What does a cashier do?
A cashier is one of the most visible positions in the retail industry. Cashiers are the last direct point of contact with customers and play a key role in service, retail, and wholesale establishments. They leave a long-lasting impression, which helps encourage the customers to go back. The most common tasks for cashiers are to scan items, conduct price checks, and collect payments. They may deal with a great amount of money on a daily basis, so this position requires them to be honest, reliable, and trustworthy employees. They also need to have great skills in customer service as they may handle customer complaints from time to time, assist in answering questions, and process refunds or exchanges.
Cashier responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real cashier resumes:
- Manage employees by making schedules, doing payroll, and maintain an all around comfortable working environment.
- Develop, implement, and update standard operating procedures relating to daily operations, financial transactions and management, customer service.
- Demonstrate basic math skills and record daily earnings without error.
- Perform basic math computations, such as addition subtraction, and division.
- Provide customer service by scanning and packing groceries, processing customers transactions and answering any questions about food products
- Work at home depot as cashier.
- Cut and chop food items and cook on a grill or in fryers.
- Move and assemble baby depot products such as cribs, bookshelves, and swings.
- Provide customers a quick and reliable checkout while upselling store products and company credit cards.
- Handle all rotate and stock, remodeling & advertisement, register, and inventory for busy drive-thru location.
- Greet customers in the restaurant or drive-thru, take and rang up orders, handle payment and thank customers.
- Check customers out print receipts and give coupon discounts and handle cash, WIC checks, checks and credit cards.
- Supervise a staff of five employees including hiring, terminations, and weekly payroll, training, scheduling and sales.
- Scan customer's order and handle cash, checks, coupons, gift certificates, food stamps, and WIC vouchers.
- Wash dishes, sweep and mop floors, change trash and maintain a clean, safe, and orderly work area.
Cashier skills and personality traits
We calculated that 14% of Cashiers are proficient in Front End, Cash Handling, and Basic Math. They’re also known for soft skills such as Communication skills, Customer-service skills, and Dexterity.
We break down the percentage of Cashiers that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Front End, 14%
Stock front end products; restock and use supply items efficiently to eliminate waste and to maintain the lowest supply cost.
- Cash Handling, 10%
Cash handling and providing excellent customer service
- Basic Math, 10%
Perform basic mathematical calculations using a calculator/computer to accurately figure production time and labor time associated with any copy production.
- POS, 10%
Core competencies include POS systems operation, customer oriented and organized multitudes.
- Customer Service, 8%
Provided excellent customer service and answered all consumer questions in reference to company products and services.
- Customer Complaints, 5%
Monitored customer preferences to determine focus of sales efforts and resolved customer complaints regarding sales and services.
Common skills that a cashier uses to do their job include "front end," "cash handling," and "basic math." You can find details on the most important cashier responsibilities below.
Communication skills. One of the key soft skills for a cashier to have is communication skills. You can see how this relates to what cashiers do because "cashiers must pay attention to customers’ questions and explain pricing." Additionally, a cashier resume shows how cashiers use communication skills: "inventory procedures * pull orders * stock product * product rotation * track spoilage * safe-product handling * communication w/ supervisors"
Customer-service skills. Many cashier duties rely on customer-service skills. "cashiers must be courteous and friendly when helping customers.," so a cashier will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways cashier responsibilities rely on customer-service skills: "received payment by cash, check, credit cards, or automatic debits, issued receipts or change due to customers. "
Dexterity. Another skill that relates to the job responsibilities of cashiers is dexterity. This skill is critical to many everyday cashier duties, as "cashiers use their hands to operate registers and scan purchases." This example from a resume shows how this skill is used: "set up store displays, helped customers explaining what certain tools do, ran forklift, and ensured pleasant shopping experience. "
Near vision. For certain cashier responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "near vision." The day-to-day duties of a cashier rely on this skill, as "cashiers need to see well enough to scan items and process transactions accurately." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what cashiers do: "run cash register interacting with customers and ensuring a pleasant shopping experience zoned areas near registers cleaning and shutting down the register. "
Patience. Another common skill required for cashier responsibilities is "patience." This skill comes up in the duties of cashiers all the time, as "cashiers must be able to remain calm when interacting with customers." An excerpt from a real cashier resume shows how this skill is central to what a cashier does: "employed complete patience, empathy and ownership with customer issues. "
Physical stamina. While "physical stamina" is last on this skills list, don't underestimate its importance to cashier responsibilities. Much of what a cashier does relies on this skill, seeing as "cashiers stand for long periods." Here is a resume example of how this skill is used in the everyday duties of cashiers: "protect and maintain company assets and resources including cash control, inventory, fixtures and physical facility to prevent theft. "
The three companies that hire the most cashiers are:
- The Home Depot3,837 cashiers jobs
- Kroger1,960 cashiers jobs
- Panera Bread1,486 cashiers jobs
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Compare different cashiers
Cashier vs. Customer service associate/cashier
A customer service associate/cashier is responsible for processing payments for the customers' orders. The customer service associate/cashier inspects the items, ensuring that the pricing and quantity from scanning are accurate. They also check for possible item defects and offer replacements, process payment refunds as needed, issue receipts to keep proof of payment, respond to customer's inquiries about a product, market promotional offers, and operate cash registers. A customer service associate/cashier must have excellent customer service skills and communication skills to boost customer satisfaction and increase sales goals.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, cashier responsibilities require skills like "food preparation," "excellent guest," "food orders," and "computer system." Meanwhile a typical customer service associate/cashier has skills in areas such as "math," "loss prevention," "bill payments," and "financial transactions." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
The education levels that customer service associate/cashiers earn slightly differ from cashiers. In particular, customer service associate/cashiers are 0.3% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than a cashier. Additionally, they're 0.1% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Cashier vs. Retail sales associate/cashier
A cashier is responsible for ensuring all the products and goods sold are well recorded and paid for as well as answering customer inquiries and recommending products. They also help the other sales team when needed and process payment for all goods bought. Their duties and responsibilities include processing payments, ensuring all goods bought are accurately scanned and recorded, and bagging purchases.
Each career also uses different skills, according to real cashier resumes. While cashier responsibilities can utilize skills like "front end," "food preparation," "customer orders," and "excellent guest," retail sales associate/cashiers use skills like "math," "retail sales," "loss prevention," and "store sales."
On average, retail sales associate/cashiers earn a lower salary than cashiers. Some industries support higher salaries in each profession. Interestingly enough, retail sales associate/cashiers earn the most pay in the retail industry with an average salary of $27,103. Whereas cashiers have higher pay in the retail industry, with an average salary of $28,822.In general, retail sales associate/cashiers achieve similar levels of education than cashiers. They're 0.4% more likely to obtain a Master's Degree while being 0.1% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Cashier vs. Pharmacist cashier/technician
A pharmacy cashier/technician's role is to assist customers or physicians by answering inquiries and providing medications while under a pharmacist's supervision. Their responsibilities typically revolve around receiving and evaluating prescriptions for accuracy and authenticity, verifying customers' identity, filling and refilling prescriptions, managing medical histories, updating databases, and performing audits. One may also process payments, create labels, monitor the inventory of supplies, and perform clerical tasks such as producing sales and progress reports, answering calls, and even handling issues and concerns.
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, cashiers are more likely to have skills like "cash handling," "basic math," "product knowledge," and "food preparation." But a pharmacist cashier/technician is more likely to have skills like "patients," "otc," "cleanliness," and "pharmacy inventory."
Pharmacist cashiers/technician make a very good living in the health care industry with an average annual salary of $31,983. On the other hand, cashiers are paid the highest salary in the retail industry, with average annual pay of $28,822.Most pharmacist cashiers/technician achieve a similar degree level compared to cashiers. For example, they're 0.3% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.5% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Cashier vs. Sales associate and cashier
A sales associate and cashier is an employee who takes on the dual role of helping customers with their product inquiries and facilitating the purchase of the customer. As a sales associate, the employee must be familiar with the different products offered by the company and should be able to direct customers to the product that best suits their needs. As a cashier, the employee must be familiar with the cash register and the system that the company uses to manage sales and facilitate payment. He/She or she must be able to work the equipment needed for a smooth checkout process.
Types of cashier
Updated January 8, 2025
