Automation Substantially Reduces Retailers' Cash Costs And Saves Labor Hours

If there’s any doubt about the impact of cash management solutions on the cost structure of retailers, consider this recent finding by IHL Group: Replacing manual processes with automation technology can save retailers an average of 200 to 500 labor hours monthly per store.

In a study commissioned by APG Cash Drawer, “Cash Multipliers: How Reducing Cash Handling Can Enable Retail Sales and Profit Growth,” IHL Group discovered that a lot of time and money is spent on cash transactions at POS stations. The good news here is that cash remains a significant share of overall purchases. Cash accounted for 41.2 billion transactions in 2017 – close to one third (30%) of all transactions.

The bad news, of course, is these transactions incur high costs for an industry that operates on razor-thin margins. Depending on the retail segment, cash transactions generate costs of 4% to 15%. Up to 71% of those expenses are related to front-of-the-store activities such as replenishing change at tills and closing out drawers at the end of a shift.