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At HDL, we’re not just building for today—we’re constantly experimenting, testing, and pushing boundaries to meet tomorrow’s demands. That’s why we recently cracked open our innovation lab for a bold new experiment: building a Point of Sale (POS) MVP/POC system tightly integrated with HDL Commerce and powered by the Stripe Terminal API.

What started as a pure innovation project quickly turned into a real-world testbed for cross-border retail transactions, physical-to-digital sync, and seamless payment lifecycle management.

Opening Up the Lab: A Hands-On MVP Approach

Rather than waiting for a traditional product cycle, we decided to open up our internal lab, roll up our sleeves, and start prototyping. The goal? Create a POS system that doesn’t just work—but thrives in real-world conditions across multiple locations and countries.

Using the Stripe Terminal API, our engineering team began designing a flexible and secure infrastructure that allows:

• In-store payments with real-time sync to HDL Commerce

• Multi-location support for retailers with stores across regions

• Cross-border payment terminal configuration and compliance

• End-to-end tracking of the payment lifecycle—from tap to payout

This wasn’t just a Stripe wrapper—we mapped out the full experience: from inventory management to terminal device activation, customer receipts, and transaction reconciliation.

Learning Through Experimentation

A few key challenges we tackled during this innovation sprint:

• Terminal provisioning across markets
  Setting up devices across borders came with unique Stripe compliance and merchant account requirements. We mapped these processes into a repeatable onboarding guide for future customers.

• Lifecycle syncing with HDL Commerce
  We engineered real-time hooks to connect Stripe events with our order and customer management modules—ensuring every in-store transaction updates stock, customer data, and analytics instantly.

• Fallbacks, refunds, and reconciliation
  We tested edge cases like disconnected terminals, failed payments, and return flows, ensuring the HDL POS system could handle them all with robust logging and fallback logic.

Why This Matters

While this was an MVP, the outcome has already laid the foundation for:

• A future HDL Commerce POS product line

• Better omnichannel commerce experiences for our clients

• Streamlined physical retail operations powered by modern APIs

• Flexible infrastructure that lets us adapt quickly to market and client needs

We believe the future of commerce is not just headless and digital—but unified across all customer touchpoints. This MVP is our step toward giving every HDL Commerce user the power to bridge the online and offline retail world.

What’s Next?

As we move toward a more production-ready version, we’re continuing to experiment with:

• Loyalty point integration at checkout

• Click & collect workflows

• Hardware abstraction for broader terminal support

• POS-based upselling tied to digital customer profiles

This project is a great example of how we approach innovation at HDL: fast, hands-on, and grounded in real business needs. If you’re a merchant, partner, or integration specialist curious about the next frontier of commerce—we’d love to hear from you.