Whole Foods in Manhattan has made checkout line races a thing of the past by adopting newfangled bank-style checkout lanes. The new system queues shoppers in a single line, directing them to checkout counters as cashiers become available.
The single-line, bank-style system was quickly chosen for its statistical efficiency. Then, Whole Foods paired the system with possibly the largest number of registers in the city, more than 30 per store, and it hired an army of cashiers to staff them throughout the day (including “floaters” to fill in for those who need a break).
