Your point of sale (POS) provides a valuable marketing opportunity, as well as helping to improve your customers’ shopping experience. Improving your POS can not only make the checkout process smoother but can also encourage impulse purchases.
However, to get the best results, your POS needs to be smooth and optimised. It should allow the checkout process to be quicker while also catching people’s eye to encourage them to add more to their baskets before leaving the store.
Here are five ways to improve your POS display.
1. Optimise the products on display
Carefully considering what products are included in your POS display can make a big difference to basket value. Impulse buys are more likely to be lower-cost items that are also convenient, which means you want to avoid expensive and luxury items.
Small, helpful and budget items can encourage extra purchases by reminding people they need an item or making them think about how helpful something would be to them. You’ll usually find snack foods, travel-sized cosmetics and things like hair accessories near checkouts, as these are used and needed by a broad range of customers.
It’s worth testing different items at checkouts to see which encourages more impulse purchases. You can also take a look at your sales data to see what small items across your store are the most popular and move some of them to your point of sale display.
2. Create visually exciting displays
As well as the right products, your POS display needs to be visually appealing. You want to catch people’s eye as they are waiting to pay as this will increase the chances that they’ll be enticed by the products on display.
Ensuring products are easy to see and grab, as well as standing out will help to make the most of your display. Contrasting colours, interesting branding and varied displays are powerful and will ensure your POS display gets noticed and explored. In smaller stores try using floor stands or hanging clip strips to make the most of even the smallest of spaces.
It’s important to regularly refill and replenish your display as well to keep it looking inviting. Untidy or half-empty displays won’t perform well, so keeping them tidy and swapping out products will make all the difference.
3. Use simple and clear pricing
While POS displays can help encourage purchases, people will be less likely to pick up items at checkout if they don’t know how much they cost. Clear pricing is important throughout your store but is vital at your POS.
Ideally, pricing should be large, simple and clear. This can be achieved by sticking with items that are the same price or using price tags that are larger than the rest of your displays. Not only will this ensure people are clear on the pricing, but it will also increase visibility when people are queuing, which can pique interest before they get to the checkout.
This will also help you ensure your display isn’t too busy, which can look messy and put people off. It’s better to only showcase a couple of prices and products to avoid confusion and draw focus that is more likely to result in additional sales.
4. Feature offers and promotions
Everyone loves a bargain, which is why including offers and promotions in your point-of-sale displays can work really well. Whether it’s clearance items, limited-time promotions or other offers, people are more likely to pick something up when they can see they’re getting a good deal.
Again, any offers should be clearly showcased with effective messaging. You should also ensure that the only products used in the display are included in the promotion to avoid confusion.
If an offer is complicated, it can put people off, which is why it’s a good idea to test which promotions work best as part of your POS display.
5. Don’t overdo it
It can be tempting to pile up products and showcase a lot of offers as part of your POS display but this can be confusing and cluttered. If you want to use your checkout area for more products, avoid putting them all on your counter and find different display options instead.
One great way to display more products around your checkout area is to create a queueing system using baskets or shelves. This will help you create additional displays in a clean way while also improving the queuing and checkout process.
You need to make sure that customers have plenty of space, displays can’t be easily knocked and that they always look great, especially as this area of your store provides the last impression for your customers.