ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Agricultural and Food Economics
Volume 9 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1543833
This article is part of the Research TopicSustainable and Mission-oriented Innovation in Economic Systems and Governance for Equitable Global Health and WellbeingView all 32 articles
Economic Factors Affecting Point-of-Sale Systems in Saudi Arabia’s Food Sectors
Provisionally accepted
- King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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This study investigates the influence of various macroeconomic variables on point-of-sale (POS) systems within the restaurant, café, and food & beverage sectors in Saudi Arabia, analyzing trends in both the total number and value of POS transactions from Q1 2016 to Q4 2023. The research utilized path regression analysis, following initial tests that revealed multicollinearity issues in a standard OLS model. The study was based on secondary data from the Saudi Central Bank and the General Authority for Statistics. The results reveal a positive correlation between several factors and POS sales: per capita income, population, the number of POS devices, credit card loan values, and the COVID-19 crisis, with increases in these factors contributing to higher POS sales. Conversely, higher inflation and the implementation of VAT were associated with a decrease in POS sales. These findings align with economic expectations. In terms of relative importance, the variables were ranked based on their impact on POS sales as follows: Population had the most significant influence, contributing 56.64%, followed by the COVID-19 crisis at 17.62%, inflation at 16.67%, credit card loans at 5.95%, per capita income at 1.69%, VAT at 1.26%, and the number of POS devices at 0.18%. The study offers important insights for policymakers and business leaders regarding strategies to support the expansion of cashless transactions and enhance sectoral resilience amid economic fluctuations.
Keywords: Food sector, restaurants and cafés, Point of sale, Inflation rate, Value-added tax, COVID-19 crisis, Variance inflation factors, Path analysis
Received: 11 Dec 2024; Accepted: 27 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Alnafissa, Alamri, Kotb and Aljohani. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mohamad Alnafissa, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
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