Not just catching fleas. Why speed is so important for any store

Oil painting: in the morning you ran into the classic network "Malinka" for a bun or apple. Quickly took the goods, promptly rushed to the checkout. Before the start of the working day 10 minutes. In front of you at the checkout are three more representatives of office plankton. No one has a trolley full of goods. A maximum of 5-6 items in hand. But they have been served for so long that a whole line has time to line up behind you. Yes, maybe the cashier is a dumb chicken. But maybe it's not her. Let's analyze what could have gone wrong?

Fakap No. 1: the retailer saved on equipment

Everyone loves to save. The management of the store is no exception. Therefore, IT directors or procurement directors (if there are such positions on the network) were put in a very tight framework. Or the retailer chose the equipment himself, based on the principle "Cheaper is better." And we do not say that he took a very Chinese noun, breaking from one touch. No, maybe this is a very normal cash register - cheap, but not bad. But here it is designed for a store where there are 150-200 buyers per day. In "Malinka" patency is completely different: about 1500-2000 people daily. Therefore, the cash register cannot cope with such a load - it works slowly, slowly. Meanwhile, you lose patience, throw a bun on the first shelf and run to work, while practicing profanity at the same time.



It is possible to make a mistake with the performance of the device not only with regard to the POS terminal. This also applies to cash registers (CCP), and barcode scanners, and trade scales.

Summary: If you want your customers to not swear at your store for nothing, consider, when choosing a trading equipment, whether it will withstand the load it will encounter.

Fakap No. 2: fails equipment reliability

So, the retailer saved on equipment, and it does not withstand the load. As practice shows, the cheaper the cashier, the lower its reliability. And the higher the likelihood that it will fail quickly enough. So the ticket office will be idle. Here the retailer immediately loses in three directions:

• service costs;

• decrease in customer loyalty;

• loss of revenue due to downtime.

The last is the saddest. Simple arithmetic: patency of an average chain store in Moscow is about 1,500 people a day. If the store has 3 cash desks, then each day draws up 500 checks. The average check, according to Romir, in 2018 in Russia amounted to 496 rubles. It turns out that the retailer loses 248,000 rubles during the day of cash desk downtime. An inexpensive, more or less decent cash desk with peripherals can be bought for $ 1,000. At the current rate (at the time of this writing) it is 65,000 rubles. As a result, a downtime costs 4.1 times more than the cost of a POS terminal.

Of course, in order for service to be efficient, the retailer and contractor sign strict SLAs. But the faster the problem is identified, the less money the store will eventually lose. Understanding this problem, manufacturers of POS-terminals try to make the work of service specialists as easy as possible. For example, at Toshiba ticket offices, access to all components, including the system board, is carried out without the use of tools (we show in the photo and video).





Summary: When choosing a cash register equipment, be sure to find out how reliable it is. Find out what guarantees the manufacturer gives, what preliminary tests he conducts (for example, vibration testing, exposure to temperature and humidity, electromagnetic field, electrostatic charge, resistance to voltage drops). And, if the seller gives such an opportunity, test the POS terminal in the conditions of your store.

Fakap No. 3: Inconvenient cash register layout

Not only cash register equipment itself can affect the speed of customer service. A significant role in this process is played even by how it is placed. A simple example: if the cashier sits sideways to the cash register and to the client, he spends more time on maintenance. It is inconvenient for him to take goods for scanning, he has to turn his head to the buyer. Our experts calculated that, on average, with such a landing, the cashier spends 2 seconds more for each client. Above we talked about the fact that, on average, for each box office of "Malinki" there are 500 checks per day. This is about 16 minutes a day, which are wasted.



Summary:Do not neglect the little things. Even the layout of the cash desk can significantly affect the store’s revenue. As an example, we can show the location, as well as the placement of cash register equipment at one of our customers. About special stands for cash registers we wrote here .

Fakap No. 4: Interface and configuration of cash register software

If the cashier fiddles with the POS computer for a long time, making your purchase, this does not always mean that it is slow or stupid. Perhaps she was just unlucky with cash register software deployed on the network. Example: in one chain store, where queues are constantly collected at the checkout, software offers the seller each time to choose a payment method. This is terribly uncomfortable and slows down the maintenance process. For comparison, non-cash payment is provided by default in our Profi-T cash register program . This is logical, because, as Izvestia writes , the share of cashless payments in January 2019 in Russia grew to 50%. The villagespecifies that in Moscow, Tyumen and Ufa, citizens most often use cards, cash is more common in Tolyatti, Saratov and Nizhny Novgorod. 58% of non-cash purchases in Moscow are made using smartphones.

You can also significantly save service time by rounding the total amount in favor of the buyer (this also increases his loyalty): the cashier will not have to wait until the client finds a trifle in his wallet and counts the right amount.

Summary:Cash register software should be convenient not only for employees choosing it, but also for cashiers. It is desirable to optimize the basic operations for the main flow of customers and their portrait, and remove all the extra buttons so that the cashier inadvertently does not press anything superfluous. Alas, users of one of the most widespread cash register programs on the Russian market suffer like this.

Fakap No. 5: Location of the senior cashier or administrator

Blood will flow from the eyes now. Remember, the cashier incorrectly broke the goods or the buyer asked to remove some item from the check. In the best case, the seller calls the administrator on the phone and asks him to come in to edit the check (the cashier himself can reverse only the last position that was cut in the check, and even so the cash program is not set up everywhere). In the worst we hear: “WAAAAAAAL, CALL LARIS!” And now the whole line, who is patiently, who is not very, is waiting for Larisa to appear from the bowels of the store and still resume the purchase process. Horror! It is quite possible to deal with such situations. It is enough to partially delegate the function of canceling the operation to senior cashiers or controllers who are constantly nearby.

Summary:Think about who will be entrusted with the right to cancel the committed actions and how quickly these people will be able to make adjustments. For example, in one popular chain of cancellation shops, security guards, who are always near cashiers, contribute.

Fakap No. 6: Weighing at the checkout

Any retailer decides for himself: weigh the goods at the checkout or install self-service scales on the trading floor . However, the truth is this: with the first format, customer service time increases. According to our experts, weighing on a scanner scale increases the service time of each customer by 10-12 seconds, and on stand-alone ones - 20-25 seconds.

Summary: Before deciding which weighing format to implement in the store, consider how it will affect customer service time.

Fast customer service is the key to a profitable store. Therefore, do not ignore even the smallest details: choose productive, reliable equipment, conveniently place it on the cashier's desk, install software with a simple interface and correctly configure it, reasonably approach the issues of weighing goods. And in this case, even those buyers who need to buy something quickly before the start of the working day will come to you.