Why express tills mean you’ll queue LONGER at the checkout

WHEN you only have a few items in your supermarket basket, joining the ‘ten items or less’ queue may seem like the speediest option.

But in fact, express tills do not offer a faster checkout, a study has found. Instead your best bet to avoid delays is to queue behind a single shopper with a full trolley.

Researchers found that when it comes to paying for our groceries, it is the time spent talking to the cashier that causes hold ups – not how many items someone is buying.

It means it takes longer to queue behind several people with only a few things in their basket than behind someone with a full trolley, because more time is racked up chatting.

The findings come as it emerged the average Briton spends between one and six months of their life standing in line at the shops.

Other tricks the US researchers recommended

‘Female cashiers more efficient’

to speed your way through the queue include choosing a till on the left hand side, because most shoppers are right handed so go for the right, and to head for a female cashier, as they tend to be more efficient.

After months analysing supermarket data, Desmos – an American organisation that promotes maths – said it takes a baseline of 41 seconds for each customer to pass through a till, with an additional three seconds per item they are purchasing.

Their research was backed up by British consumer group Which?, who sent researchers to test checkout speeds on the high street.

It said the time it takes to say hello, pay, say goodbye and clear out of the lane means six people with a small number of items in their basket will take a similar amount of time to two people with full trolleys.

It added that Asda had the longest queue time, while Tesco had the quickest.