10 Tips To Speed Up The Retail Checkout Process

Business needs customers to earn profit and to establish themselves in business.

The more people you get on checkout, the more profit you are making. However, there is a situation that most retailers face. And it’s called – the delayed retail checkout process.

You can feel the customer is getting frustrated, hearing more toe-tapping and eye rolls, these are signs that your checkout process is too slow for your audience.

Time is important, not just for you but for the customers too.

A study conducted by Omnico Group says that there are 3 out of 4 Americans who feel to go back if the line in-store is long and they have to spend more time waiting.

It says 8 minutes of waiting can make the customer drop the idea of shopping and abandon their cart. For old and aged customers, it can be less than 6 minutes.

How To Speed Up Your Checkout Process – Tips To Consider

No customer likes waiting in long lines. The majority wants to avoid it, and some have to do it because they don’t have options.

Your slow checkout process increases frustrated shoppers and poor customer satisfaction. It affects sales and visits too.

Slow checkout is the reason why lots of people prefer e-commerce instead of retail stores.

Well, the brick-and-mortar checkout experiences changed a lot. The retailers evolved their process to offer fast checkout to their customers.

To make sure you are providing better results, here are some of the tips you can try to speed up the checkout process.

1. Offer Different Payment Methods

Image source: DigiPay.guru

Nowadays, people look for options to pay easily. Shoppers also add new methods and the latest options to cut time.

The options are more than paying cards and cash. For retailers, it’s crucial to accommodating more methods of payment.

It will help you in reducing lineups. Also, it makes the speed much faster during the checkout process.

It’s ideal to have more options in payment, so it becomes easier for the shopper to do their payments.

There are different types that you can consider, for example –

Mobile Payments: According to the Blackhawk Network survey, 3 out of 5 users in the US have a mobile wallet.

With that, not just large numbers of people have an easier way to pay but also for retailers it becomes easier to get sales even though people left their wallets at home.

Contactless Payment: Instead of chip and pin transactions, contactless payments are a much faster option.

Well, lots of major credit card companies have adopted tap-and-pay technology. It has become a more important as well as a popular method for in-store buyers.

Pro Tip: Check out if there are chargebacks on doing payment contactless. Also, minimize the use of apps that have secondary authentications like Google Pay and Apple Pay.

2. Train Your People For Fast Process

Training your people to work faster and more effectively is helpful especially when they are dealing with technology stuff.

Where having technology and POS can help in improving the speed, your staff should know how to process the checkout smoothly.

Knowing how much everything would take and how to handle the situations can help in providing customer satisfaction. But also it will increase the retail checkout process too.

Pro Tip: For a technology like POS and other devices, make sure to add in your staff training. So they can be more familiar with and easy while handling them.

3. Consider BOPIS Option

Image source: Totalretail

BOPIS is also known as the Buy online pick in-store option.

Well, convenience is one of the elements that gives successful purchase satisfaction to customers.

40% of in-store buyers stated that convenience in their checkouts is a crucial part for them.

BOPIS gives the same option to your in-store buyers. The option gives a great deal to buyers who want to buy something without waiting for the delivery.

With the help of BOPIS, lots of problems are discouraging buyers today to use the retail options.

Image source: retailcustomerexperience

According to Business Insider’s article, more than 70% of US consumers are using BOPIS.

With the help of BOPIS, your checkout process also increases. People visit your store just to pick up the item they ordered and already paid for.

Not just that, with BOPIS, here are more profits you get-

It increases profitability and sales by boosting the cash flow. Your customer does prepaid.

It boosts the impulse bus from retail which reduces the delivery cost.

For shoppers, it saves time as they have everything completed earlier.

It optimizes the customer experience overall

4. Choose Using Digital Receipts

Image source: retailtechnologytrends

Digital receipts are not just environment friendly, but it decreases the rush from checkout lines.

Because of this, shoppers will not waste their time standing in line to get a receipt. And also your staff won’t have to refile the printers which mostly put your customers in a bad mood.

With this, there is more profit in using digital receipt instead of printing. For example-

Digital receipts help you in getting more emails which helps in email list building.

It adds personalizing the message and receipts to boost loyalty and customer satisfaction.

It reduces fraudulent returns.

It decreases the cost of printed recipients and refining

With this, you can get more future interactions by adding links to the website and social media.

Pro Tip: During the retail digital receipt, the most important part is to protect the privacy of your customer information.

Make sure you are legally and with consent asking for the email collections.

5. Improve Your POS & Displays

Improving your points of sale marketing can help you in dissolving the tension that causes waiting lines.

Because no matter what you do, there will be a peak time when the volume of buyers increases. To stimulate the line and handle the waiting, you can offer small stuff or increase the impulse items.

Image source: Simpsongroup

Use the idea to divert attention. There is a solid reason why lots of stores have a national enquirer right in front of their lines.

With this, the customer can get easily distracted, and also you can utilize the time as well.

6. Use Email For Offers & Rewards

Reward programs are helpful in getting more revenue. But with this, it also increases brand loyalty among the audience.

To target customers, most retailers use lines to tell them more about such reward programs. However, explaining the benefits and reasons takes time which affects the checkout process.

Image source: EnchantAgency

You can digitize this and ask for email signs for getting the incentive programs as well as rewards.

It hardly takes a few seconds and you will boost your email listing as well.

According to the research, targeting your customer when they are in line is a bad idea. Almost 80% of people are into doing fast checkout.

Instead of that, use emails to offer rewards. With this, you can also help in getting more satisfaction for your customer.

7. Keep Your Customer Engaged

The customers who wait in long lines are not just frustrated but bored too. You can use this opportunity to entertain them and distract their thoughts.

Well, for example, Disney World is the happiest and busiest place on earth. For them, it’s impossible to give fast checkouts and long lines.

However, have you ever heard people making a riot about it? The reasons are, According to Harvard School, Disney world mastered the art of distraction.

To avoid any kind of riot or customer frustration in a long waiting line, they make sure that their customers are well entertained and enjoying their time.

For that, they use characters and do performances so the people can bear the lines.

Well, for retailers, it’s not about hiring performers. But the idea is to entertain your customers in your own way.

Add things that can make your customer enjoy their time instead of waiting to get to the checkout point.

You can offer water bottles, do surveys, and give free Wi-Fi.

With this, your customers will focus less on the line. And it will reduce the frustration along with fasting the retail process.

8. Add an Extra Lane Or Terminal

Adding a new terminal for POS payment and one for cash can help in diverting the customers.

Also having extra lanes can help you in filtering the customers who are using cash for payment. It can take more time compared to those who are using POS payment methods.

Lots of time, people take time to count cash and fumble around it. Not just it adds extra pressure on both parties, but those impatient customers can get angrier about it.

Having an extra terminal or Lane can divide into two lines. Those who are using credit and debit cards can get into one and make fast payments.

It will encourage more people to use their cards instead of cash. You can add mobile terminals and add tablets to your POS hardware.

Not just will it speed the speed of the checkout process, but it will also decrease confusion and keep the line moving.

9. Add EMV Payment

EMV stands for Europe, Mastercard, and Visa.

Well, it can help you in getting fast checkouts. Also, it’s much more secure. With this, the bank becomes responsible for any fraudulent transactions. It gives much more relaxation to the retail stores as it doesn’t push on the merchant’s responsibility.

Also, you get more secure and safe regarding your business as well as your customer.

10. Train Your Staff To Handling Queues

Even though everything is, you get the line moving at a snail’s pace. The last thing your customer wants is a cashier ignoring them.

It’s crucial to have staff that knows how to handle the queues without making them more frustrated.

It’s important for proactive customer service techniques during the training period.

When you are using POS, make sure you know the peak hours of your business. Plan your staff according to that and keep the adequate numbers to manage the rush hours.

Do & Don’ts That You Must Know About Checkout Process

There are more than 46% of abandoned carts that checkouts have to face. There are lots of reasons behind you having such big numbers.

Having customers who leave your retail just because of the slow and late checkout process affects your business. The chances of returning such customers are low, and it markets the wrong idea too.

To make sure you follow these do and don’t.

Don’t Give Complex Instructions & Navigation

Having complicated navigation or checkout; for example, the counter is way too far or not enough to handle the numbers can cause people to leave the store.

Give easy and simple navigation for your customer. So they can get a fast checkout process. Also, let them know that you got the staff to handle their problems and queries in case they have one.

Do Offer Up – Front Discounts

The idea of not letting your customer go, well, for that, you can offer upfront discounts. This will help the buyers to stick to the very end to save money and enjoy the discount.

You can inform us about the discounts through emails. So people know already that there are discounts when they go through the checkout process.

Don’t Add Delaying Steps

Asking for your customer to do signups or telling them about the loyalty program. Well, these will add elements that waste time.

Also, most of the customers at this point want to get done with their shopping and go home. Asking them to sign up can cause more fatigue and frustration too.

To make sure they know more about your loyalty program, ask for their email, as it takes less time. You can give details to sign up through emails.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to improve the retail experience?

By improving the retail experience, you boost the trust of your customer along with customer satisfaction. This makes sure that your customers visit again and again.

Why should retailers focus on abandoned carts?

One of the reasons behind abandoned carts is the extra costs which are not expected by the customers. Also, it can be due to the late checkout process.

For retailers, abandoned carts are a sign of a lack of trust in the brand, and people reject the USP of the retailers.

How to entertain people in waiting lines?

To make sure your customers are not frustrated due to boredom, you can offer free Wi-Fi. Use comfortable areas to relax and use television etc. like ideas.

Also, your staff can communicate with them so they know what is going on and how much they have to wait.