Shoppers count the people in the queue, not the minutes

Five people in the line

Picture two counters with five people waiting at each. At one the server is quick, at the other slow. A shopper deciding whether to join can count the heads. How fast each line moves is much harder to see.

A 2011 study of the deli counter at a big-box supermarket measured what shoppers do with that choice. The researchers used digital imaging to count the people waiting and matched the counts with sales at the tills ¹. They found that shoppers appeared "to primarily focus on the length of the queue rather than the actual expected wait" when they decided whether to buy ¹.

That gap, between how long a wait is and how long it looks, is the subject of this note. In our view it runs through every place a store makes a shopper wait: the till, the trial room, the returns desk and the alterations counter.

Chart 1Three studies

Waiting shows up in sales

Three findings on waits in stores, from studies published 2011 to 2025

8.26%the price rise that a deli queue growing from 10 to 15 people was equal to, for an average shopper (2011)

22.4%to 22.7% more sales when a dedicated associate kept the fitting rooms clear, in field experiments at two retailers (2021)

71%of US shoppers who returned an online order said a poor returns experience makes them less likely to shop again (2025)

A longer line costs more than it adds

The study put a price on the wait. For an average shopper in its sample, the line growing from five to ten people had the same effect as a 3.22% price rise. Growing from ten to fifteen people was worth an 8.26% rise ¹. The next five people, from ten to fifteen, cost more than twice as much as the five before them.

Chart 2More than double

The next five people cost more

What a longer deli queue was worth, as an equal price rise, for an average shopper, 2011 study

3.22%

8.26%

5 to 10 people10 to 15 people

The authors write that this is consistent with shoppers using "the number of people waiting in line as the only visible cue" to judge the wait, without fully allowing for how fast the line moves ¹. Two of their points cut against common practice.

First, they show that pooling several queues into one line served by several counters "may lead to more customers walking away" ¹. In our view a single snaking line is usually chosen because it feels fair and keeps every counter busy. Those are good reasons, but the line is also longer to look at, and length is what the shopper reads.

Second, shoppers differed, and sensitivity to waiting was "negatively correlated with price sensitivity" ¹. In our reading, the shopper a long line turns away is less likely to be the bargain hunter and more likely to be the one who would have paid full price.

The study has limits worth stating. It looked at one deli counter in one supermarket ¹, and its price figures are estimates for an average shopper in that sample ¹. That a trial room line or a billing counter in a fashion store works the same way is our reading, not something the study measured.

Chart 3

What the shopper reads in a line

Our illustration of the deli study: length is the cue shoppers can see

What the shopper can see

What they cannot see

How many people are waiting

How fast the line is moving

One long line for every counter

That it may move as fast as several short ones

A queue at the counter

That the people walking away may be the full-price shoppers

One large retailer has redesigned its line around what shoppers are carrying. In 2024 Target limited its self-checkout lanes to ten items or fewer, after piloting the idea at about 200 stores the autumn before. Target said self-checkout was "twice as fast" at the pilot stores, and it planned to open more staffed lanes for fuller baskets ².

Why some waits feel longer than others

In 1985 David Maister set out a short list of rules in an essay called The Psychology of Waiting Lines. Among them: occupied time feels shorter than unoccupied time, anxiety makes waits seem longer, uncertain waits are longer than known and finite ones, unexplained waits are longer than explained ones, and unfair waits are longer than equitable ones ³.

His sharpest point is about the start. People waiting to make their first human contact with a service, he suggested, are much more impatient than those who have begun ³.

Preprocess waits are perceived as longer than in-process waits.

On a shop floor, in our view, the pre-process wait is the stretch before anyone says hello. A greeting, or "with you in two minutes", moves a shopper from waiting to be served to being served, and on Maister's reasoning the same minutes then feel shorter.

Chart 4

How an unanswered wait grows

Our reading of Maister's rules on waiting (1985)

1Nobody has greeted the shopper

2They wonder if they have been forgotten

3Each minute feels longer

4They leave before they are served

→↓

↓

←↓

↑↺

the wait before hello

The fitting room: busy is good, until it is not

A team at the University of North Carolina's business school studied fitting rooms using camera traffic data from a US retailer with about 100 stores in 20 states ⁴. Their paper, by Hyun Seok Lee, Saravanan Kesavan and Vinayak Deshpande, was published in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management in 2021 ⁵. It found an inverted-U relationship between fitting room traffic and sales. Past a certain point, more traffic in the fitting rooms can hurt store sales, "contrary to conventional wisdom that traffic drives sales" ⁵.

The researchers point to a likely reason. High traffic made phantom stockouts worse, which could contribute to the fall in sales ⁵. Clothes left in the rooms are not back on the rail, and if they are not reshelved quickly, shoppers may not find what they want ⁴. In our view a busy fitting room makes a shopper wait twice: once for a room, and again for a size that is sitting in someone else's.

The fix they tested was one extra person. In field experiments at two retailers, a dedicated fitting room associate who cleared the rooms reduced phantom stockouts and increased sales by 22.4% to 22.7% ⁵. After the first results, one retailer piloted the change in 10 more stores and later rolled it out to all of its stores ⁴.

These were large stores, averaging about 50,000 square feet ⁴. In our view a small store with two trial rooms reaches its tipping point much sooner, at a handful of shoppers, and needs the same habit on a smaller scale: someone who clears the rooms every few minutes when the floor is busy.

Chart 5

From camera counts to every store

The fitting room study and what one retailer did next, as reported by the researchers

The datatraffic and sales at a US retailer with about 100 stores in 20 states

The findingpast a point, more fitting room traffic can hurt sales

The testa dedicated fitting room associate at two retailers: sales up 22.4–22.7%

The roll-outa pilot in 10 more stores, then every store

Returns are a wait too

In our view a return is a wait the shopper did not plan for. NRF and Happy Returns reported in 2025 that US retailers expected 15.8% of their annual sales to be returned that year, in line with 16.9% the year before ⁶. Their survey of 2,006 shoppers who had returned an online purchase found that about 71% were less likely to shop with a retailer again after a poor returns experience, up from 67% in 2024 ⁶. And 76% said they were more likely to choose a return option that gives an instant refund or exchange ⁶.

Chart 6

A bad return costs the next sale

NRF and Happy Returns survey of 2,006 US shoppers who returned an online purchase, 2025

71%say they are less likely to shop with a retailer again after a poor returns experience

76%more likely to choose a return option with an instant refund or exchange

67%said the same about a poor experience in 2024

Handled well, returns can bring people in. Kohl's took Amazon returns in its stores, and said at least 2 million new customers visited its stores in 2020 because of that service, about a third of them millennials ⁷.

In India the pressure has run the other way online. In 2023 Rest of World reported that Myntra was penalising users who return items too often, and three Myntra customers told it that the penalties had made them switch to competitors offering free returns ⁸. The same report said about 25% to 40% of clothes sold online in India are returned, and that analysts say curbing returns saves costs but may push away loyal customers ⁸. In our view a store has the advantage here: an exchange at the counter can be settled while the shopper waits.

Alterations: a wait you can name

In our view an alteration is a wait the shopper agrees to in advance, which makes it the easiest wait in the store to manage: it can be given a time. Maister's rule fits it ³.

Uncertain waits are longer than known, finite waits.

In our view the promise matters as much as the stitching. A firm time, kept, turns the alteration into part of the service. A vague one leaves the shopper doing what Maister describes: waiting without knowing how long.

What to do on Monday

1. Count the people, not the minutes. Open a second counter when the line looks long, even if it is moving: in the deli study, shoppers judged the wait mainly by its length ¹.
2. Say hello before you serve. A greeting turns waiting to be served into being served, and the wait before contact feels longer than the wait once served ³.
3. Staff the fitting rooms at peak hours. Clear the rooms and put clothes back on the rail, so a busy hour does not hide the stock you have ^{5 4}.
4. Give every alteration and every refund a time. A known, finite wait is easier to bear than an open one, and slow returns can cost the next visit ^{3 6}.
5. Split the line by need. A quick purchase and a full basket do not have to share a queue, as Target's express lanes suggest ².