POS Standard Proposed for Charitable Giving

NEW YORK – An effort to develop a retail industry standard aimed at facilitating charitable giving at the point-of-sale was launched Jan. 12 at the RetailROI (the Retail Orphan Initiative) Super Saturday event here.

The initiative, being launched under the auspices of the National Retail Federation and its ARTS (Association of Retail Technology Standards division), would create a universal technology standard by which POS and transaction terminals would accept donations for specific charitable causes.

Greg Buzek, president of IHL Consulting, Franklin, Tenn., and head of RetailROI, led a discussion on the development of the standard with a group of vendors, retailers and NRF representatives, including Tom Litchford, NRF’s vice president of retail technologies.

The standard would help streamline and expedite charitable giving at checkout lanes, which is currently a hodgepodge of collection boxes, UPC cards and other vehicles, noted Buzek, who called it  "the wild, wild West.” 

For retailers, a POS donation standard would speed throughput at the checkout, which currently gets slowed down by donations, noted Buzek. It will also take cashiers out of the awkward position of asking shoppers for a donation. “Right now, the customer feels 'guilted' into donating,” said Buzek. By allowing the shopper to donate – or not - on a transaction terminal, “the cashier has no idea what you’re doing.”

If interested in participating in the standard development effort, contact Litchford at [email protected].

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