What to do with long queues at the checkout in the store. Small business versus online cash registers: a brief summary of the demands of protesters and the government's reaction How the queue at the cash register affects business

How often did it happen that you ran into the store for a change, and when you went to the checkout, you saw a huge queue? In such cases, there is no need to be upset. You just need to carefully study the queues and get into the right one. Online magazine Factinteres helps you choose the fastest queue.

Queue where customers have full baskets

At first glance, this advice sounds illogical. However, statistics think otherwise. Why is it necessary to queue up where customers have full baskets? Dan Meyer, a researcher of the future of mathematics and technology and head of the academic department at Desmos, will help us to answer this question.

Approaching the checkout, the cashier greets us, asks about the need to buy a package, breaks through the goods, calculates and says goodbye. Tasks without punching the goods take on average 41 seconds. On average, 3 seconds are spent for each unit of the broken product.

Imagine that one person has 100 items in their cart. It will take approximately 6 minutes to service this customer. And in the next line there are 4 people, 20 goods for each. This line will take about 7 minutes to service. Imagine the difference in time if the queue becomes several times larger.

Go to the left checkout

Some research suggests that right-handers (and most people are right-handed) are more likely to go to the right cash register than to the left. This is because most people are right-handed.

Choose female cashiers

No sexism, just statistics! Many studies show that a girl breaks through the product faster and does not waste time on unnecessary movements. By the way, if the cashier girl likes to recommend goods or talk to customers while punching through, then it is still better to abandon this queue.

Study shoppers and their carts

When choosing a queue, you need to carefully study the person and the goods inside his basket. For instance, old man may delay the queue, because there may be difficulties when paying, looking at bills and speed of movement.

Look into the baskets of customers in the queue. For example, a cashier will knock out 10 identical bottles of water much faster than 10 different bottles of water. Try to avoid shoppers whose baskets are full of various vegetables, fruits, etc. Such goods require additional weighing time.

Try to choose a queue that stands for several cashiers

Many studies show that the serpentine line (this is the name of this service method) is the most effective. That is why this service method can be found at airports or banks. Such a system allows a person to get rid of unnecessary choice, because now you don't have to choose which line to go to.

Unfortunately, large stores do not often decide to take such a step to create a serpentine line. Why? It's simple. No store owner wants to have a huge line at his store all the time, stretching across the hall. Therefore, it is easier to create many parallel lines.

Don't get in a crooked line

Research shows that a curved line lasts much longer than a straight line. The fact is that the cashier simply does not see the scale of the accumulated queue and does not accelerate much. Therefore, such a queue usually lasts longer. By the way, do not queue if the cashier cannot see the entire queue.

How to speed up the process?

• Try to put the goods on the tape with a barcode to the cashier
• When buying clothes, remove all the tags and hangers of the store yourself
• Divide products into groups. This will allow the cashier to serve you faster.

Finally, it should be said that most often we exaggerate the waiting time. Many studies support this. On average, we turn out to be 36% wrong. Therefore, next time, follow the advice and calmly wait for your turn.

Checkout lines are one of the biggest problems in retail stores. What to do so that queues at the box office are not a hindrance to development trading business?

The presence of traffic jams can also reduce the flow of customers because, having seen a traffic jam, a potential customer will not even go to the store. And if it does, it will quickly leave it without making a single purchase. There can be up to 90% of such clients. And in order not to lose his client, the store owner needs to seriously think about how to minimize the queues at the checkout.

The study says that a queue of three people seems to the buyer comfortable, with an increase in the number, psychological discomfort arises. This means that you need to closely monitor the congestion at the checkout and immediately take certain measures so that the queues do not grow.

Why are there queues in stores?

1. The cashier is not quick enough (no experience, skill or desire)

Such cashiers become especially noticeable in the evening, when there are most of the buyers in the store. If the cashier is slow, the line at the checkout will grow, the number of dissatisfied customers will grow. The next day, they most likely will not go to this store.

Working at the checkout requires automatism, which needs to be worked out. In addition, the cashier should be friendly and calm when dealing with clients. Otherwise, irritation will grow on both sides.

2. Equipment fails or is set to a not very high speed mode

Not everything depends on the person. Sometimes a technician can also create additional queues. Breakdown, malfunction, low speed of processes - such moments must be foreseen, and if they appear, they must be quickly corrected. For example, when a pos-terminal - a device for accepting plastic cards for payment - takes a long time to process a request from a bank, then not only the cardholder has to wait for a "response", but also all visitors to the store in the queue.

3. Wrong location of the checkout area

The checkout area is where shoppers spend more than 15% of their time. It is necessary to take care of the comfort in this area. From the very beginning, it is necessary to correctly design the checkout area, correctly positioning the cash register, showcases, shelves. It should be comfortable enough in the checkout area, the racks should stand firmly so that it is not possible to break or drop them. In this place, it is necessary to provide additional ventilation so that in hot weather the conditions of stay in it are quite comfortable.

4. Rational use of the store territory

When striving to save each meter of the trading area, the checkout area should not be reduced. If there is not enough space, then even a three-person line at the checkout will look like a large mass of people.

Be sure to take into account all these points, and then even the existing queues at the checkout will not cause a decrease in customers in your store.

What else can be done so that the queues at the checkout counters are not an obstacle to the development of the trading business?

1. Place self-checkout counters

According to the results of separate studies, it is the installation of self-service checkouts that is considered one of the main methods of “fighting” queues. Of course, not every buyer will immediately cope with this payment method, but the gradual accompaniment of this process by trade specialists will help buyers get used to this innovation. This will be especially valuable for those who are in a hurry and do not want to stand in lines.

Self-checkout counters take up less space. Thus, the traffic of buyers in the checkout area will be faster.

2. Train and motivate employees

Even if most cashiers are inexperienced or slow-moving employees, don't rush to fire them. The inexperienced need to be trained, and mentors should be assigned to them from among the experienced cashiers. Additional forms of motivation should be applied to the slow-moving. Material stimulation works best in such cases.

3. Use additional cashiers during peak hours

Use experienced cashiers during peak hours. Strengthen cash registers with employees of other departments, for example, through the involvement of sales consultants. Train sales consultants, motivate their work with additional payments. This is a good motivation for employees, within the framework of their working hours they will be able to perform both their direct duties and additional functions. Your employees will become “all-rounders”, their value will increase. And the queues at the checkout will become smaller.

4. Supply additional cash registers

Weigh your financial capabilities and, if the cash registers are really not enough, purchase additional cash registers. Such an acquisition is necessary when there are really not enough cash registers. Conduct research, analyze customer traffic in the daytime and in the evening. And if the problem with queues is only a shortage of devices, buy and install them. This will unload cashiers, reduce queues at the checkout and attract additional customers.

5. Work through staffing table

Optimize your store's staffing table. Pay attention to what time more cashiers are needed and it is at this time that you invite an additional number of cashiers. Employment by shifts or part-time is possible. Show all cashiers during rush hours. And for those who are comfortable with part-time work, invite for a specific time. Then, during the hours of a special influx of buyers, the queues at the checkout will be small. And at other times the cash desks will not be idle.

6. Engage buyers all day long

Queues at the checkout during peak hours will be small if the store provides additional measures to attract customers at other times. For example, you can announce discounts in the morning and promotions at lunchtime. The flow of customers will be redirected, and the queues at the checkout will be even throughout the day.

Thus, using our small but very important tips, you can make your shoppers' stay in your stores more enjoyable. The queues at the box office will be small, and the stay in them will be comfortable.

Tatiana Zagumennova

There are very few studies on the problem of queues in the world, while in Russia there are practically none. Yes, actually, why are they needed? The solution seems obvious: "There is a queue, open another cashier, put the cashier there." However, the situation is changing, retailers' margins are no longer the same, customers are dear to them, but staff is even more expensive, because each employee needs to be paid a salary.

Oddly enough, the first to talk about the need for automated solutions to combat queues in Russia was a small and medium business, and by no means large chains that care about high technologies in the sales area.

It was small companies that approached us with a question whether we can create a technology for controlling the formation of queues in retail outlets. And so it happened that we investigated the problem of the appearance and movement of queues, and at the same time revealed and confirmed many very interesting facts.

Fact 1. Customers are predisposed to create a queue

When one of the largest international H&M chains entered the Russian market, its top management was proud of the queues. When talking about H&M, the network showed pictures of huge queues in Japan. It would seem that such negative information could scare away buyers. However, no.

Each of us loves to buy the same as the others. If there are people somewhere, then we will like it there too. This is psychology. Who wants to go to an empty store or a deserted cafe?

And looking around the trading floor with purchases in our hands with a cursory glance, we often unconsciously get up exactly at the cash register where there are already people, and we simply do not notice an empty one.

Fact 2. Choosing a checkout intuitively, the buyer is almost always mistaken

Most people are right-handed, and this leaves an imprint on their thinking. American researchers have shown that the right-hander intuitively prefers to stand on the right and walk to the right. I am not a brain researcher, but our observation of trading halls stores fully confirmed this feature of people's behavior.

The left checkout is often empty, and the queue is always longer at the right one. One queue to all cash desks at once - good way solutions to this problem.

In addition, when choosing a checkout, the buyer almost always chooses the one that moves slowly but smoothly, and not the one that moves faster, but in jerks. Which is quite understandable, because the buyer does not have time to watch the cash registers.

By the way, a smaller quantity of goods in the baskets in front is also not a panacea, the process of movement of people slows down interaction with the cashier and payment more than scanning the goods. The machines for accepting money, which are practiced in Russia "Auchan" and "Perekrestok", are a good way to increase the throughput of cash registers.

Fact 3. The behavior of buyers in the queue is similar to the maneuvers of motorists on the road: congestion is created by "checkers" and "roadsiders"

It's not a secret for anyone that motorists themselves are partly to blame for traffic jams: "roadsiders" are built in forward, slowing down the movement from behind, as well as those who decided to change the lane, deciding that the other is going faster.

The flow velocity during maneuvers is reduced. The same happens in the queue: those who stood at the cashier for a long time and decided to run across, as a result, detain themselves and those around them. Those who took the queue and then came up with a full cart is not worth talking about.

Fact 4. The buyer experiences negative emotions after an average of 6 minutes 30 seconds in the queue

The buyer is inconsistent in his decisions: he loves places where there are a lot of people, but does not want to stand for a long time. His loyalty to the store begins to drop sharply at about the seventh minute of standing in line.

After about 6 minutes and 30 seconds, the customer is struck by the following thought: "Next time I'll think about whether to go here or not." This was shown by our simple survey. The critical threshold, after which some of the customers leave the store, occurs at the tenth minute of waiting.

However, the waiting time is different for different stores. With a cart in a hypermarket, people are willing to wait longer, in non-food retail - less. Understandably, a pair of T-shirts or sneakers are easier to put in place and go somewhere else. And the mood of the buyer largely depends on the assortment of the store, it is not a shame to stand behind an exclusive.

At the same time, store management, as a rule, notices the problem of queues in the store no earlier than a year and a half after the opening of the outlet. The presence of a large number of customers is initially perceived as a plus, and they start thinking about solutions that allow increasing the checkout traffic much later.

Fact 5. Retailers prefer the queue to entertain rather than eliminate

In fairness, it must be said that there are fewer queues in saturated markets. At the same time, many large Western chains took care of this problem much earlier than Russian ones (they introduced, in particular, a single queue and automatic payment machines).

However, now one of the most common ways to deal with negative consequences queues in Europe and America becomes the entertainment of the buyer:

• First, the mirrors at the checkout (the buyer is busy looking at himself and not getting too angry),
• Secondly, a TV with music channels or news.

Fact 6. Store employees are not interested in solving the queue problem

Often, the scale of the queuing problem at the point of sale may be simply incomprehensible to the business owner. It often happens that your main task store management sees cost optimization and is unlikely to waste time counting the number of people in the queue and customers who have left. After all, the results of such a study will lead to the store manager having to explain to the owner the need to hire additional staff, which does not fit in with the optimization course.

In practice, this usually leads to the fact that the business owner does not know about the problem until some time after it appeared, being in the store during rush hour.

Fact 7. In Russia, the service is better, but people are also more patient

Residents of Russia are very patient, and they seem to be used to queues here. But this applies only to the older generation. The overwhelming majority of people in Russia, especially the younger generation, categorically dislikes and does not accept queues.

Oddly enough, it is in Russia that retail offers customers a better service than in Europe. Most of the shops are open late, some are generally round the clock, they have no days off, as well as lunch breaks. A European is no stranger to the fact that after being late at work, he will not get to the supermarket in the evening, and on Sunday everything will be closed.

And life in most European capitals is more measured than in Moscow. They don’t want to wait with us and cannot, therefore, in the capital market, we see a free niche that will allow us to implement and bring to the market automated solutions that allow us to control the number of queues at the checkout and, if necessary, call additional personnel.

Fact 8. Small and medium-sized businesses will outstrip large chains in the fight against queues

As a rule, any technology in Russia is first introduced by large retailers, be it self-checkout counters, security systems or staff motivation. However, as we can see, in this case, it is the medium-sized business that is most interested in the development of automated technologies that allow tracking queues at the checkout. At his request, we have developed a queue detector that allows you to count customers in the queue and signals that it is time to open another checkout.

The demand for such technologies has arisen from small chain stores "near the house" and brick-and-mortar retail outlets... And there is an explanation for this: small stores are not always able to withstand price competition with chains. At the same time, expensive video analytics systems existing on the market are not available to them. But customer loyalty, gained through good service and quick shopping, is their real competitive advantage.

This seems counterintuitive, but it actually reduces the waiting time.

Researchers found that it takes a certain amount of time to serve each customer: on average, 41 seconds to say hello, pay, say goodbye and pick up purchases, and three seconds to break through each product. Therefore, it turns out that a line of several people with fewer goods will actually move more slowly.

Let's count. It will take about six minutes to break through 100 products of one customer. If you queue up with four people, each with 20 items, it will take almost seven minutes to service.

If you add up this time, there is a lot of accumulation in a year. Richard Larson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, estimates that all Americans spend 37 billion hours a year queuing.

Turn left

Most people are right-handed and usually turn right, so there may be less queues on the left.

Pay attention to the cashier

If you notice that the cashier is especially talkative, talking to customers or commenting on products, avoid this line.

Study other buyers

It is not only the number of people in front of you that matters, but also their age and purchases.

For example, it takes longer to serve the elderly. They don't always know how to handle a credit card and generally slow down the queue.

Also pay attention to the number of different items in the shopping carts of the people in front. Punching six identical goods is faster than six completely different ones.

Choose a queue that leads to multiple cashiers

Such lines are usually found at airports and banks, but also in supermarkets. They move the fastest because the person at the front of the line approaches the first employee to free.

In addition, standing in such a queue, we feel a sense of relief, because we no longer have to choose which cashier to approach and doubt our decision.

Avoid queues with barriers

If the cashier cannot see the entire queue, for example, a wall or shelf obstructs the view, customers will have to wait longer Masha Shunko, Julie Niederhoff, Yaroslav Rosokha Humans Are Not Machines: The Behavioral Impact of Queueing Design on Service Time..

Speed ​​up service

• Place the goods with a barcode at the cashier.
• When buying clothes, immediately remove the hangers and take out the labels so that the cashier can scan them faster.

Remember that waiting is only in your head

To some extent, expectation is just a psychological state. Most people tend to exaggerate their waiting time in line by 36%.

In addition, shoppers pay more attention to the length of the queue rather than how fast it moves. When choosing between a slow-moving short queue and a fast-moving long queue, we often prefer the first one, even if the waiting times in both queues are the same.

Also, remember that waiting is faster if you're distracted by something like talking to other customers or reading.

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