8 Shopping Trends and how they impact the checkout
As shoppers embrace the holiday season, we look at how summer break behavior influences the checkout and what retailers can do to drive smoother acceptance as temperatures rise.
There’s nothing worse when shopping in a heatwave than a queue. This year, contactless, kiosks and mobile payments will be point-of-sale (POS) essentials to stop consumers at home and abroad from getting frazzled at the checkout. But what other checkout behaviors are emerging as Europe copes with one of the hottest holiday seasons on record?
Here are 8 summer trends that stand out:
1. Fashion refreshes fuel demand for BNPL
Despite the cost-of-living crisis, unusually high temperatures are causing people are rethinking their summer wardrobes and activities not just for holidays but for work and home. As fashion sales increase, there’s more emphasis on buy now pay later (BNPL) as buyers seek to spread the load when kitting out themselves and their families. This makes it a great conversion tool to have at the POS.
2. People socialising outdoors expect to be able to pay by mobile
In Summertime, three quarters of people spend more money on going out in the evenings or eating out with friends and family. This is good news for hospitality outlets. Consumers are more able to take advantage of spontaneous opportunities to spend using digital wallets on their smartphones. Being able to accept payments at a table or outdoors, helps retailers to capture sales when and where customers are in the mood.
3. Festival season sees contactless come to the fore
Live music events and outdoor rock festivals are now at their peak, and many are going contactless. Organisers are promoting prepaid NFC wristbands and QR codes to safeguard attendees, reduce fraud and minimise queues. Food and drink vendors and merchandisers hoping to cash in on the cool vibes need portable POS with reliable contactless and QR readers to maximise festival sales.
4. Local ‘event days’ drive huge sales spikes, but queues put shoppers off
Europe’s streets are full of fun in August – from Amsterdam Pride in Holland to the Verona Opera Festival in Italy. MPOS and portable POS helps retailers take to the streets to accept e-payment on stalls, stands and at events. Tools like Castles Technology’s cloud-based SoftPos solution can also help them scale up checkouts quickly in store turning smartphones into checkouts to cope with high levels of throughput.
5. Overseas tourists prefer to see familiar options at the checkout
Some retailers have a high influx of tourists from particular countries. Having the right checkout mix can help them spend more – e.g. WeChat for Chinese customers. Also being able to offer Dynamic Currency Conversion so they can see exactly how much their spending can help smooth sales.
6. A holiday attitude makes shoppers feel more relaxed – and loosens their purse strings
Merchants may want to tap into the impulsivity of summer shoppers with well-placed social promotions that inspire people to spend in-store. Multimedia POS devices that deliver targeted content – ads, promotions and prompts – can help engage, and encourage them to up and cross-sell.
7. Fairweather projects raise demand for outdoor skills and on-site payments
Tradesmen like gardeners, landscapers, builders and roofers see demand for their services soar in the summer months as consumers invest in outdoor projects. To aid cash flow, they need to equip site workers to accept sales, deposits and monies for supplies. Cloud-POS on a smart device or a portable m-POS device are fast and easy to roll out and can accept a wide variety of card and digital payments.
8. Travel related spend is at its peak, checkout automation helps ease the flow
With 75% of Europeans heading out on summer vacation, there’s typically an increase in travel-related spending placing high demand on transport, fuel forecourts, airlines, and hotels. Providers can ease the burden on sales staff with self-service kiosks and automated payments and apps for items like extra baggage, ticketing, fuel and EV charging.
Make sure your devices can cope – whatever the weather
It’s not just people that are affected by the seasons, devices can be too. Make sure you use a high-quality, reliable POS supplier whose devices are resilient enough to withstand extreme temperatures – in summer and all year round. This is especially important for outdoor locations such as unattended.
Castles Android MPOS devices provide the ultimate in mobility, are tested for extreme handling and offer long-lasting rechargeable, replaceable battery design to get you through the toughest summer sales periods.
