The average person now spends one year, two weeks and a day of their lives stuck in shop queues. That’s according to a report by Box Technologies and Intel, which highlights the importance of technology in reducing queues. The research also found
- Seven people in a queue is the tipping point – any longer and most shoppers won’t bother joining it
- After 9 minutes, shoppers are likely to give up queuing and leave empty handed (other research says as little 6 minutes)
- 86% of consumers will avoid a store if they they think that the queue is too long
- The average shopping trip includes 20 minutes queuing time.
- 70% are less likely to return to a store if they experience long waiting times on just one occasion

Previous research by Lu, Musalem, Olivares and Schilkrut has also found that
- Moderate increases in the number of customers in a queue can generate a sales reduction equivalent to a 5% price increase.
No wonder retailers and other businesses try to minimise queues. With today’s technology reducing queues becomes much simpler. A CCTV queue management system lets businesses test measures to reduce queues, and assess their impact and profitability.
A video queue management system shows
- The number of active service points (ticket booths or retail checkouts for instance)
- The number of people currently in a queue.
- The average queue length
- The average queuing time over the last half hour (for example)
- For how long the last person to be served waited
- How often there were more than seven people in the queue
- How many people abandoned the queue
- How many people jumped the queue
- Daily figures, for example, 95% of people queued for less than 5 minutes.
Integrating the queue management system with the point-of-sale system gives hard evidence about how queue length affects sales.
To learn more about measuring and managing queues, e-mail sales@retailsensing.com, call us on +44 (0)161 839 6437 or fill in the form.
Further Reading on Managing Queues
Read more about measuring queues.
How long does it take to lose a customer? Report by Box Technologies and Intel
Measuring the Effect of Queues on Customer Purchases. Yina Lu, Andrés Musalem, Marcelo Olivares, and Ariel Schilkrut Management Science 201359:8 , 1743-1763
Tech evolution reducing queuing patience, Essential Retail