The Retail Innovators
Follow us
ISO/IEC 27001 certification for information security
© 2018 - 2025 GK Software SE, Germany
It would be a relief for retailers to be able to successfully prepare for a predictable year. Unfortunately, retail is anything but predictable, and 2025 is already shaping up to be a challenging year for many retailers. From tariffs to possible dock strikes, a changing geopolitical landscape, interest rates and inflation, 2025 is already presenting a few challenges.
That is why winning loyalty is crucial; without always knowing what’s coming next, loyal customers provide retailers the assurance they need to ride the waves. Retailers can win loyalty a few different ways, including through personalized offers, optimizing their pricing and prioritizing a flexible POS. Let’s walk through these – and how GK can support in each.
With the uncertainties already characterizing 2025, personalization strategies will be especially important in helping retailers maintain the kind of customer loyalty that can help them overcome challenges. There are a couple of reasons why: personalization creates convenience, and it builds customer relationships.
Personalized offers give customers the discounts they need at the moment they need those discounts. This removes a step in their shopping process, creating an ease and convenience that will keep them coming back.
Not only do personalized offers bring ease and convenience, but they also foster relationships with customers at a one-to-one level, making them feel recognized and appreciated.
For example, GK’s personalization solution, GK AIR, tailors every touchpoint to the individual customer. It analyzes the interests of customers based on current behavioral data as well as historical transaction data, delivering fully automated and relevant recommendations in real time. This not only works for online shopping – in-store employees can also use product recommendations via devices when advising customers.
With today’s climate of rapidly changing prices from suppliers, due to tariffs, shortages, demand spikes and more, it can be difficult for retailers to lock in an effective price that benefits both the retailer and its customers. Luckily, AI-driven tools can step in and ensure prices on all products match the company’s margin goals while meeting customer needs.
The GK AIR Price Optimizer, for example, uses intelligent algorithms to implement clear and transparent pricing processes and to establish effective price and promotion management. The AI solution keeps an eye on all price-influencing factors at all times: consumers who notice abrupt price changes at competing retailers due to macroeconomic factors will notice the difference compared to a retailer who automatically adjusts their prices to prevailing market conditions.
The POS is a critical touchpoint in the customer’s journey, as it can make or break the experience. When faced with a negative experience – such as the payment terminal rejecting a credit card or a long line to the check-out – it’s easy for a customer to use that as an excuse to try a new retailer next time.
However, if a store can meet a customer where they are, and have a reliable technology ecosystem, the shopping journey is made much smoother. A shopper may hope to interact with a clerk at a traditional counter or pay in the aisles with a mobile POS system, and flexible technology that can support each method will set the retailer apart.
GK offers a myriad of POS services to meet those needs, such as OmniPOS, Mobile POS, Self-Scanning, GK Go and more.
Retailers must connect with consumers in new, fresh ways to inspire confidence and loyalty, which is why effective personalization, price optimization and a modern point of sale landscape are therefore the keys to winning loyalty during the bumpy and unpredictable year, building bridges between retailers and their customers.
Contact us today to learn how GK works with leading retailers on building customer loyalty.
GK Software has been recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Point-of-Sale (POS) Software Platform Vendors in Retail Fuel and Convenience 2025 Vendor Assessment (doc #US51800224, February 2025). We believe this prestigious recognition highlights GK Software’s commitment to delivering next-generation solutions that meet the evolving needs of fuel and convenience retailers.
The IDC MarketScape report evaluates key strategies and capabilities of POS software platform vendors, focusing on their strengths as omnichannel partners and their abilities in partnerships, data and AI/analytics, customer engagement, extensibility, and scalability. The report notes, “Fuel and convenience retailers are looking to technology partners for solutions that can enable seamless omni-channel retailing across multiple touch points with cohesive customer experience to drive customer loyalty as well as flexible, configurable POS systems, offering seamless integrations, to enable agility to meet changing business and customer needs.“
Margot Juros, Research Director of Retail Platforms and Technologies at IDC, commented, “Tremendous changes in fuel and convenience retail in recent years amid evolving technology needs, changing business models, and heightened customer expectations along with waning loyalty make it more essential to find POS software partners that can deliver next-gen solutions needed for success in today’s environment.”
GK Software’s commerce solution, GK CLOUD4RETAIL, and its specialized module, GK Drive, built on the OmniPOS platform, empower fuel and convenience retailers to manage all aspects of their enterprise on a single centralized platform. This includes forecourt, store, foodservice, EV-charging, car wash, and other related services. The platform’s open, flexible, and cloud-native architecture supports omni-channel POS, mobile POS, self-checkout, loyalty programs, self-scanning, pump management, digital signage, inventory and fulfillment, fraud and loss prevention, and AI-driven customer engagement features such as hyper-personalization, dynamic pricing, and recommendations.
“We believe being recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape underscores our commitment to innovation in the fuel and convenience sector. Our GK Drive solution, initially developed for the U.S. market, has now gained traction in Europe with its first clients, marking a significant milestone in our global expansion. As fuel retailers navigate evolving customer expectations and an increase in digital and EV-based services, GK Drive is designed to help large fuel retailers create a seamless, omnichannel experience at their locations. With its open, cloud-native architecture and AI-driven capabilities, GK CLOUD4RETAIL empowers retailers to integrate fuel, convenience, and digital commerce into a single, future-ready platform,” says Orit Bar-Ad, Chief Innovation Evangelist at GK Software.
The report notes, “GK Software introduced its fuel and convenience offering, GK Drive, on the CLOUD4RETAIL platform about five years ago and quickly gained a strong competitive presence in the segment. CLOUD4RETAIL is GK’s open, flexible, and cloud-native unified commerce platform that serves all the vendor’s retail segments. GK Drive is included in the same platform, so retailers benefit from cross-retail segment enhancements as well as fuel and convenience–specific capabilities.“ The platform’s data integration capabilities and AI features, provided by GK AIR and GK Engage, enable data-driven retailing and improved customer engagement.
IDC MarketScape vendor assessment model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of technology and service suppliers in a given market. The research utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each supplier’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of technology suppliers can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective suppliers.
GK Software, a leading global provider of innovative retail solutions, will present its latest solutions for the retail industry at EuroCIS 2025 in Düsseldorf from February 18 to 20, 2025. The focus will be on secure self-checkouts (SCO), AI-supported customer loyalty solutions, and the further development of the leading commerce platform GK CLOUD4RETAIL.
A special highlight is the premiere of GK Vision, the new computer vision solution from GK. With the acquisition of the Berlin-based deep-tech company Nomitri GmbH, GK has expanded its self-checkout offering to include an important fraud detection component. GK Vision offers retailers a cost-effective and quickly implementable solution for optimizing the self-checkout process. The AI-supported image recognition enables fraud detection at a new level and supports additional functions such as age verification and automatic fresh produce identification.
The solution can be seamlessly integrated into the existing IT infrastructure with little effort. In addition to the very high detection rate, it is particularly significant that only a camera with a very inexpensive minicomputer without a permanent online connection is required. This approach results in up to ten times lower hardware investment for retailers and only takes a few days to get up and running. The solution can be used independently of the POS software and hardware in use.
GK Vision ensures a safe and trustworthy shopping environment, reduces inventory differences and offers better customer service.
Another highlight at EuroCIS is the demonstration of GK Engage. The AI-powered loyalty solution analyzes customer preferences and inventory data in real time to create personalized offers. Retailers can deepen their customer relationships and sustainably strengthen customer loyalty. GK Engage is designed as an open, white-label platform and can be easily integrated into existing customer apps.
After the successful rollout at several customers in the US, the European version of GK Drive, the solution developed specifically for the fuel and convenience store business, will be shown.
GK Drive meets European standards, has received all the relevant approvals and Jet is already the first European fuel retailer to opt for the solution. GK Drive is based on the CLOUD4RETAIL platform and offers comprehensive functions for the management of gas station and retail processes.
As part of the Omnibasket.com program, GK has been inviting innovative partners to participate in the CLOUD4RETAIL platform and to enrich it with valuable additional functions for many years. This year, too, GK is offering several partners the opportunity to present the results of the collaboration directly at the GK stand or at their own stands. In addition to the GK subsidiaries Retail7 and Deutsche Fiskal, Fujitsu, Abacus Solutions, Naizfit, Adyen, HP, VusionGroup, KBST, Ergonomics Solutions, Tiliter and Syspro are therefore exhibiting solutions at the GK stand.
One partner that is also presenting a joint solution approach at GK’s booth, as well as booth 10F53 is SLACE GmbH, which signed a partner agreement with GK at the beginning of the year. The solution developed by SLACE for Conversational Retail and WhatsApp Marketing is seamlessly integrated with the CLOUD4RETAIL platform and GK Engage on the basis of app enablement. A customer profile is automatically generated in GK Engage via QR code and WhatsApp chat, which then makes it possible to issue personalized coupons. This turns anonymous buyers into addressable customers in seven seconds with a low-threshold offer (www.slace.com).
EuroCIS 2025 will take place in Düsseldorf from February 18 to 20. GK Software welcomes all visitors to Stand C54 in Hall 10. Due to the expected high number of visitors, we recommend making an appointment in advance at www.gk-software.com.
GK Software, a leading provider of commerce solutions for global retailers, today announced that it has successfully acquired Nomitri GmbH, a Berlin-based deep tech startup for computer vision. This transaction will expand GK’s commerce capabilities with complete out-of-the-box SCO (self-checkout) and store operations solutions to expand the company’s global portfolio of leading retail customers.
Nomitri will continue to exist as a wholly owned subsidiary of the GK Software Group. Founders Trinh Le-Fiedler and Max Fiedler will remain in managing positions. The company had already been part of the GK partner ecosystem for several years. The Nomitri solutions will be presented as a new product suite within GK’s product portfolio under the name ‘GK Vision’.
With a total market value of more than 600 million Euros annually within the top 250 grocers alone, the SCO market is currently among the fastest growing in retail. With self-checkout solutions, retailers are already decreasing waiting times for customers and adapting to increasing labor costs. However, the implementation of such technologies is generally hardware-intensive and costly. Furthermore, while self-checkouts increase the flexibility of unmanned checkouts, an increase in thefts and fraud reduces their profitability. Adressing the profitability during the implementation of fraud detection is the primary focus of GK Vision.
GK Vision software allows retailers to take a cost-effective, retrofit approach, leveraging existing hardware and linking it directly to the cloud services of GK. This approach leads to up to ten times lower hardware investment for retailers and only takes around two business days to go live. The embedded computer vision and AI capabilities of GK Vision additionally enable age verification as well as fruit and vegetable recognition. In addition, the solution can be used regardless of which POS software is in use. This makes GK Vision an ideal complement to GK, which last year launched GK Engage, a loyalty platform that can also be used independently of the POS software provider.
“Nomitri has been an integral part of the GK partner ecosystem for some time, and its innovative capabilities have consistently impressed both our team and leading retailers. Retailers are demanding fast, scalable, and cost-effective self-checkout solutions, and Nomitri has delivered time and time again. Today, we’re proud to take this partnership to the next level by welcoming Nomitri’s groundbreaking technology into the GK portfolio as GK Vision. With a strong foundation of collaboration and trust, we are ready to scale GK Vision and redefine the self-checkout experience for retailers worldwide. Integrated into our GK CLOUD4RETAIL commerce platform, this addition further cements our commitment to providing cutting-edge, end-to-end solutions for our global customers,” says Michael Scheibner, CEO of GK Software.
“Access to a cost-effective method that is not prone to more fraud is of utmost importance when considering the transition to a self-checkout solution. The acquisition of Nomitri signifies GK’s commitment to our purpose of making interactions in retail simple. We can extend GK's range in this strategically important area even more and increase the speed of deployment while reducing costs for our customers. This is a great step towards accelerating innovation for in-store retail,” says Matthias Blodig, EVP Ventures and Strategy at GK Software.
“We are excited to join GK Software, a proven player in technology for the world’s leading retailers for over 30 years. Within GK’s tech stack, the Nomitri product portfolio is capable of truly unfolding its potential in SCO– either as a standalone solution or in combination with GK’s leading CLOUD4RETAIL product suite,” says Trinh Le-Fiedler of Nomitri.
GK Vision solutions will be displayed during this year's NRF 2025 in New York City and will continue to be presented at other important trade shows in Europe, the Americas, and Asia throughout 2025.
For more information, get in touch with us: https://www.gk-software.com/us/solutions/gk-vision
Nomitri is an AI software company from Berlin founded in 2019 on a mission to use cutting-edge technology in AI to enable human-centered automation in retail and logistics. Nomitri's smartphone-based vision AI software stack enables retailers to offer their customers a frictionless shopping experience including self-checkout, fraud-prevention and data insights. Quick commerce players will be able to significantly improve their operations and reduce human errors.
RALEIGH, N.C. – Jan. 7, 2024 – GK Software, a global leader in comprehensive retail applications for real-time omnichannel business systems, will highlight its role in JCPenney’s innovative customer-first retail transformation at NRF 2025. The solution provider will discuss its partnership with JCPenney and other innovative retailers at booth #6011 at NRF 2025, taking place Jan. 12-14 at the Javits Convention Center, NYC.
JCPenney’s work with technology leaders, including GK, will be the focus of its “partner perspective” keynote on Tuesday, Jan. 14 at 1:00 p.m. at the River Pavilion, ReturnPro Stage. As an iconic American brand, JCPenney offers a broad portfolio of fashion, apparel, home, beauty and jewelry from national and private brands and provides personal services including salon, portrait and optical. JCPenney leaders will share how it is integrating cutting-edge, mobile-first technology and customer-centric strategies to enhance its shopping experience. The retailer will also participate in GK’s Breakfast Briefing on Tuesday, Jan. 14 to discuss its experiences implementing the GK CLOUD4RETAIL platform.
2024 Was a Year of Continued Growth and Momentum for GK
2024 proved that GK is at the center of retail innovation both worldwide and throughout the United States. GK is the retail software provider of choice for over 20% of the Global TOP50 Retailers and has recently won over 45% of new store systems installations for Tier 1 fast-moving-consumer-goods (FMCG) retailers.
Last year, GK continued to build upon key retailer relationships with new and existing customers, including:
GK also earned recognition in key analyst reports and rankings, including:
“GK technology is the blueprint of the future for retailers, and our extraordinary growth reflects that reality,” said Michael Jaszczyk, CEO, GK Americas. “We are excited to showcase our work with top retailers at NRF and collaborate with our customers and partners on the next wave of technology innovation.”
The learn more during NRF, visit GK at booth #6011 or contact GK here to set up a meeting.
GK Software, a leading provider of innovative commerce solutions for global retailers, today announced a partnership with Adyen, the financial technology platform of choice for leading companies. The collaboration will integrate Adyen’s advanced payment solutions with GK Software’s CLOUD4RETAIL suite and OmniPOS platform, creating a unified, scalable solution for retailers worldwide. This integration provides streamlined backend operations, enabling faster time to market. Both companies are working closely together, planning to add more integrated functions soon.
“With combined global reach and local expertise, the GK-Adyen collaboration positions retailers for confident expansion into new markets while meeting evolving consumer expectations. This partnership exemplifies GK’s goal to accelerate time to market and deliver measurable value to retailers,” said Orit Bar-Ad, Chief Innovation Evangelist at GK Software.
Hella Fuhrmann, Country Manager DACH at Adyen, added: “We are excited to partner with GK Software to redefine retail payment experiences. By combining our technology with GK’s platforms, we’re helping retailers enhance efficiency, deliver exceptional customer journeys, and scale successfully across markets.”
The benefits of this collaboration will be showcased at NRF 2025, where both companies will demonstrate how their integrated solutions empower retailers to thrive in an evolving marketplace.
About Adyen
Adyen (ADYEN:AMS) is the financial technology platform of choice for leading companies. By providing end-to-end payments capabilities, data-driven insights, and financial products in a single global solution, Adyen helps businesses achieve their ambitions faster. With offices around the world, Adyen works with the likes of Meta, Uber, H&M, eBay, and Microsoft. The cooperation with GK as described in this release underlines Adyen’s continuous growth with existing and new clients and partners over the years. For more information, visit Adyen.com
The development of personalized customer communication has gained momentum in recent years, resulting in many useful services for consumers across a range of channels. Personalization in retail now has countless application scenarios – all of which ultimately serve the goal of inspiring and retaining customers.
The use of personalized product recommendations in the area of conversational commerce, i.e. customer dialog, for example via chatbots, voice assistants or messaging apps in the purchasing process, offers retailers a good opportunity to provide their customers not only with information but also with suitable purchase recommendations. The recommendation engine behind it calculates the purchase recommendations based on certain key points – for example, a customer writes to the chatbot, “I'm currently reading the book >The Guardians< by John Grisham – do you have similar books?” In this case, the recommendation engine can suggest suitable books based on the genre and author given, which are highly likely to match the customer's interests. The customer's previous purchase and movement data in the online store can also be incorporated.
Depending on the industry and online store, different keywords (attributes) are included in the basis for the recommendation engine's calculations: in the fashion industry, for example, these are the brand, the clothing category such as “jacket”, “hat”, “trousers” or the colors, in the DIY sector the different product groups, areas of application or brands. The retailer can use their experience and define the attributes.
Would you like to learn more about this topic? We have been implementing various personalization scenarios in retail for over 25 years and would be happy to assist you.
Would you like to learn more about other application scenarios? Here you will find more information on the topics
Are marketplaces and personalization relevant for you? Here, you can read seven ideas for an individual shopping experience on marketplaces.
GK Software, a global leader in comprehensive retail applications for real-time omnichannel business systems, is pleased to announce a multi-year partnership with the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) as part of its transformational Future State Modernization (FSM) program. As the LCBO announced earlier this year, it will replace legacy systems - including ERP, order management and point-of-sale - with streamlined, commercial-off-the-shelf solutions. The program will re-build and strengthen the foundations of its IT infrastructure.
LCBO’s FSM program is designed to introduce operational excellence by leveraging technology to integrate processes, data and systems, which will improve speed to market and support best-in-class employee, wholesale and retail customer experiences.
After a competitive procurement process, GK is proud to be among the selected technology providers for this project, which includes industry leaders such as Adobe, Blue Yonder, Manhattan Associates, Microsoft, Mirakl, Opterus, Pegasystems, SAP and Salesforce.
GK Software's CLOUD4RETAIL suite was selected to provide a range of innovative solutions, including various POS solutions, Smart Label and Store Inventory Management (SIM), designed to increase customer engagement, streamline operations and provide more omnichannel options for LCBO customers.
“Customers expect a seamless omnichannel shopping experience,” said Michael Jaszczyk, CEO, GK. “We are very excited to be a part of LCBO’s modernization journey and help them deliver that top-notch customer experience.”
To learn more about how GK’s CLOUD4RETAIL platform helps innovative retailers provide an exceptional omnichannel experience, visit: https://www.gk-software.com/us/solutions/cloud4retail
GK Software today announced that Forrester Research, a leading global research and advisory firm, has named GK a Leader in its latest POS Solutions report.
Digital channels are playing an increasingly important role in the customer journey – shopping expectations, in-store experiences, and growing customer self-service demands have put POS in the spotlight. The Forrester Wave™: Point-Of-Service Solutions, Q4 2024 also assessed the strength of POS vendors' strategies. GK attributes its score of 4.00 in the “Strategy” category to its innovation strategy. GK received the highest possible score of 5.00 in criteria within this category such as innovation, roadmap, and partner ecosystem. GK also received the highest possible score of 5.00 in the criteria of in-store checkout and hardware compatibility, as well as globalization and localization.
“Retailers need a POS solution that accelerates their time to market and reduces burdens on their in-house development as well as ongoing maintenance. Our platform is built to deliver that—giving them the flexibility and openness to rapidly enable new apps and services, leverage retail-proven AI, and tap into a partner ecosystem. We see this recognition from Forrester as acknowledging our commitment to meeting our customers’ evolving needs, and to us, it’s a testament to our relentless focus on delivering solutions that drive real impact for retail leaders everywhere”, said Orit Bar-Ad, Chief Innovation Evangelist at GK Software.
In 2024, GK had been recognized in the Leaders Category for Worldwide Retail Loyalty Platform Software Providers by IDC MarketScape, among other reports. The company has furthermore recently established a new Customer Success Organization to drive forward innovation with its clients and has committed to including new item recognition and age verification features in its roadmap, as well as to support endless aisle in the POS UI.
According to the recently published Global POS Software 2024 study by strategic research and consulting firm RBR Data Services, a division of Datos Insights, GK is the second largest provider of new POS software worldwide in the study period July 2023 to June 2024 and measured by all new installations in eight industries analyzed. GK delivers 8% of new installations in the global retail market. In terms of new POS software installations in the food retail sector, GK takes first place with 15% of installations worldwide. The firm analyzed the installation figures of more than 140 POS software providers in 48 countries. Only projects with more than 1,000 POS systems were taken into account.
GK's core markets are primarily Europe, where the company is the second-largest provider, accounting for 19% of all new POS software installations in the region, as well as the USA, where GK implemented a similar share in the food retail sector. However, strong growth in the Middle East and Africa region also contributed to GK's good performance. Here, GK achieved 50% of new installations, particularly with its South African customer Shoprite.
GK results show that roll-out with new customers as well as growth and expansion with existing customers is progressing well and projects are being implemented quickly. Michael Scheibner, CEO of GK Software: “In 2024, GK was able to roll out a large number of POS projects worldwide, e.g., with new customers, and grow in existing customer projects, thus further expanding its strong market position. I see our extensive customer pipeline for 2025 as an indicator of further sustainable growth.”
About RBR Data Service
RBR Data Services provides clients with independent and reliable data and insights through published research, consulting and bespoke data services. Its global research is used by the leading market participants in the cards and payments, retail technology and banking automation sectors.
The Retail Innovators