Call it too much of a good thing for small retailers: Their stores are so busy that the checkout lines snake out the door, prompting some customers to leave without buying. Store owner Gordon Russell saw that happen each summer season at his In the Pink retail chain, which dots tourist destinations like Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. Last spring Russell took a page from Apple and turned his store associates into mobile cashiers.

The traditional checkout counters? Ripped out in all eight stores and replaced with racks of merchandise. Store clerks, armed with iPad minis, have become roaming fashion consultants who can pull up a customer’s history, check inventory at other stores, and ring up a sale moments after a customer steps out of the dressing room.

Four months after moving to mobile point of sale, the $10 million retailer witnessed a 23% jump in same-store sales compared with the same period a year prior. Says Russell: “We were able to serve more customers more quickly and let them get out the door and on with their day.”

Thanks to the low cost of iPads and new mobile-payment services like Square, more small retailers are doing the same. In fact, mom-and-pops lead the way when it comes to mobile checkout, accounting for 85% of the mobile point-of-sale systems installed in stores today, according to research firm IHL Group. IHL projects that in the next three years, mobile POS systems will replace up to 20% of existing systems in stores today. “It’s growing tremendously,” says Greg Buzek, IHL’s president.

There’s good reason: IHL contends that consumers spend 20% to 25% more when checking out with a clerk standing next to them than they do in a traditional across-the-counter transaction. Notes Buzek: “By standing side by side, you’re working on a problem together.”

Mobile checkout is cheaper, depending on how often you replace equipment. It can cost $6,000 to install a traditional system. By contrast, an iPad costs $400 to $700. (Both stationary and mobile systems require about $1,000 in annual costs for various software and maintenance.)

For rudimentary mobile checkout, apps like Square offer free card readers; they charge per transaction. For more robust cloud software that lets you see what is selling and what isn’t and individual buying patterns, services like Revel Systems, Lightspeed, and ShopKeep charge $49 to $79 a month, plus $669 to $3,000 for hardware such as a credit card reader, receipt printer, cash drawer, and an iPad stand. (Cloud software is cheaper for stationary systems: Retailers that use touchscreen devices and software can pay less than $50 a month.)

Russell of In the Pink is so enamored of mobile checkout that he started another company, Springboard Retail, that makes it available to other store owners. Smarter, cheaper, more mobile systems with real-time data in the cloud, he says, will give small retailers a big competitive advantage. Says Russell: “It’s huge.”

Food+Tech Connect and ShopKeep have teamed up to offer 25 full scholarships to The Power of Brand: Growing Your Restaurant boot camp, taught by former Union Square Hospitality Group CMO Felicia Stingone.

“In today’s increasingly competitive restaurant industry, I have seen firsthand how using brand as a business tool can help restaurants not only survive, but grow,” Stingone said in a news release. “Through this boot camp, I offer insider tips and tools for developing a brand framework to drive smarter, faster business decision-making, like whether to open a new restaurant, publish a cookbook or pursue licensing opportunities.”

Whether starting, growing or scaling a restaurant business, attendees of the program will learn how to use branding to strengthen operations, marketing and culture, the release said. The day includes conversations with industry insiders such as Danny Meyer, founder and CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, Richard Coraine, senior managing partner, Business Development and Consulting at Union Square Hospitality Group and others.

Danielle Gould, founder and CEO of Food+Tech Connect, said their objective is to “lower the barriers for success for food entrepreneurs” through online business courses.

To apply for one of the 25 scholarships ($399 value), applicants will need to share how they plan to use their new branding skills in “taking their business to the next level.” Applications are available at Food+Tech Connect and will be considered on a rolling basis through Nov. 7. The Power of Brand: Growing Your Restaurant will be held on Nov. 18, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in New York City.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way. Data breaches in retail are becoming the “news of the day,” and they’ve crossed multiple types of merchants and categories.  In the past 12 months alone (not exhaustive), data breaches have occurred at Staples, Kmart, Dairy Queen, Jimmy John’s, Home Depot, Goodwill, P.F. Chang’s, Target, and Neiman Marcus.

Is this a “run up” before EMV? Is it symptomatic of old, archaic retail systems, or smarter crooks?

On Friday, October 24, the fifth and last day of Retail Reinvention Week, join us in a live digital discussion held at 11 AM EST with Market Platform Dynamic’s Gloria Colgan as host, Alex Pezold, CEO at Tokenex, Norm Merritt, President and Co-CEO at ShopKeep and Thomas Rand-Nash, Director of Operations and Strategy at Brighterion to find out who really owns the POS and customer data, and get a deeper look at issues related to data privacy, ownership and regulation.

In this digital discussion, you will learn: 

• Will consumers really choose data security over convenience, production selection or price? Or will they turn to cash?
• What will it take to get consumers broadly to feel secure in the mobile space?
• Is it a good or bad thing that, perhaps with Apple Pay, tokenization is starting to become more of a common use and understanding? Does there need to be a standard approach?
• In the fight against data compromise, what is the single best step a merchant can take?
• Will consumers have gotten over their security fears of mobile payments 5 years from now? Will there be significant penetration? Why or why not?