Why Are We Waiting: 7 Ways To Reduce Queues At Your Store

Posted on 8/4/2025, 3:28:18 PM

Long customer queues aren’t good for business. When customers have to wait for a long time, they become bored and irritable - leading to complaints and poor reviews. Some customers may even decide that they do not have the time or patience to wait and may decide not to shop at your store. This can result in lost income.

Fortunately, long queues aren’t something you have to accept. Below are just a few ways in which you can shorten queues to boost your reputation and increase sales.

Add more checkouts

An obvious solution is to add more checkouts. This does require spending money on another POS machine, card reader and cash register. It does also mean paying another staff member to man the checkout. However, with twice the checkouts, you should technically be able to cut queues in half - making it worthwhile in busy stores. 

Install self-service checkouts

Self-service checkouts allow customers to check out themselves without having to hire extra staff to man them. There will still need to be a trained staff member on shift who can attend to self-service checkout issues or approve certain age-restricted products, but otherwise it’s generally much more cost-efficient than multiple manned checkouts. 

Introduce contactless payments

Contactless payments are much speedier than having to enter a PIN. Using a credit card processing company like North payments, consider installing contactless card readers at all your checkouts if you haven’t already got them installed. 

Optimize POS displays

It’s also important to think about the layout of your POS display. Making it easy for staff to find and select products will speed up training and service. This could include using clear product categories, including a search feature and creating shortcuts to popular products - especially if you have a large menu/inventory. 

Consider a virtual queue

Virtual queues are sometimes used in stores where queues are inevitable. Instead of asking customers to queue up, customers instead receive a number and then go up to the counter when their number appears on a screen or is called by a staff member. This allows customers to browse the store as they wait. It’s even possible to hand out pagers to customers that vibrate/light up once their order is ready.

Identify peak hours

There are likely to be certain hours of the day/week when you are most busy. By identifying these peak hours, you can take steps to reduce queues during these hours - such as employing extra staff to man checkouts during these hours.

Occupy customers while they wait

You may not always be able to shorten queues - however, you may be able to make queuing less tedious by finding ways to occupy customers. This could include displaying impulse purchase products that customers can look at near the checkout or displaying screens with promotions and videos. Some restaurants and food stores even hand out samples to customers as they are queuing. 

Conclusion

These measures are a great way to shorten queues - or at the very least make queuing more enjoyable. Consider implementing some of these strategies if you haven’t already implemented them and currently have to deal with long queues.