The Ultimate Guide to Checkout Counters and Cash Wraps

Cash wraps, also known as checkout counters and cash wells are the setting in retail stores where we usually pay for merchandise. This is a key area of any store which helps in maximizing sales, increasing or decreasing customer satisfaction, building brand and create an effective workplace for employees. 

And a full featured cash register or POS (Point of Sale) on top of cash wraps helps in delivering better customer experience.

Why Cash Wraps Are Vital?

Till Counter is not only the place to pay for merchandise, but a properly crafted counter can impact on the success of your business significantly. It drives your business in the following ways:

1. Increase sales
2. Grow customer satisfaction
3. Improve employee satisfaction
4. Boost brand

Before you start selecting or designing your cash wraps, you must list down the things that can support.

You must first find out how much of the space in your store you can use for cash wraps and how it will fit into the layout. This probably will be part of a major exercise of designing the layout of your store and traffic flow. 

You cash wrap very likely should be on the left side of your store facing the front as customers turn right on entry you of course want your best selling items at the back. This will create a longest path through the store.

The three standard layouts for cash counters are U-Shape, L-Shape and single line. Other than this you can also consider the wall behind the checkout counter as extra space for storage & promotion. You must balance the available space between the cash wrap and sales area. 

There should be ample space behind the counter for employees to work easily and for customers in front to checkout easily. Generally, the countertops are around 30-36 inches wide and there should be about three feet for employees to work and at least nine feet from a wall for the checkout counters, including the customer area. The overall width can vary according to your needs. 

Apart from the POS system including the card reader, display, printer etc of salesperson, you also need to find out how many sales positions you need to support your expected sales volume. And besides POS some space for customers is needed to place their things and room to wrap or bag it. You should also have glass display cabinets to showcase your products.

Limited space will make a customer’s purchase look like over buy whereas a large space makes it look very reasonable and they’ll perhaps have even more room for a couple of more impulse items.

Besides merchandising, you’ll also need some space on till counter for promotional displays. Just make sure that between merchandising and promotional items you don’t over-clutter the checkout counter and overwhelm customers visually, where so much is being promoted that it all becomes noise.