Coinstar for Retail

The way consumers shop has changed drastically over the years, and when it comes to grocery shopping, the growth in technology has led to new ways to amplify the shopping experience. Online shopping has started to reduce foot traffic to most retail stores, and while the ability to order your groceries online has decreased the physical footprint of stores, Shopify found that “61% of shoppers would rather shop with brands that also have a physical location over brands that are online only.” However, according to NCR, 73% of consumers believe that the checkout line is the biggest pain while shopping and as much as one-fifth of those customers have said they will abandon their items altogether if the lines are too long. 

So what does this mean for you? It’s simple: customers are looking for the easiest checkout experience possible. In this article, we will cover what’s behind this demand and how you can capitalize on it to create a better customer experience that drives repeat business.

Making Cash Frictionless

The 2022 U.S. Grocery Tracker report from JLL found that “technological advancements in retail…serve as crucial differentiators, providing retailers the chance to set themselves apart from their competitors.” While this sentiment can be easily applied to shoppers who prefer paying with cards or digital wallets, what does it mean for the 19% of shoppers who prefer to pay in cash? 

Cash payments at a register are normal, but waiting in line to checkout can be tedious for shoppers in a hurry. However, many stores don’t allow for customers to check out with cash at self-checkout kiosks. The solution is simple; by integrating a closed cash management system into every self-checkout kiosk in your store, you give all customers the added benefits of reduced shrinkage, cash flow improvements, and process efficiencies. A closed cash management system keeps cash locked away for the duration of its lifecycle in a store, ensuring that cash is never exposed or handled manually once it has left the customer’s hand. With obvious security and efficiency benefits for both your store and your customers, implementing this system into your self-checkout kiosks eliminates cash differences, allows for automatic reconciliation, and allows your team to focus on jobs more important than counting cash.

Creating a Streamlined Shopping Experience

Amazon One allows some Whole Foods customers to scan their palm on their way out of the store to pay for their items. This technology entirely eliminates the checkout line. While this type of technology is a long way away from adoption for most grocers, you can still make the checkout process in your stores easier with simple changes. Here are 3 ways to create a smoother shopping experience:

Payment Options

Ensure payment options include mobile and contactless payments.  Ashleigh DePopas, Co-Founder and Head of GoCart, observed that customers “want this choice and flexibility of all these different payment methods, and they also want it to be really simple and easy to check out.” While these things often don’t go hand in hand, an effortless method to provide both for your customers is to offer solutions such as Apple Pay, wireless tap-to-pay, and even payment with cryptocurrency. 

Simplified Experience

Provide a better and more streamlined experience to meet your customers’ needs. While technology like Amazon One has a “wow” factor, many consumers are simply looking for a better, more streamlined experience while shopping. Implementing a buy online and pick up in-store system or merely increasing the number of self-checkout lanes are two easy ways to begin improving the customer’s experience immediately.

Easy Cash Payments

Make cash payments frictionless. Including closed cash management systems in your self-checkout kiosks or adding a Coinstar kiosk to your store gives your customers even more options when it comes to payment, all the while reducing wait times to check out.

Capitalizing on Growth with Customer Loyalty

The grocery industry has continued to grow even through the pandemic. The grocery industry grew by 9.4% in 2020 and sustained that growth in 2021. To maximize your business’s results, it’s important to have practices like a frictionless checkout in place that drive customer loyalty, which will help you capitalize on the growth in the industry. For more grocery industry insights, follow Coinstar for Retail on LinkedIn and Facebook.