Pick the Fastest Lane in Your Supermarket Ahead of a Shopper With a Full Trolley
It may sound counterintuitive, but standing behind a shopper with a full cart in a shorter line is likely to get out of the grocery store faster than queuing up with more people but fewer items. That’s why.
The New York Times explains, with the help of Dan Meyer, Desmos’ Chief Academic Officer, why even one person with a full cart is better than two or three people with fewer items:
“It takes each person a certain amount of time to say hello, pay, say goodbye and get out of the alley,” he said in an email. His research showed that all this takes an average of 41 seconds per person, and it takes about three seconds each to call the elements.
This means that keeping up with the many people who have fewer things can be a bad choice.
Think of it this way: It takes an average of almost six minutes for one person to call. If you queue with four people, each with 20 items, it will take on average almost seven minutes.
These minutes add up.
In short, the time it takes for a cashier to greet and process transactions add up, and if you fall behind too many people with small orders it can lead to longer times than a person with one order and multiple items. Of course, there is a vanishing point here: if you stand behind one person with a huge, full cart, it will take longer to physically handle each item than perhaps one or two people with two items each, so use your judgment.
The full Times section has more suggestions for finding the fastest line at the link below, including looking for lines that lead to multiple checks, which dramatically reduces the waiting time for a line of the same length (presumably) as other lines, explore. that other customers in the queue keep their baskets, and, of course, do not lose their heads and do not change the queue every time the next one seems shorter. Click the link below to find out more.
How to choose the fastest line at a supermarket “wiki useful The New York Times