Here in Italy, I see serpentine queues in both clothing and tech shops, but they require a large surface area. I think that applying this method to a grocery shop might fail for two reasons:
1) The psychological drawback. The customer wants to come inside, pick what they want, and leave. If they see one massive line or have to walk all the way across the store to join it, they might just leave. In tech and clothing shops, since customers spend more time browsing, they perceive the wait differently compared to a quick grocery run.
2) Space constraints. Shopping carts require a much larger turning radius, making the serpentine layout spatially expensive. This creates a high opportunity cost: that space could be used for products instead of empty lanes. Especially here in Italy, where stores are often smaller to fit into cities, we simply wouldn't have the room.
It makes so much sense that I do wonder why societies like ours have such a difficult time embracing it (or, for that matter, opening our minds to the possibility it's actually far superior). It's a fascinating example of status quo bias.
I'm wondering, what's in it for the supermarket to implement it. If you consider the psychological drawback, lines get queued through a non-random algorithm (the people gauging which line is the shortest) so the possibility of cashier's being idle is low. If no cashier is idle, the supermarket does not lose efficiency.
One thing I was thinking is that in serpentine lines it's easier to add or withdraw additional cashiers.
With serpentine queues, cashiers idle less, so it’s an efficiency gain for the store. With separate queues, there are times when no one notices one queue is empty. With serpentine queues, this is never the case.
The biggest drawback of serpentine queues is that once the wait gets too long, kids start looking around- and suddenly discover a hundred little temptations. 🤣 I am pretty sure the business did it on purpose.
I think that in a serpentine queue, kids would be more tempted as the barriers holding the queue in place are full of small, cheap, but high-margin objects, allowing the store to make more money.
Here in Italy, I see serpentine queues in both clothing and tech shops, but they require a large surface area. I think that applying this method to a grocery shop might fail for two reasons:
1) The psychological drawback. The customer wants to come inside, pick what they want, and leave. If they see one massive line or have to walk all the way across the store to join it, they might just leave. In tech and clothing shops, since customers spend more time browsing, they perceive the wait differently compared to a quick grocery run.
2) Space constraints. Shopping carts require a much larger turning radius, making the serpentine layout spatially expensive. This creates a high opportunity cost: that space could be used for products instead of empty lanes. Especially here in Italy, where stores are often smaller to fit into cities, we simply wouldn't have the room.
Thanks for the insightful feedback from experience.
entirely agree. Larry David's also for the cause https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2CFFULmONk
It makes so much sense that I do wonder why societies like ours have such a difficult time embracing it (or, for that matter, opening our minds to the possibility it's actually far superior). It's a fascinating example of status quo bias.
I'm wondering, what's in it for the supermarket to implement it. If you consider the psychological drawback, lines get queued through a non-random algorithm (the people gauging which line is the shortest) so the possibility of cashier's being idle is low. If no cashier is idle, the supermarket does not lose efficiency.
One thing I was thinking is that in serpentine lines it's easier to add or withdraw additional cashiers.
With serpentine queues, cashiers idle less, so it’s an efficiency gain for the store. With separate queues, there are times when no one notices one queue is empty. With serpentine queues, this is never the case.
The biggest drawback of serpentine queues is that once the wait gets too long, kids start looking around- and suddenly discover a hundred little temptations. 🤣 I am pretty sure the business did it on purpose.
Isn't this the same problem as with single queues? Only that you'd have to wait longer so kids more often start looking around
I think that in a serpentine queue, kids would be more tempted as the barriers holding the queue in place are full of small, cheap, but high-margin objects, allowing the store to make more money.