Ka-ching! The cash register may be on its final sale.
Stores across the country are ditching the old-fashioned, clunky machines and having salespeople — and even shoppers themselves — ring up sales on smartphones and tablet computers.
Barneys New York, a luxury retailer, this year plans to use iPads or iPod Touch devices for credit and debit card purchases in seven of its nearly two dozen regular-price stores. Urban Outfitters, a teen clothing chain, ordered its last traditional register last fall and plans to go completely mobile one day. And Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is testing a “Scan & Go” app that lets customers scan their items as they shop.
“The traditional cash register is heading toward obsolescence,” said Danielle Vitale, chief operating officer of Barneys New York.
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Store executives like smartphones and tablets because they take up less floor space than registers and free up cashiers to help customers instead of being tethered to one spot. They also are cheaper: For instance, Apple Inc.’s iPads with accessories like credit card readers can cost a store $1,500, compared with $4,000 for a register. And Americans increasingly want the same speedy service in stores that they get from shopping online.
“Consumers want the retailer to bring the register to them,” said Lori Schafer, executive adviser at SAS Institute Inc., which creates software for major retailers.
Positive response
J.C. Penney, a mid-price department store chain, said the response by customers has been great since it started rolling out iPod Touch devices late last year in its 1,100 stores. The goal is to have one in the hands of every salesperson by May.
It’s been a long fall for the cash register, which innovated retail as we know it. The first register was invented following the Civil War by a little known saloon owner.
More recently stores have been looking for ways to modernize checkout. Since 2003, self-checkout areas that enable customers to scan and bag their own merchandise have become commonplace in grocery and other stores. But recently, there’s been a push to go further.
As a result, companies that make traditional cash registers are racing to come up new solutions. NCR Corp., formerly known as the National Cash Register Co., was the first to manufacturer the cash register on a large scale.
Detachable iPad
Last year, the company that also makes ATMS, self-service checkout machines and airport check-in kiosks launched a program that merges its software with the iPad. This allows store clerks to detach the iPad from the keyboard at the counter and use it as a mobile checkout device
“Retailers have more flexibility and more opportunities to change the shopping experience,” said Mark Self, NCR’s vice president of retail solutions marketing.
Stores themselves are also taking their cues from the success of Apple Inc. The nation’s most profitable retailer moved to mobile checkout in its stores in 2006.
Take upscale handbag maker Coach, which is using iPod Touch devices at half of its 189 factory outlet stores. The company also is testing them in a handful of its 350 regular stores.
Some retailers have decided to go completely mobile. Urban Outfitters, which operates more than 400 stores under its namesake brand, Anthropologie and Free People, announced in late September that all sales eventually will be rung up on iPods and iPads on swivels located at counters.
Nordstrom, an upscale department-store chain that’s considered within the retail industry to be the gold standard in customer service, also plans to get rid of registers altogether.
The company handed out iPod Touch devices to its staff at its 117 department stores nationwide in 2011.
Going mobile
Colin Johnson, a Nordstrom spokeswoman, said it’s too early to draw any conclusions on how mobile checkout has influenced buying, but the company is learning about which technologies work best.
“We see the future as essentially mobile,” Johnson said. “We don’t see departments in our store as being defined by a big clunky cash register.”
Not every retailer is quick to ditch registers, though. After all, there are still logistics to figure out. For instance, no retailer yet is accepting cash payments on mobile devices. But if they start to do so, where will they put the cash that would normally go into a register?
For its part, Walmart is putting checkout in the hands of the shoppers themselves.
The retailer is testing its “Scan & Go” app, which can be used on Apple devices such as iPads, in more than 200 of its more than 4,000 stores nationwide.
The app, which is aimed at reducing long checkout lines, requires that shoppers pay at self-checkout areas. So as it tests the app, Walmart also is expanding the number of self-checkout areas in its stores.