Make or break point!
Retailers have introduced express counters and mobile phone payment options to reduce the time spent at point of sale queue. This development results in a loss of several hundred crore to the retail industry each year and senior management across various formats; luxury, grocery and department stores are taking steps to address this issue. Clearly, an efficient POS strategy and suitable training of staff are viewed as key, apart from understanding the consumer behavior pattern in
different store formats. And, that’s because consumers at a POS queue at a grocery store are more patient vis-à-vis those at
Lifestyle store or Zara. Retailers like Bharti Easy Day, Big Bazaar and Auchan have already taken steps to reduce the waiting time at the POS via express counters for customers with less than 10 items to purchase. Apart from that, Metro Cash and Carry has scan-as-youbuy and mobile phone payment options, to reduce the time spent at check-out counter. Ajay Kaul,
CEO of Jubilant Foodworks, said, “A combination of appropriate behavioural training for customer service staff and efficient IT systems are key for managing the POS queue.”
Apart from regular shopping days, on promotional and allied activities, customer queues at POS can lengthen considerably
and retailers would need to respond appropriately. Globally, in the food service and allied industries, McDonald’s is viewed as the benchmark, with consumers served in less than half a minute. Lokvir Kapoor, CEO of Pine Labs, a payment
solution provider, said, “An awkward experience at POS can impact store loyalty over the long-term.” At the other end of the
spectrum, luxury brands like LVMH and Gucci offer their consumers a coffee or allied items, while the bill is being prepaid. Jagdeep Kapoor, managing director of Samsika Marketing Consultants, said, “The POS is the ‘moment of truth’ for any retailer and he needs to delight the customer.”
CONSUMER FEEDBACK
A survey of 500 respondents related to POS highlighted:
# Two-fifth would wait less than five minutes at a grocery store’s POS queue
# One-fifth would wait 5-10 minutes at an apparel store’s POS queue
# One-third of shoppers utilise credit cards at POS
# Average time spent at Big Bazaar’s POS is 8-10 minutes, and 5-7 minutes at Zara And, with consumers increasingly short of time, an increasing number are shifting to e-commerce, both for the variety of products offered and it eliminates the need for waiting in a queue at POS.
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