This afternoon, I visited my daughter at her office (how cool a Dad am I?). I stopped at the store across the street, The Fresh Market and picked up a nice flower arrangement for her desk and some treats for the staff there. When I checked out, I was blown away… I inserted my EMV credit card and it worked almost instantaneously.
It was the fastest I’ve ever seen a checkout work with a chip-enabled card. Not only that, as I completed my payment, it asked me if I wanted a printed receipt or to send it to my email address. A moment later I had my receipt as well as a coupon to use for my next visit. And no need to print the coupon, it’s automatically applied as long as I use the same credit card. Boom!
Curious about the system, I looked up Index – the platform powering the checkout. It winds up that there was something different about their technology. They rewrote the processing software for capturing and validating EMV credit card data. Their system even has the ability to insert and take your card during checkout – then confirming the sale once you’re ready to go.
Here’s an overview of how Index developed Quick Chip, where they were able to get the checkout process down to 1 second! That’s ten times faster than the average, improving checkout speeds and the user’s experience.
Oh… and The Fresh Market was fantastic as well!
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