the integration of online and offline environments to provide a seamless multi-channel customer experience.

Actinic examined a number of EPOS applications designed for small and medium businesses in the retail and hospitality sectors, and concluded that Checkout had developed the best. Following initial discussions between the two companies, it became clear that combining their expertise would bring benefits to both sets of customers, and a decision was taken to merge.

Peter Ainsworth, managing director of Checkout Retail, comments: "Having developed what we believe is the best of class EPOS offering for small and medium sized retailers, we were frustrated at our lack of resources to exploit our lead. The merger with Actinic will enable us to reach a much broader part of the market with our products."

Chris Barling, CEO of Actinic, says, "When we evaluated Checkout's offering, we were very impressed. We believe that it will be a powerful addition to the Actinic product family. Currently there is no low cost, easy-to-use EPOS product available from an established company, and we expect to see Checkout take leadership in what is currently a highly fragmented market. When we have completed integration between the two products, we expect to see further gains."