Keep the Checkout Lines Flowing

We want our customers thinking about their purchases. But if truth be told, we don't want them thinking too hard or for too long. Consumer psychology researchers at Northwestern University and at Radboud University in The Netherlands found that consumers tend to make worse decisions when they ruminate.
     These days, moving customers through the purchase process is particularly important in the checkout line. As many retailers are finding, if the customers don't pay promptly, they too often decide to put some products back or just give up and leave. In a troubled economy, sights and sounds at the cash wrap can trigger needless fretting. Add to the rumination plenty of irritation—the kind that comes from waiting—and it's no surprise customers flee.
     Some retailers consider checkout lines as opportunities for added sales. At these retailers' stores, lines snake through shelves filled with chewing gum, batteries, CDs, hair clips, or other items labeled as prime for impulse purchases. I'm all in favor of keeping those items in front of customers. But depending on having people stand in line in order to make sales is bad business. Sprinkle those fun purchase items throughout the store as well as at cash wraps.
     What can you do today to improve the speed of flow of customers through the checkout process? What steps will you be taking next? Should you be training more of your staff to handle cashier duties? Do you have systems set to open checkout stations when waits grow beyond three minutes? Are you able to make use of the wireless technologies that allow staff to carry out part of a customer's payment process while the customer is still in line? Do you announce to customers waiting to pay that help is coming, and do you thank them for their business?