So I had to run to that bastion of compressed Swedish particle board a few weeks ago, Ikea. No, not for a HEMNES, a EKTICKA or a GRUNDTAL. It was a MYSA MÅNE. (Don’t say a word.) One item. In and out and nobody gets hurt–except for a little thing called the Christmas shopping frenzy. Plan derailed as I stood in line for over 10 minutes to only move six feet. Since I didn’t have a camera handy at the time, I grabbed a pic from another Ikea. Trust me, the photo does not do the lines justice. Forget the self-checkout lanes. They’re clogged more than the arteries of a NASCAR fan–not that I’m profiling. People with carts holding 75 items, I don’t think so.So why not have a few express lines for one item or less? (Okay, okay. I’m being a jerk. Two items or less. Happy?) Seriously though, if Ikea can innovate when it comes to meatballs and inexpensive kitchen cabinets, how hard can it be to work on the checkout process a little more and speed people through a little faster?
Tags: Ikea
3 comments:
Hm. An alternative, more radical retail strategy might be to have speed lanes for shoppers with 25 OR MORE items. The clerks would recognize a shopper with a packed cart has having above average value, and a swarm would descend on the cart to whisk him through checkout.
Shoppers with only one item would be recognized as low value, occasional shoppers who have high service costs, and would be pushed to a very long line.
Hey -- maybe Ikea is already on to this!
Interesting. Either way, something needs to be done regarding the separation of church and state, wheat and chaff,etc. I even saw this in Shoprite where they have 10 and 20 items ‘or so’ not, ‘and less’ anymore. And, because people take advantage, they end up in those line with 20 and 30 items respectively.
Five items or less. Done. Just take away a lane or two from those self-checkout nightmare lanes with scanners that work 50% of the time, (the ones where you STILL need a cashier to come over and override an item), and convert them.
But I’m not bitter this holiday season.
You stuck through the line.... Are you courageous or am I just lacking any sort of patience whatsoever.
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