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BlueStar Retail & Hospitality Newsletter Q4.24

BlueStar : January 7, 2025 11:33:35 AM EST

Digital Sigange Retail Self-Service Hospitality

And that's a wrap on 2024!

by Amy Masterman

We have had an incredibly busy year, expanding our offerings and ensuring we're always staying ahead of the curve. Our focus has been on broadening our Retail & Hospitality line card with exciting new vendors and well-known names, which has helped us round out our portfolio, especially in Digital Signage. We're thrilled to welcome oona, with their range of rugged tablets and screens featuring built-in NFC and IP65 protection; Philips, bringing non-touch large format displays for digital signage; and LANDI Global, offering an innovative and growing Android POS and mobility range, as well as a new window POS solution.

This year, we've concentrated on supporting you with two specific technologies. First, we've built a comprehensive portfolio of self-service solutions from over 10 vendors, enabling us to assist you in finding the perfect solution, whether custom or out-of-the-box. Second, with Philips now on board, we've significantly enhanced our digital signage capabilities, offering large format touch and non-touch screens, computer modules, ISV partnerships, and mounting solutions to support a wide range of digital signage needs.

Finally to bolster your success even further, we've developed new brochures and dedicated microsites for Retail & Hospitality, Self-Service, and Digital Signage. These resources are designed to help you make the most of our expanded portfolio and expertise. We're immensely proud of the hard work we've invested this year to bring you these advancements and new opportunities which you can find more about in this newsletter.

Self Service

Discover the world of self-service solutions with BlueStar, your trusted partner in cutting-edge interactive technology. With over a decade of experience, we've established ourselves as the go-to resource in the dynamic self-service market. Our expertise lies not only in providing individual components for kiosk builders but also in crafting comprehensive self-service solutions tailored to your needs.

We pride ourselves on our vast portfolio of vendors, offering you access to a diverse range of self-service components, standalone units, and applications from over 10 leading manufacturers. This extensive selection ensures that we can meet any requirement, whether you're looking for specific parts or a complete solution.

We have expanded this year to include more dedicated local sales resources as well are more market resources such as our Self Service microsite & brochure.

Queue Busting

Shop Ergonomic Solutions Kiosk>

Shop oona 22>

Shop Epson TM-M30III>

QSR

Shop Star Sanei Kiosk Printers>

Shop MicroTouch Open Frame Touchscreens>

Shop Custom OEM Scanners>

Digital Signage

Let's talk about how BlueStar can transform your visual communication with our innovative digital signage solutions. We're not just another hardware provider - we're your dedicated partners in the world of digital displays, committed to helping your business make a lasting impression.

Imagine dynamic screens that capture attention, menus that update in real-time, and promotions you can manage from anywhere. That's the power of digital signage, and we're here to bring it to life for you. We can combine the hardware offering and necessary software with our ISV program to put you in touch with the right partner .

What sets us apart is our personalised approach. Our team works closely with you to understand your unique needs and find the perfect solution. Whether you're in retail, hospitality, healthcare, or any other sector, we're here to ensure you get the right technology for your specific requirements. We offer a range of products from leading manufacturers, giving you access to the best technology in the industry.

2024 Events Highlight

TEConnect Spain

Madrid was the venue for our TEConnect Retail event in May 2024. Aimed at allowing vendors and partners to identify joint opportunities in retail, the event covered discussions about the vision behind vendor solutions & why they developed them, what problems they are solving and how they foresee the development of the market in the future. The event brought together 50 reseller partners, 4 ISVs from our TEConnect programme and ELO, Custom, APG, Epson & Zebra. Solutions showcased included Self Check Out, Kiosk, Cash Management, Digital Signage, Back of Store and Personal Shopper.

2024 UK POS Event

In November we hosted our annual UK Retail & Hospitality Show at the beautiful Victoria & Albert Marriott Hotel in Manchester!

This show brings together our vendors and partners for an insightful day of discovering the latest developments in the POS technology space, sparking fresh ideas and relationships.

From delving into the latest trends & technologies to networking with peers across the full range of retail & hospitality solutions, we're opening the door to future success.

Unboxed 2024

Unboxing the Custom Connect Kiosk POS Solution

Richard & Amy unbox the new Custom Connect Kiosk in both Counter-mounted and floor-mounted formats, highlighting the versatility of this solution as a game changer for the future of retail technology.

Unboxing the Star Micronics mPop Cashdrawer Solution

Join Richard Austin & Amy Masterman in the brand new EMEA Unboxed video as they highlight the Star Micronics mPop cashdrawer solution. This solution offers versatile usage for various point-of-sale configurations for both retail & hospitality applications.

New Vendors

We have added many new vendors to our line card this year but the Retail & Hospitality team want to highlight Landi, oona, Philips and Bear Robotics. We partnered with Landi to bring their cutting-edge POS solutions, backed by extensive product expertise and exceptional support, to a wider range of customers across the EMEA region in order to meet the evolving needs of the retail and hospitality sectors. oona brought devices softPOS ready with the contactless payment technology built right into the screen for ultra-fast transactions. Philips were the perfect addition to our digital signage portfolio with their extensive non touch screens up to 86”. Finally we brought on board Bear Robotics who are ahead of the curve with their innovative robots perfect for a variety of retail & hospitality use cases.

Find out more via the logos below!

Spain 2025 Veri*factu regulations

Fiskaly & BlueStar: Understanding Veri*factu & Tax Regulations in Spain

by Esther García

2025 in Spain will see the mandatory implementation of electronic invoicing for all companies. From 1 July 2025, companies with a turnover of less than €6 million will have to immediately provide their invoicing to the Tax Agency. Royal Decree 1007/2023, which was published on 5 December, establishes the obligation to comply with VeriFactu, although it will be necessary to wait for the Ministerial Order that develops this system to be published, which will come into force on 1 July 2025, and during this 9-month period, both hardware manufacturers and software developers can have their equipment and computer systems adapted to this new regulation.

With the implementation of the tool VeriFactu, the retail and hospitality sectors in Spain could improve operational efficiency, reduce fraud and ensure regulatory compliance, driving and adapting to the increasing digitalisation of commercial transactions. From BlueStar we want to help and support such implementation through our commercial network of specialists, software partners, solutions and manufacturers from our POS Division.

Resources

We have developed new brochures and dedicated microsites for Retail & Hospitality, Self-Service, and Digital Signage. These resources are designed to help you make the most of our expanded portfolio and expertise. We're immensely proud of the useful resources we have available to support you which are linked below.