For Sheng Siong and many retailers, manual cash counting takes up a substantial amount of time. Staff members spend too much time counting cash and not enough time with customers.
As the business grew, so did the queues. Cash is still the preferred payment method for Sheng Siong customers. Time is required to process each transaction, more customers mean more waiting time.
For many retail stores, there is often a shortage in coins. Sheng Siong has to buy them from banks, which incurs operating cost.The intensive workload of manual cash counting resulted in high staff turnover rates.
With difficulties in hiring staff willing to work as cashiers, Sheng Siong was required to spend more time training staff as cashiers to deal with the lack of manpower.