Customers who live and bank in the Republic of Ireland find it much easier, and are more likely to shop in a store across the border as a result.

Encourage customers who live across the border to shop in your store

Yes, letting your customers pay for their shopping with euro notes is a big help, and essential for border stores.

Hold euros and pounds in a special dual currency drawer

The real advantage is by offering to give them their change in euros.

That way, the customer doesn't have to carry pounds. They know that you accept euros, and will give them euros in change.

Most customers who give you a twenty euro note, and get back £1.46 in change will never remember to bring that money back to spend again. It'll just end up in a penny jar on the kitchen table, never to be used again. That means your customer thinks the shopping has just cost them 20 euros - in their heads they handed over a 20 euro note.

Penny jars seem like a great idea but end up never getting used.

This can lead to them thinking your shop is more expensive for groceries than shops in the Republic of Ireland.

Customers always need to feel they are in control. So the first step is to give the customer a choice; do they want to pay in pounds or euros?

Its even better if your epos customer display makes it very clear to the customer the total in both currencies, so they may have already decided to pay in euros and handed over a euro note to the cashier.

The total in pounds is highlighted, with the equivalent value in euros clearly displayed above.

Some of your customers may have euro notes they want to spend, but they want their change back in pounds.

A lot of your customers will travel to the Republic of Ireland and bring back euros of course, but more and more people are travelling to Europe using Ryanair and Easyjet, bringing back euros. This is an opportunity to encourage them to use the notes in your store and get their change back in pounds and pennies.

Customer has given a €20 euro note, but been given £12.70 change. The exchange rate used is clearly highlighted on the customer's receipt to avoid confusion.

To give change in euros, you must run dual currency cash drawers (a blog post on that coming soon!).

The price of these has come down in the last few years, so they are more affordable than ever.

The customer gets either £12.70 or €16.93.

It doesn't have to be. Using real time cash functions allows you to maintain dual currency floats with no more time spent than you currently do cashing up.

Due to popular demand, a blog article on real time cash (including dual currency) is being written and will be posted soon.

If you also use the "save your change" function, you have an extremely powerful setup to encourage repeat business.

Instead of giving the customer change, add it to their account balance

Save your change allows your customers to leave their change on account, saving them carrying coins home and it can automatically reduce their bill next time.

A blog article about "save your change" is coming soon.