While having friendly sales staff, top-notch products, and eye-catching visual merchandising will attract potential customers to your store, what happens at your retail counter is a vital part of turning prospects into paying customers. According to one study, retailers are losing roughly $37.7 billion in potential sales due to long checkout lines. If you’re missing the mark at the checkout counter, it could significantly impact sales. Here’s why this part of your business is important, as well as strategies you can use to increase checkout times.
Do Long Checkout Lines Impact Sales?
When customers have to wait in long lines to pay for items, does this hurt retail sales? The answer is yes. The checkout is the final experience your retail customers have in your store, so a slow or frustrating experience could give them a negative impression of your brand.
Not only will some customers decide not to return to your store because of long checkout lines, but they might also tell others about their experiences. Word-of-mouth advertising among friends and family can have an impact on your sales. Some people will also share their impression in an online review, which could be devastating for a business, particularly if there is a trend.
On the other hand, retailers that offer customers a positive and speedy checkout experience can reap the rewards. In fact, over half of customers indicate that a positive experience is a more important influence on their impression of a brand than advertising. Customers are also much more likely to make additional purchases or enroll in loyalty programs if they are having a positive shopping experience.
10 Top Ways to Boost Checkout Times and Increase Sales
If you want to avoid losing sales in your retail store, you need to rethink how you approach the checkout process. Here are ideas for speeding up the process and increasing sales through greater customer retention.
1. Simplify Your Checkout Process
It might be tempting to try to collect as much data about your customers as possible while they are in front of a checkout associate. However, asking customers to recite their email addresses, phone numbers, and home addresses can take forever and frustrate the people still in line. If you want this valuable data, consider handing out an online discount card with a QR code that requires an exchange of information for the discount.
2. Consider Forgoing Receipts
Another change you can make to your processes that can speed up your checkout lines is to forego anything on paper, such as receipts. While some customers will still insist on a paper receipt with their purchase, those who are already in your system will likely be happy to receive a receipt via text or email.
3. Encourage Cashless Purchases
When lines are snaking through your store, it takes longer for your employees to accept cash and count change than it would to process electronic payments. While some people might still prefer to pay with cash, you can encourage them to use cashless options to get through the line quicker.
4. Train Your Staff
When your staff is distracted or confused, it’s going to take much longer for them to complete a checkout. This will also frustrate many of your shoppers and send them to competitors. Invest in staff training that teaches efficient scanning, bagging, and other customer service strategies.
5. Post Clear Signage
Simply informing your customers about what they can expect in your store can ease their anxiety related to long queues and improve sales. For example, you can post signs telling customers how long they can expect to wait from a certain point or tell them which payment methods you accept in advance.
6. Offer Self-Checkout Options
While many consumers might not enjoy the self-checkout experience, there’s little denying that offering this option speeds up the checkout process. Instead of forcing customers to use self-checkout, many retailers are now giving customers a choice or limiting the number of items in self-checkout to prevent congestion.
7. Use Mobile Checkout Stations
Simply viewing long lines in a retail store can send customers back out the front door. You can cut down on these lines by offering mobile checkout stations throughout the store. Using mobile powered carts, sales associates can ring up purchases from anywhere in the store.
8. Consider Alternative Purchasing Strategies
During the pandemic, many consumers discovered and found that they enjoyed alternative shopping methods. One popular one that can also reduce lines in your store is Buy Online, Pickup In-Store (BOPIS). Customers can do their shopping at home and pick up their items either inside the store or in the parking lot.
9. Leverage Contactless Product Scanning
One action that takes a ton of time and can lead to delays is having to physically scan every product at the checkout station. You can eliminate this by switching to RFID tags, which are automatically read by a scanner when they pass through the checkout station.
10. Invest in a Modern POS System
Finally, your point-of-sale system can make or break the overall checkout experience. If sales associates are struggling with technology or counting change from a cash drawer, it’s going to take a lot of time and frustrate your customers. A modern POS system will work with mobile devices and speed up the entire process.
At the end of your customer’s retail journey, the last thing you want to do is create any friction that would prevent them from completing the sale. Long lines and confusing checkout processes will do this. Fortunately, you can use several different strategies to speed out checkout times, increase sales, and improve your customer’s overall shopping experience.
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