Tommy Bahama to adopt mobile-first POS solution across all its 160 stores
Tommy Bahama is rolling out a mobile-first point-of-sale solution that will give store employees everything they need to effectively and efficiently serve customers.
The island lifestyle brand, part of Tommy Bahama Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Oxford Industries Inc., has more than 160 stores (26 of which have restaurants and bars). It has selected Aptos One, a mobile-first point of sale application built on a cloud-native platform. With the solution, associates will have at their fingertips critical data such as real-time inventory information, advanced omnichannel selling and fulfillment options and guest insights.
The investment will allow Tommy Bahama to enhance its already stellar guest experience, optimize store operations and support its multichannel growth strategy, including pop-up retail events, the company said.
“In today’s retail landscape, technology is absolutely foundational to engaging our guests,” said Dave Boland, executive VP of technology, Tommy Bahama. “In our stores, the experience is largely delivered through our store associates. Aptos One will enable our associates to provide highly personalized and frictionless service. The platform’s flexibility will also unlock new opportunities as we continue to evolve our offerings.”
One example, said Boland, is increased mobility. With Aptos One, Tommy’s store associates can serve guests directly in the aisle while they’re still evaluating purchase decisions, rather than waiting until the guest has already made a decision and walked to the cash wrap, he explained.
Another advantage of Aptos One is its speed.
“This POS solution is quick and intuitive, enabling more convenient and streamlined transactions,” Boland said. Plus, with Aptos ONE’s highly composable architecture, we’ll be able to add capabilities much faster than before, ensuring our retail experience remains fresh, differentiated and highly aligned with our guests’ needs.”
Beyond the benefits, Tommy Bahama’s decision to implement the solution was driven by several IT and operational considerations, including the following:
- Simplified configuration management. With more than 1,000 out-of-the-box configuration settings, Aptos One simplifies configuration management, allowing for rapid deployment of changes and the ability to meet retailers’ unique operational requirements.
“With just a few clicks, you can make changes across the entire store network or specific stores, giving us the ability to react very quickly while reducing cost and complexity,” said David Liu Jr., product manager, retail systems and payment technology, at Tommy Bahama. Sophisticated pop-ups. While Tommy Bahama is already adept at pop-up retailing, Liu believes Aptos One will bring a new level of operational sophistication to these events, allowing, transactions and data to flow through to the company’s enterprise systems in real time, which isn’t always the case today
“We can scale our pop-up activities in a meaningful way," Liu said, paving the way for boosted revenue streams and the ability to introduce Tommy Bahama to more people who want to ‘Live the Island Life.’”
Future innovation: “Aptos is investing heavily in Aptos ONE, so it is in our best interest to leverage innovations that our technology partner is bringing to market,” Boland said.
Underscoring Boland’s point, Aptos said it has committed to its largest R&D spend in company history in 2025, with that investment funding major new Aptos One features, faster release cycles and a transition to a unified data model.
