In October 2025, Salesforce announced a strategic collaboration with Zebra Technologies and Google’s Android team to offer a new mobile point-of-sale (PoS) solution for physical retail environments.
- Retailers are under pressure to modernise their in-store operations: According to Salesforce, 81 % of retailers say inefficient processes and technology drain store-associate productivity; also, store associates are spending 72 % of their time on tasks unrelated to checkout.
- The new solution, called Retail Cloud POS on Android, is built to address these inefficiencies by combining:
- Salesforce’s cloud-native commerce/CRM/PoS platform,
- Zebra’s ruggedised mobile/handheld hardware (already common in frontline operations), and
- Google’s Android OS ecosystem (for flexibility, device reach, and familiar UX).
- For retailers already using Zebra devices, this offers a faster route to upgrade PoS functionality without wholesale hardware replacement.
Key features of the offering
- Hardware flexibility: Retailers can deploy the Retail Cloud POS app on Zebra Android devices they already own. “No need for new hardware investments or lengthy deployments,” per Salesforce.
- Mobile, frontline-ready workflows: Store associates can use handheld Zebra Android devices across the store floor to look up customer profiles, order statuses, pick lists, and product information — not just operate at a fixed checkout.
- Unified commerce experience: With this three-way collaboration, the goal is to link online/omnichannel and in-store experiences in a seamless way — aligning digital commerce data with physical store operations.
- Speed of onboarding & training: Because the hardware is familiar and the app is streamlined, associates can be trained more rapidly, reducing deployment downtime.
Strategic implications
- For Salesforce, this marks a stronger push into the physical retail space, bridging digital commerce and store operations under the umbrella of what they call “agentic commerce”.
- For Zebra, the partnership validates its mobile device ecosystem (especially Android-based rugged devices) for frontline retail PoS and operations.
- For Google/Android, it reinforces Android’s role not only on consumer devices but as a platform for enterprise and retail environments, leveraging scale and familiarity.
- For retailers, this means potentially lower TCO (total cost of ownership) for PoS upgrades, faster deployment, and improved associate productivity.
Launch timeline & availability
- The blog announcement from Salesforce states that Retail Cloud POS on Android will be available in December 2025.
- The solution was publicly unveiled around the time of this announcement (and has been covered by industry press) as part of the wider launch at events such as Dreamforce 2025.
Challenges & considerations
- While the hardware flexibility is a strong benefit, retailers will still need to verify their Zebra Android devices are compatible, and manage app deployment and device management at scale (including security, updates, accessories).
- Training and change management remains important: even with familiar hardware, shifting to a new unified PoS workflow across mobile and stationary contexts requires process change.
- Integration with existing systems: Retailers with legacy PoS, inventory, fulfilment, or back-office systems will need to ensure the new platform plugs into their wider ecosystem.
- Retailer readiness for mobile, associate-empowered workflows: Organisations may need to rethink store floor roles, mobile device management, and data access policies.
What this means for RFID / connected-store
- The collaboration signals the growing maturity of in-store technology ecosystems: mobile PoS, cloud commerce, connected devices (including RFID, barcode scanners, mobile computers) are converging.
- NFC allows for seemless payments within most modern mobile devices.
- For RFID-based inventory or item-level visibility systems, the ability for store associates to access real-time item-level data (for example via handheld Zebra Android devices) becomes more realistic when the PoS platform supports mobile workflows.
- Organisations investing in RFID should take note: if the mobile PoS platform supports handheld Android devices (such as Zebra’s) and integrates with the retail cloud, then scanning/tag reading workflows (e.g., inventory checks, tag-based fulfilment) can be more tightly embedded into the store associate’s workflow.
- The three-way collaboration suggests that hardware + OS + cloud software stacks will increasingly drive how retailers adopt connected-store tech — meaning that solution providers in RFID or IoT should align with device/OS/cloud platforms (rather than only standalone gateways).
The partnership between Salesforce, Zebra Technologies, and Google (Android) aims to deliver a modern mobile PoS solution built for the evolving demands of physical retail. By leveraging existing Zebra Android devices, Salesforce’s cloud commerce platform, and the Android ecosystem, the offering seeks to simplify deployment, empower store associates, improve inventory accuracy, and create a unified shopping experience across channels. For retailers, this represents an opportunity to upgrade their in-store operations with reduced hardware cost and faster time to deployment — and for RFID/IoT stakeholders, the move is a clear signal that mobile front-line workflows are becoming central to store technology strategy.
Zebra Press Release: https://www.zebra.com/gb/en/about-zebra/newsroom/press-releases/2025/zebra-and-salesforce-introduce-retail-cloud-pos-solution-on-android-to-streamline-store-operations.html
Salesforce Press Release: https://www.salesforce.com/blog/commerce-cloud-pos-android-zebra/