ARLINGTON, Va. – Yesterday, the National Grocers Association (NGA) and Balance Innovations released the results of their joint 2013 Grocery Retailing Payments Study, which is designed to create understanding of industry payment practices relative to cash, check, debit and credit management, payments automation and other payments related topics, such as coupons and e-commerce.

“There is a lot of uncertainty about the technical future of payment processing. While consumers have the most say in the success or rejection of future payments innovations, retailers must also keep a watchful eye on their costs,” said Peter J. Larkin, president and CEO of NGA, in a press release. “Costs related to employee handling can be an indication of the need to improve payment processes and remove inefficiencies, such as the more streamlined handling of cash and checks.”

“Understanding the latest trends helps retailers optimize their own internal payment mechanisms to reduce shrink and inefficiencies and to meet payment processing needs,” added Shelley Bosler, senior vice president of Strategic Initiatives for Balance Innovations.

Report highlights include the fact that credit and debit now exceed 60% of dollar sales, followed by cash at 23.1%. While check usage in the grocery channel has fallen to single digits as a percentage of sales, they continue to have the highest average transaction value at $63.21. The average transaction size across all forms of payments stands at $27.65, with weekly transactions per store averaging 11,000.

The most commonly used payment technologies include a point-of-sale at the service desk, check cashing and Western Union, offered by at least half of grocery stores. Two-thirds of grocery retailers do not yet image checks. Among those that do, check imaging in the back office is more common than in-lane.

One-third of grocers have some kind of online ordering system in place. An additional 8% are planning on adding online ordering in the next two years. At 71% of companies, cashiers are involved with counting tills. The majority of companies (94%) have a second person counting the drawers as well, typically bookkeepers or front-end managers.

Six in 10 companies have automated over-short reports that they share throughout the company to limit and prevent shrink: 80% share the findings with store operations; 53% with loss prevention and 47% with internal audit. 

While 12% never do store cash audits, most companies do them either weekly (20%) or quarterly (28%). The chosen methods vary: 38% do surprise store cash audits and 33% conduct both surprise and planned ones.