Every POS vendor lists billing, inventory, customers and reports. That tells you nothing, because all of them have those. The differences are in places the brochure does not go.
Does it fit how you actually sell
This is the question that matters most and gets asked least. If you sell loose by weight, ask to see it billed by the gram. If you sell sets that customers split, ask to see six plates come out of a thirty-two piece set with the stock staying correct.
General software handles the general case. Your business is the specific case, and the specific case is where the software either works or quietly does not.
- Weight, packs and pieces from one stock figure
- Size and colour variants if you sell them
- Batch and expiry if your stock has dates
What happens when the internet drops
Ask it plainly and listen to whether the answer is specific. Cloud software needs a connection, and any vendor who pretends otherwise is either misunderstanding the question or hoping you do not follow up.
The practical answer for most shops is a phone hotspot as backup. What matters is that the vendor tells you that rather than avoiding it.
Whose data is it
You should be able to export everything, at any time, in a format you can open. If the only way to get your own sales history out is to ask the vendor nicely, you are not a customer, you are a hostage.
Ask what happens to your data if you stop paying. A good answer is a specific retention period and a full export. A vague answer is an answer.
Who answers when something breaks
At seven in the evening with a queue at the counter, the thing that matters is whether somebody picks up. Ask what support looks like in practice, what hours, and on what channel.
For most shops in Pakistan the honest answer is WhatsApp, because that is what people actually use.
What it really costs
Ask for the total for a year, including setup, training, data loading and any per-branch or per-user charge. Then ask what happens to the price at renewal.
A low first-year price with an unspecified second year is a common shape, and it is worth knowing before you have three years of data inside the system.
Take a trial and bill real sales on it for a week. A week of your own shop tells you more than any demonstration, because a demonstration is designed to go well.
