Cash vs Card Checkout Speed

It's only slow because you are not used to paying with cash. Most payments are done with cash here, and the few people paying with cards cause small but noticeable delays. Counting cash is usually faster than handling a card reader, entering the PIN and whatnot. The odd drunkard or elderly customer is comparable to the odd technical problem, which usually takes longer to resolve.

As an american, I find it strange that cash is faster. Most people who pay cash need to wait to get the change back unless they know the total beforehand and happen to have exact change. In the US, credit card machines are very fast even the chip enabled ones.Cash workflow:- Cashier tells you the total amount- You look in your wallet/purse- You spend time counting exact change if you do have it- If not, you take out a rounded bill/note (say $20)- Cashier takes the bil

How on Earth inserting multiple bills in a small slot, waiting for the change and retrieving all the nice and heavy little coins is faster than just tapping with your phone/card?

Cards used to be more convenient in the US. But once they started putting in the chips the verification process takes ages. I can complete the whole transaction in cash in the time it takes the chip reader to get itself sorted.

You obviously have never been to a Home Depot or Lowes on a weekend and watched in abject horror how long it takes most people to navigate the pin pad to complete their CC purchase! The speed with which the transaction is completed is 100% dependent on the ability of the card holder to navigate all the prompts. At most stores I now have to wade through 4-5 prompts for input before my transaction is complete, this takes up to 30 seconds. This is nowhere near as fast as cash is if one is prepa

Well if you're talking about stuff that's used at physical checkout counters, you need really fast transactions. Nobody wants to sit there for an extra 20-30 seconds holding up the line. Even if customers can tolerate it, businesses will be much less inclined to support such a feature.

I think part of it is chip & signature vs chip & pin UX because this doesn't seem to be an issue in Europe (I also remember their chip reading being significantly faster...but maybe that's an illusion?). There's a story about the Houston airport where people complained that their luggage took too long at the new terminal. They created a longer route for people to walk from the plane to the luggage carousel and the complaints went away.If I remember correctly, with chi

Contactless from credit/debit cards are a lot faster and more reliable. You just tap the card against the chip reader. In the rare occasion where it doesn't work (e.g. cost is too high, too many purchases per day) you can just slot the card into the slot and enter pin - which takes maybe 10 seconds instead of 1.

I confess that I don't understand what the big deal is. It takes 5 seconds to slide the card into the machine. Personally, I find fumbling with my phone takes longer as does figuring out where the reader wants to tap the card if I'm not familiar with that particular store's system.

I agreed. Paying with card is fraught with slow terminals, bad card readers, many prompts in a row (Credit or debt, is this the right amount, do you want to donate $1 to something, do you want it all on one card, would you like to sign up for a store credit card, do you want cash back, how much, do you want a receipt?). For some reason, these all have a 2-5 second delay between them. I could make a system on a $2 arduino that was faster.Some places like Starbucks seem to get it right. Swipe c