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Kiosks are becoming more and more prominent in the retail space. They relieve pressure on the front cashiers, they amp up sales by targeting more niche clientele, and they allow for prompter service.
However, selling regulated products that require age verification or other types of compliance verification was a sticking point for the technology. It seemed a given that an actual cashier would have to ask for to see someone’s verification in person in order to sell these types of items. Now that might be a thing of the past.
New Kiosks Verify Identities
A new interactive kiosk was introduced that had an interactive screen that will run a facial scan, check an ID, and ask if the customer is over 21 before taking money and dispensing a product. It was the invention of Retail Automated Concepts, a company based in La Jolla, California, where they are strict about checking ages.
It can be used for CBD and hemp products, as well as other types of products that require age verification. The screen menu will let a customer pick their item, and it can hold up to 188 products. Once the item is selected and a person’s age is verified, the screen asks if the customer wants the invoice sent to their email, accepts payment, and drops the selected product in a box down the shoot. All of this can be done in under a minute, letting customers return to shopping quickly. This particular kiosk can accept credit cards, mobile phones, and other types of cashless payments. There is even an RFID tag on the product when it comes out so the kiosk can track inventory.
Relieving Cashier Pressure
This new kiosk could be a big win for retail stores because regulated products have been a problem for cashiers. Customers take time to dig out their identification, and in the meantime lines can form. When many people are buying unregulated products have to wait for one person to dig through their wallets, the other customers can decide they will come back later.
The interactive kiosk could benefit your productivity in that you might be able to skip training new employees on dealing with regulated products. This will mean that you can put them to work sooner and get more productive work out of them.
The biggest win will be in compliance. Cashiers can get nervous about carding customers, which might make them avoid it all together. They can also be poorly trained or careless. In one test of several stores in Mississippi, half of the stores failed to check the age of customers buying alcohol. Human error is the root of a lot of compliance issues, and a kiosk is a good way to avoid them. Someone underage can’t sweet-talk the kiosk’s facial recognition system the way they can an employee, either.
Shrink Reduction
Kiosks make it harder for a would be shoplifter to get their hands on the regulated product without paying. They would have to break the machine in order to get to what they want, and that can’t be done in broad daylight. It is easier for a person to slip behind an employee when they aren’t looking and snag something from behind the counter. Nor can they try to cut a deal with an employee to slide something to them for a bribe. The fully automated system will also be more efficient in tracking products than employees, so precious items won’t go missing because they were miscounted.
This type of kiosk will naturally need a USB charger to keep them running efficiently. We at CoolGear have many USB chargers to choose from, and one will work for whatever type of kiosk you want to use. If you want information on our products, contact us at any time.