I'm 100% behind this. McDonalds needs to do this next.

I don't see how this would work in supermarkets without pushing the aisles back 20 feet to make a space large enough for a single line of shoppers to queue up.

I'd be 23% happier if they would simply enforce the express lane item limits.

But as someone who hates waiting in lines, and seems to always choose the wrong one, I like the single lane queues where I have seen them.

The best improvement the "new" Duane Reade pharmacies are making is eliminating the individual lines in favor of a single line approach. No more guess work; everything is screwed by slow check out lines equally. If I wanted a social interaction with a checkout girl, I'd put up an ad on Craigslist Casual Encounters.

"At one of the stores in the Sacramento study, shoppers were more satisfied with slower cashiers, suggesting that they enjoyed the interactions."

Wow, shoppers in Sacramento need to get out more.

I love this system. Military commissaries have used it for years. You never get stuck forever behind some retiree paying with a jar of change and a sack full of coupons. It might not be faster but it sure feels more fair. And I don't give a rat's ass about chit-chatting with my checker. Scan my stuff fast and bag it so you don't squish the bread. That's all I care about.

@outlulz: Simple. You remove a few of the registers and create a waiting area there.

They have been doing this in Marshalls and TJ Maxx for a few years now. I hate it, because they made the lanes too small, it's impossible to get past the people checking out at the closer registers to the register that is open. Not to mention the ladies voice telling you which register is available every time a transaction is completed. Listening to that makes the wait seem 3x as long. Drives me crazy, specially since she repeats it over and over.

It makes more sense for fast food or CVS where you wouldn't have to negotiate turns with a cart full of food. If they tried to do this at the Whole Foods in Logan Circle in DC, you'd have a line clear to the rear of the store. Each of the 20 or so checkout queues is already 7-8 shoppers deep at most points at peak times.

This wouldn't make an improvement in my supermarket, which rarely opens more than one checkout isle anyway. Bastards.

@ianmac47: The speed of a transaction is based on several things: Number of items being bought, efficiency of cashier, payment method and the amount of time a cashier and customer spend talking. There are unfortunately people who like to talk the Cashiers ears off.

I'd like to see one register set aside for check transactions so that customers paying with cash or a card can move through more quickly.

@shoelace414: All the McDs in my area have been doing this for quite a while.

I also agree with the single-line queues. Not out of any sense of injustice for myself, but just so the amount of other people complaining that "OMG!! You totally took her first when you should've taken MEEE!!!" would at least be minimized.

I actually prefer the self checkout. I don't have to "interact" with a nasty underpaid under appreciated worker and I can bag my things to suit my OCD.

Being highly impatient, ADHD and opposed to standing for long periods of time, I can't imagine one single line is a good thing, at least not in the grocery store.

whoever said it previously, McD's definitely SHOULD implement this strategy. talk about chaos and helter skelter.

There's also another reason lines are getting longer: The cashiers are required to throw sales pitches at you and try to upsell stuff before you can go. If the customer has to wait through a sales pitch, it can easily add an extra minute or two to the transaction, especially if the cashier tries to upsell more than once.

I just do the self checkout most of the time. there's rarely a wait and even if I have 40 items I take no more than 5 minutes.

@Trance1861:

California is full of a bunch of beach bums and hippies.

I love single-line stores and have gone out of my way to shop at them. While they're at it, I'd love to see grocery stores install a special (refrigerated?) case into which to put all the items you decided you didn't need after all.

It disgusts me to see so many abandoned items near the checkouts left there by lazy shoppers (when you can easily hand an item to return to the cashier). Most stores don't return the perishable items to the shelf, so abandoning them there is equal to stomping on them. It's waste that every consumer pays for in the end.

I notice that DC (where I live) has the longest wait time. At least now I know I'm not imagining it. I really am waiting longer than where I used to live.

The thing with Trader Joe's and Whole Foods is that they have an employee monitoring the line making sure it moves quickly. So it would require someone monitoring the line for it to work well.

@Murph1908:

Me too. I always choose the line that seems to stand still because of a check writer or someone with a huge, expandable folder full of coupons.

When I took an operations management class in college, I learned that a single line system for multiple stations is the most efficient way to deal with a queue.

Military commissaries (grocery stores) have been doing this for years. Not only does it improve checkout flow, it saves valuable floor space be reducing the amount required to accommodate multiple lines.

I know some people who will wait in a longer line to avoid a particular chatty or slow cashier, especially if they're wearing a "trainee" tag. There are even particular baggers that are worth skipping.

@dragonfire81:

Thanks for posting to Consumerist - would you like to save 10% off your purchase today by applying for the Consumerist Charge card?

At most, I've waited about 5 minutes on a line in the grocery store. People being bothered by such a small inconvenience smacks of amazing impatience to me. I feel fortunate to live in a place that allows me to walk into a shop that sells an amazing abundance of food, at that I have the money to buy what I like. The brief wait is of small importance.

I realize this sounds annoying :) But I'm making a point to be more grateful in my daily life. The more thankful I am, the happier and less stressed I feel.

@ianmac47:

I agree on the "social interaction" thing. I am in the Northeast where you are lucky if a cashier even acknowledges you are standing there as they whip your order through the scanner.

I once shopped at a Piggly Wiggly supermarket in South Carolina while on vacation. I was stunned at now only the slow pace of the cashier, but the chit chat level. She wanted to know where I was from, how long I was in the area, where I was staying, etc. I couldn't tell if I was buying 5 items or being interviewed by Barbara Walters.

I remained polite, smiled and answered her questions. I had been told us up north move to fast. However, I was taken aback by all this social interaction with a cashier. Seemed normal to them.

Somehow this must be linked to a planned reduction in the number of cashiers and baggers. Unless it's the day before Thanksgiving or a storm is coming, seems to me that the wait isn't that long and there's plenty of reading material at the top of the queue (isn't that why the magazines are there?). Don't fix what ain't broke

The only social interaction I want at the grocery store is a self checkout computer saying "please place your item on the belt".

Choose the ones with single men. Cash only and no chit-chat.

Fry's has used this concept for years. A couple of notes. First, this requires additional labor - someone to direct customers to the cashiers as they become available (referred to as a Vanna at Frys after Vanna White of Wheel of Fortune) - customers don't seem to get the hint otherwise, even with flashing lights at available registers. Secondly, while this may work reasonably well for electronics, I doubt it'd work as well for groceries. When the first transaction finishes, the cashier wraps up and turns his light on, at which point the Vanna directs the customer to the open line, only after reaching the available register does the customer start unloading his cart... this feels like too much downtime between transactions and ultimately inefficient. Stores are looking to maximize the efficiency of the transaction, not the ultimate fairness.

@Vandelay Import Export:
I nominate moving the receipt checker to something actually useful

@radleyas: I've waited as little as 5 minutes and as much as 20 minutes. One of the more recent incidents involved a cashier who had struck up a conversation with the consumer. It lasted for 15 minutes, and when the customer left, the cashier said, "sorry for the wait" - I don't want cashiers to be sorry for the wait, I want them to do their job efficiently, and to understand that when there are six people waiting in line, the checkout lane isn't the right place to make friends.

I just go later at night...problem solved. (I realize this may not work for everyone)

I really hate self check outs; "Please put the item in the bagging area" which is a pain in the ass when you bring your own ****ing grocery bags!!!!! And "wait for assistance" one really drives me up the wall...what assistance??? When do grocery stores actually have enough employees on hand to actually take care of their checkouts? They are rarely ever more than 2-4 lanes open even during the busy times!

Grocery companies should take a page out of Apple's book and streamline the process so its easier and less FRUSTRATING to use.

@outlulz: also, the line doesnt have the be straight back, it can turn. and since people won't be in line in front of cashiers, they don't really have to add that much more space, right?

@fantomesq: That does sound ridiculously inefficient. Vanna should be directing people to cashiers as soon as they have available belt space, not waiting until the previous customer is finished.

@radleyas: This was nice to read. Thanks for your positivity. I'm trying to do the same thing in my daily life -- the more resilient we are to minor stresses like this, the healthier we'll be (both mentally and physically).

If someone truly cares about a particular register, they can wait for that line to become available. Treat it like a barber shop.

My very first Black Friday, the wife and I were one of the first people to check ut, due to 1) my wife's hyperefficient pre-planning, and 2) me body-checking elderly people. When we got to the cashier with our purchases (including a Dirt Devil we still use once a week we purchased for $30! it still works, three years later!) They asked me if I wanted to apply for a credit card.

Never having been to Target before, I said yes.

I have no idea why the severel thousand people on line behind us did not rip me limb from limb. My retroactive apologies, everyone! Except the body-checked grandmothers. When I'm power walking at 35mph carrying a vacueum cleaner and a printer and a laptop and a digital camera, get out of my way!

I love how wegman's just opens up a ton of registers so you never have to wait behind more than 1-2 customers

@fantomesq: The Vanna at a military commissary monitors the registers and when it looks like someone is finishing up, Vanna will direct the next person in line to that register so you can start unloading before the previous customer is all the way done. The operate the commissary line with the expected military precision and it actually works extremely well even on super-busy payday weekends.

@fantomesq: Well it works well at Trader Joe's in New York.

@dragonfire81: upsells at grocery stores? I have seriously never had this happen to me. what chains do this, and what kind of pitches could they possibly be giving you?

maybe all my grocery store cashiers are lazy, or I look like a terrible mark.

@cmdrsass: Yep. I will bypass this one particularly dimwitted cashier at my preferred store even if there's no one in her lane. She's *so* slow and wants to chitchat which makes her slow down even more.

@ianmac47: I am loving that myself. I used to hate that some DR would have a sign at each register stating form a separate line and some were a guessing game. You would walk up to a register and then have people get angry at you because they feel you are cutting (even if there was a line a sign that clearly said "single line at each register"). The single line system cuts back on the nasty looks and almost fist fights.

If someone really wants to use a specific cashier, they can just let other people go ahead of them until "their" cashier is free.

@fantomesq: some stores have large electric signs with the # of the closest available register, that also loudly announce every time a register comes open. The loud announcing give me a headache, but still people don't get it, and cashiers have to yell for the next person to come. Drives me crazy.

The self-checkout at Kroger works like this. And despite what people say about me doing the labor for the company, I much prefer the self-checkout.

This requires good store design. You basically replace all the lanes with a style much like what Best Buy or Jo Anns is doing. you don't need the space to sack and hold carts at the front of the store so you can push the cashiers backwards and put these tasks parallel to the cashiers, saving space. The cashiers face each other/stand next to each other.

You end up with two long lines of cashiers end to end with the entrance at one end and the exit at the other. Put the queue parallel to one of the lines. (currently you face the front of the store to queue, this way you would be facing the side of the store)

Then give the cashier a "ready for next customer" button. They tap it and a light turns green. There could do audio-based notification or someone could verbally call you over based on store preference.

If you figure that a lane is longer than it is wide its doable without rebuilding stores.

They could keep some traditional express lanes/self checkout lanes for people who like them this way as well.

this will be fun come thanksgiving and xmas time