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Efficiencies in Supermarket Checkout Lines

posted by martyb on Sunday September 18 2016, @04:56PM   
from the slowest-line-is-the-one-I'm-in dept.

Appalbarry writes:

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports on a former math teacher who claims to solved the question "Which checkout line up will be fastest?"

In a nutshell he has concluded that the number of people in the lineup is more important than the number of items a person has in their cart.

The critical factor, he says, is the average of 41 seconds that it takes a shopper to pay the cashier and engage in idle chit chat.

So a long line of people in the Express line, with two or three items each, will actual move slower than the checkout with one guy with a full shopping cart.

YMMV.

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Original Submission

• Re:so... (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday September 19 2016, @10:24AM

  by TheRaven (270) on Monday September 19 2016, @10:24AM (#403668) Journal

  Waitrose (upmarket supermarket in the UK) has a really good set of these. They actually have two modes. One lets you take the scanner around the shop with you and just pay at the end. In this mode, you'll periodically be asked to have a store clerk check your purchases (which is pretty quick). This happens with decreasing frequency over time (unless they find some errors, then the probability goes up). The other mode is much like other shops, except the self-service checkouts don't have scales to weigh the things that you're buying. They observed that people who are intentionally shoplifting will probably hide things in bags / clothes and so the scales don't really address the threat model, but do slow down throughput and reduce customer satisfaction (both of which correlate with decreased customer spending).

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