The modern checkout, consisting of a payment processing station staffed by a cashier, is a foundational element of the self-service retail experience that rose to prominence in the early 1900s.
The retail industry is dependent on properly functioning checkouts with billions of transactions processed at millions of merchant locations worldwide every day.
The concept of the checkout has existed since buyers and sellers first completed transactions at centralized locations. Early checkouts of the modern retail era were manual, requiring cashiers to key prices and process payments that were made by cash, cheque or early forms of credit. As retailing advanced to the chain store age, the modern checkout emerged to define the customer experience and play an important role in the industry’s development.
It was the development of the barcode that significantly revolutionized the checkout by improving speed, accuracy and ease of use for shoppers and retail cashiers. Retailers who embraced the technology gained an important competitive advantage and came to recognize the powerful impact the checkout could have on shoppers’ perceptions of the store experience. As such, the checkout became the focus of intense process improvement efforts and innovations. The conveyor belt and bagging turnstiles were introduced to accelerate throughput.
Retailers’ efforts to minimize shoppers’ waiting times also led to the introduction of express lanes for use by those with a limited number of items or guarantees that additional checkout lanes would be opened if the number of people in line exceeded a certain amount.
More recently, the checkout has continued to evolve thanks to technological advancements and checkout configurations that enable shoppers to self-scan merchandise without the aid of cashiers. Likewise, the growth of e-commerce has introduced a new type of digital check where the principles of speed, accuracy and ease of use remain equally relevant. Newer advancements on the digital front are facilitating a range of mobile checkout possibilities that represent the next stage of evolution for the checkout.
Contribution to Retail History
Centralized checkouts gave retailers the ability to quickly and accurately tally customers’ purchases and process payments. The checkout contributed to the rise of self-service retail and reshaped shoppers’ expectations of the store experience. As such, it became a key consideration in store design and exerted a powerful influence on decisions relating to operations, marketing and merchandising.