How much do long checkout lines cost retailers?#
For a typical convenience store, long lines cost $65 to $100 in net profit per day, or roughly $200 to $300 in lost revenue, according to Mashgin's research on convenience store lines. Over a year, that adds up to about $24,000 to $36,500 in net profit per store.
The loss is concentrated in rush periods. Most convenience stores have 10–15 rush periods a day with lines of 4 or more people, and at that length half of shoppers say they'll leave without buying anything. Long lines also cost repeat visits: 73% of convenience store shoppers say a fast, easy checkout makes them more likely to return.
What percentage of shoppers leave a store because of long lines?#
In Mashgin's survey of 2,500 U.S. convenience store shoppers, 64% said they would leave a store over a long line. The share was higher among a store's most valuable customers: 77% of high-frequency shoppers (more than weekly), 81% of nicotine buyers, and 79% of shoppers with household incomes of $100,000 or more.
Line length is the tipping point. Mashgin's research on convenience store lines found that once a line reaches 4 or more people, half of shoppers say they'll leave without buying anything. Faster checkout works in the other direction: 73% of shoppers said a fast, easy checkout makes them more likely to return.
What is a rush period in a convenience store?#
Mashgin defines a rush period as any five-minute window in which a store processes eight or more transactions. Based on POS traffic across Mashgin's convenience store network, the average store has 10 to 15 rush periods a day, clustered around the morning commute, lunch and early evening. Rush periods are a small share of the trading day but a large share of its revenue, and they're when impulse and add-on purchases run highest. They're also when the checkout line forms.
How many customers can one register serve during a rush?#
A manual register takes 60 to 90 seconds per transaction, so it can clear only three to five customers in a five-minute rush, short of the eight or more that define one.
| Checkout | Customers served in a five-minute rush |
|---|---|
| Rush-period demand | 8+ |
| Manual register, 90 seconds per transaction | 3 |
| Manual register, 60 seconds per transaction | 5 |
| Mashgin, 15 seconds per transaction | 20 |
A store with traditional checkout never records eight transactions in five minutes because its register can't process them. The demand shows up as a line, not as sales.
How many sales does a convenience store lose to long lines each day?#
Mashgin's model puts it at 20 to 35 abandoned transactions a day for a store with traditional checkout. It combines four numbers:
- 10 to 15 rush periods a day (Mashgin POS traffic data).
- At least three customers per rush who can't be served right away.
- Half of shoppers leaving once four people are in line, and two-thirds at five (Mashgin's survey of 2,500 U.S. convenience store shoppers).
- About $3 in profit per convenience transaction (NACS industry data).
That works out to $60 to $105 in lost profit per day. None of it shows up in sales reports, because a sale that never happened leaves no record.
How much do checkout lines cost a convenience store chain per year?#
Mashgin's model scales the daily loss by how busy a store is:
| Store | Rush periods per day | Transactions lost per day | Profit lost per day | Profit lost per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quieter store | 10 | 20 | $60 | $21,900 |
| Average store | 12 | 28 | $84 | $30,660 |
| Busier store | 15 | 35 | $105 | $38,325 |
Across a 100-store chain, the average-store figure adds up to about $3.1 million a year in lost profit. The model assumes $3 profit per transaction and 365 trading days; actual results vary with traffic, daypart and margin.
How many bad experiences does it take to lose a convenience store customer?#
Very few. In Mashgin's survey of 2,500 U.S. convenience store shoppers, 22% said one bad experience would make them stop shopping at a store for good, and another 34% said two, so 56% are gone after two bad visits. Only 3% said no number of bad experiences would drive them away. A long line during the morning rush doesn't just cost one transaction; it can cost every future visit from that customer.
What makes convenience store shoppers leave without buying?#
In Mashgin's survey of 2,500 U.S. convenience store shoppers, the experiences most likely to make someone leave without buying were:
- An unsafe environment: 68%
- An unclean store: 68%
- Not finding the products they want: 58%
- Long lines and slow checkout: 52%
Checkout speed is the one on this list that also brings customers back: 73% said a fast, easy checkout makes them more likely to return.
How can a convenience store measure how much its checkout line costs?#
Four steps, using a week of POS data, a stopwatch and two or three rush periods:
- Count your rush periods. Look at POS data in five-minute buckets. On a manual register, you won't see eight transactions in a bucket; look for back-to-back buckets at your register's ceiling of three to five. Most stores find 10 to 15 a day.
- Time your transactions. Time 30 transactions at your busiest register, from the customer reaching the counter to walking away, including price checks and ID checks.
- Watch the line, not the till. During a few rush periods, count how many people are in line and how many leave it. Your POS only records the customers it served.
- Multiply. Rush periods per day × customers who leave per rush × profit per transaction gives the daily cost. Multiply by trading days for the year.
Mashgin's team can also run this model for a store using its own POS data.