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There's an express Target in the San Francisco Financial District that gets around this by assigning cashiers to two registers. They start the chip payment tran

There's an express Target in the San Francisco Financial District that gets around this by assigning cashiers to two registers. They start the chip payment transaction on one register, and the slide over to the second register to start another customer's checkout. Then they slide back to hand the receipt to the first customer, etc. Absurd but effective.

ben_jones 9y ago
Similarly Starbucks employees will initiate a transaction then step away to prepare the order then come back and finish up.
germanier 9y ago
In Germany, Aldi Süd uses a similar method. While the customer inserts the card and enters the PIN (which is the slow part – the machine itself is really fast) the cashier starts scanning the items of the next customer. All this happens with the same register so the switch happens in software (they invest a lot in register technology).
- mediascreen 9y ago
  In Sweden people usually start the slow part (entering the pin) while their items are scanned. When all items are scanned you just press ok to authorise the amount and wait for 1-2 seconds for the transaction to go through.
  - germanier 9y ago
    Ah yes. I have written about this on HN before. I have never seen this outside Sweden für some reason. At Aldi specifically it wouldn't be useful as you have to keep up with the cashier's scanning speed while bagging. In other stores you can start bagging at the end. Not sure why they don't use the same idea as Swedish stores. Once I tried inserting my card while scanning in a German store but the machine didn't like it at all.
    - c12 9y ago
      We have it in the UK for some petrol stations. My local one before they had pay at the pump allowed you to go to the cashier put your card in the machine and enter your pin tell them how much fuel you wanted and then the pump would only deal out up to that amount. You only got charged for the amount of fuel taken, so it didn't matter if you said you needed 30 pounds worth and only took 26 pounds worth. I guess it was similar to pay at pump now, where you enter your card and pin to pre-approve up to 99 pounds, fill up and then only get charged for the amount you took.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - davidbanham 9y ago
    We did that in Australia for a year or two but then it seemed to vanish. I guess not enough shoppers took it up. Or, come to think of it, it probably lowered the likelihood of people using the supermarket loyalty cards so they nixed it.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - obsurveyor 9y ago
    Used to be able to do this in the US with magnetic swipe but now you can't because of chip reading taking place at a specific time in the checkout process.

ben_jones 9y ago

Similarly Starbucks employees will initiate a transaction then step away to prepare the order then come back and finish up.

germanier 9y ago

In Germany, Aldi Süd uses a similar method. While the customer inserts the card and enters the PIN (which is the slow part – the machine itself is really fast) the cashier starts scanning the items of the next customer. All this happens with the same register so the switch happens in software (they invest a lot in register technology).

mediascreen 9y ago
In Sweden people usually start the slow part (entering the pin) while their items are scanned. When all items are scanned you just press ok to authorise the amount and wait for 1-2 seconds for the transaction to go through.
- germanier 9y ago
  Ah yes. I have written about this on HN before. I have never seen this outside Sweden für some reason. At Aldi specifically it wouldn't be useful as you have to keep up with the cashier's scanning speed while bagging. In other stores you can start bagging at the end. Not sure why they don't use the same idea as Swedish stores. Once I tried inserting my card while scanning in a German store but the machine didn't like it at all.
  - c12 9y ago
    We have it in the UK for some petrol stations. My local one before they had pay at the pump allowed you to go to the cashier put your card in the machine and enter your pin tell them how much fuel you wanted and then the pump would only deal out up to that amount. You only got charged for the amount of fuel taken, so it didn't matter if you said you needed 30 pounds worth and only took 26 pounds worth. I guess it was similar to pay at pump now, where you enter your card and pin to pre-approve up to 99 pounds, fill up and then only get charged for the amount you took.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- davidbanham 9y ago
  We did that in Australia for a year or two but then it seemed to vanish. I guess not enough shoppers took it up. Or, come to think of it, it probably lowered the likelihood of people using the supermarket loyalty cards so they nixed it.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- obsurveyor 9y ago
  Used to be able to do this in the US with magnetic swipe but now you can't because of chip reading taking place at a specific time in the checkout process.