The Point Of Sale, (POS), is a bottleneck in any given store. Customers have made their choices and want to complete their purchase transactions quickly. Retailers want customers to choose one last item, so they show many key products at payment areas. Space is limited, most already taken up by EPOS technology, printers, barcode scanners, scales, card payment systems, tills, and more. Adding one more device at the point of sale is like adding one extra drop to a bowl that is already full of water. Cashiers and shoppers are both rushing through the sales process leaving cash exposed with the door to the store just one step away.
So here are five ways to improve your point of sale security.
1. Hire a very large person.
Image from Cliparts.co
Someone over 200 pounds should do, preferably scowling and dressed to intimidate, perhaps a character from Game of Thrones. A guard overlooking all the POS locations will deter potential thieves. But while this may be an effective solution for some, as soon as he or she has to take a potty break, your security takes a leave too.
2. Low tech counterfeit detectors.
The highest security risk for some retailers comes from customers who attempt to pay with fake money. From detector pens to currency authenticators, there are several methods to detect counterfeit notes. These systems are low tech and low cost. And they work just fine. However, authenticators are not designed to safely store your cash and therefore, solve only one security issue.
3. Get smart
Smart safes are a great way to increase security at POS. Cashiers can use the device as a note validator and if a bill doesn’t get accepted just return it to the customer and say “I’m sorry, the device does not accept this bill”. And at the same time the safe allows the cashier to reduce the amount of cash and large denominations in their till. If a robbery happens only a small amount of bills will be accessible for theft. However, cost could be an issue depending on the number of safes you need.
4. Go tubing
Pneumatic tubes have been around since the 19th century and are still being used today to connect points of sale to cash rooms in back offices. Every so often an envelope of cash is shipped to the back office through the tube to a full time person waiting to process the money. This can be a great idea as long as you are building a store from the ground up. However, adding pneumatic tubes in an old building can be very expensive. In addition, your store will have to close to allow the installation. And we all know that you cannot make money with a closed store.
Pneumatic tubes can also be physically hacked, as the Tesco Supermarket chain found out when a man climbed into their ceiling spaces with a blow torch, cut open a tube and helped himself to 90,0000£.
A self-checkout system allows the cash to be fully managed by a machine and is almost impossible to steal from without causing massive destruction unless customers switch bar codes on items. Self-checkouts can be speedy but that gain comes at the expense of human contact, a loss that might just encourage your shopper to go online.
It is important to protect your cash at the point of sale, the protection system should not scare your customer away. Bear in mind that given the amount of cash stored at the point of sale, it is improbable that a theft will break in with a tank or a SWAT team. Normally it will be less than 2 people who will try to get away in few minutes. Retailers probably do not need Fort Knox security level however, it is necessary to incorporate an adequate protection system.