The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that Shopify is launching new point-of-sale hardware in Canada, as it aims to widen its offerings for brick-and-mortar stores amid a slowdown in e-commerce growth. The Globe's Temur Durrani writes that the retail technology, dubbed POS Go, was first introduced in the United States last year. It will be made available for Canadian businesses starting this week, with an option for translation services in French geared toward merchants in Quebec. Demand for physical retail has increased steadily as of late. Transactions made through Shopify's point-of-sale system grew 31 per cent in the first quarter of 2023, suggesting in-person shopping trends are slowly bouncing back after plunging earlier in the pandemic. That is why Shopify has been "heavily" increasing its investments in this area of growth, according to Shopify's Arpan Podduturi. "Today, we know that consumers will often have researched their purchase on-line before going in store, and so, it's up to retailers to capture that foot traffic." Shopify's new handheld machine is the latest entrant in the exceedingly crowded payments sector, which includes point-of-sale players such as Square, Stripe and Lightspeed.