A shop encounter is normatively closed when payment is made. This paper analyzes the ways in which the physical presence of money (whether as cash, or bank card) shapes the payment phase of the interaction at kiosks in Finland. This study demonstrates that customers orient to payment from the very beginning of the interaction and work to prepare their money and to make it observable to the seller from early on. Moreover, if the customer has made their money observable prior to the price announcement by the seller, the payment phase moves quickly and smoothly to completion. If, on the other hand, the money has not been made observable early in the interaction, payment can be delayed. Conversely, customers can put their money on the seller’s side of the counter before payment has been made relevant; in such cases, the seller adjusts his or her actions to speed up the interaction so that the payment phase arrives earlier than is typical. Thus, through money, especially displays of it early in the interaction, customers show their orientation to progressivity.

The chapter examines the transfer of the item(s) from the customer’s hands into the hands of the seller. This transfer is a crucial part of many commercial transactions, as the seller must enter the item number into the shop’s inventory system, both to learn the price and to subtract the item from inventory. Exploring data from ‘kiosks’ or convenience stores across Europe, the precise details of this manual transfer of items are examined There are two general methods by which the transfer is enacted: in the first, the customer gives the item directly into the hand(s) of the seller; in the second, the customer places the item on the counter and the seller picks it up. Which method unfolds depends on a variety of factors, including the seller’s physical availability at the moment the customer approaches the counter, the kinds of items purchased, and whether the seller has anticipated the transfer by reaching out their hand, in a shape recognizable as ready to ‘take’. These two methods are seen to reveal the moral and commercial nature of the manipulation of objects, and ultimately of the transaction.