For a long time, I had one rule when it came to supermarkets: they were off-limits on Sunday evenings. The reason for this had more to do with the line at the checkout stand than anything else; before I established this rule, the Sunday evening shopping experience was terrible, with what seemed like every soccer mom on the peninsula in line with their cart piled to the top with groceries. Even Express lines, with the 10 or 15 item limit were crammed with people. A wait for 10 to 15 minutes was not uncommon. But the skill of picking the right line was something I never learned; was it better to pick the line with less people with bigger carts or pick the line with more people and less items? If there's only one person with a shopping cart full of items, and 3 people in the express line with 10 items each, which does one choose? Is it better to be behind the person with the shopping cart full of packaged goods or the one who just has produce and a dozen cans of cat food? Which customer is going to be the one who drops a purse full of coupons into the cashier's lap? Which one will pay by check, and which one will need to try 3 or 4 credit cards before they get one that isn't denied? Which cashier is going to be the one who makes a mistake and needs to call the manager to unlock their terminal? When should one take the long line in the hopes that another register will open? Over the years I've tried to create a couple of simple rules to follow when making line choices. I've been right as often as I've been wrong, which in short has created the rule of simply avoiding the need to make that decision by not going to the supermarket on Sunday evenings.
The supermarket is one of those places that's a living testament to the The Paradox of Choice; while one needs to decide between all the different products littering the shelves, even down to the choice of checkout lines, we are assaulted by choices from the moment we enter to the moment we exit the store.
A few retail chains have embraced the single queue system, and in a recent New York Times article, Whole Foods in New York City has become a single queue as well. No longer are customers faced with the choice of needing to pick the "faster line".
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