Let customers pay how they want

New payment technologies mean that the checkout experience is evolving. 

In-store shoppers no longer need to contend with old-fashioned registers and tills, as technology streamlines the payments process, helping to eliminate frustrating queues. 

Just as there are many different types of retail, there are many types of payments experience. 

“Customer demand and behaviour differs greatly among retail sectors,” says Simon Hargroves, Head of UK Small and Medium Business Direct Sales at Elavon Europe. 

“A supermarket shopper buying a week’s groceries might prefer to use a handset to scan barcodes as they move through the store, to track their spending and save time by packing their items as they go.  

“This way of shopping, with no interaction with staff, became much more popular in recent years. Alternatively, if shoppers are just buying a few items, they might prefer a self-checkout kiosk rather than queue at a checkout conveyor belt. 

“The retailer might offer a number of different checkout options within the same store, giving customers the choice.”

Making the most of digital innovations

Supermarket checkout methods differ from those of a clothes shop, a pharmacy or luxury retail, where shoppers typically expect more interaction with store staff. 

Yet even highstreet retail is increasingly embracing mobile payments and self-checkout technology to meet consumer demand and remove the pain point of queues.   

Digital innovations such as automated collection points for online shopping orders and self-checkouts at  fitting rooms are at the cutting edge. 

But mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) solutions that effectively bring the till to the customer, wherever they are in-store, also eliminate queues and enhance the customer experience. 

And of course, it’s now almost impossible to ignore having an ecommerce offering. That might be click-and-collect – sometimes called buy online, pick-up in-store (BOPIS), or browsing in-store and ordering online.

Let your customers get up close and personal

But reports of the death of the physical shop are greatly exaggerated. In 2023, research by Elavon suggested most adults in the UK shop in-store. That’s particularly the case when buying groceries and household goods. Almost seven in ten (69%) of shoppers said they visited a store to buy groceries with 68% preferring to go to a shop to buy household items. 

In fact, it was only when buying toys and games did people say they preferred shopping online over a store, with more than a third saying they bought from a website and about a quarter visiting a shop. The rest said they picked the most convenient option.

We also know from our research, that customers like to see what they’re buying. When we questioned more than 1,100 adults in the UK, more than 70% said seeing what they were buying was a reason to visit a physical shop. 

Meanwhile, almost half of adults like to support their local economy saying this was a reason to visit a shop. This increases with age, with 52% of the over 55s saying they want to support their local economy. Heartening news for those who run small, independent stores.

To thrive and not just survive, you need to offer a blend of alternative and traditional options for both shopping and payments, as well as the extras consumers expect to make their shopping experience more enjoyable – and make your business more memorable.