British no longer willing to queue

By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Editor

Queuing patiently was once considered a typically British trait, fostered during the era of rationing. It was deemed a sign of civility that consumers were prepared to wait a long time, sometimes only to discover the shop had run out of butter or meat.

British buses, with only one place to hop on, are also believed to be a key reason why we have been more prepared to queue than our European cousins – where the predominant form of public transport was the tram, with multiple doors, which discouraged the single, disciplined line.

However, the survey undertaken for Barclays and Barclaycard discovered that two fifths of us refuse to queue for longer than two minutes and 51 per cent of shoppers refuse to even enter a store if they spy a queue.

This is in contrast to a similar survey back in 2004 which discovered half of shoppers refused to queue for more than five minutes in a high street shop.

The internet, which allows shoppers to buy most goods, with just a click of the mouse, is one of the reason why people's patience appears to be so thin. While ever longer working hours has also meant British employees have lost the art of queuing.

Some shops, the study found, made the queues appear shorter, by shifting the position of the till.

Stuart Neal, head of contactless payment at Barclaycard, said: “Our research shows that consumers are much less willing to stand in line compared to six years ago and it would seem that as the Internet has become more popular among shoppers, impatience with queuing has increased.

"Used to buying without delay, customers are even abandoning purchases rather than wait their turn. Shoppers are also less likely to queue for long if the item they are buying is of low value, and as a result food and drink retailers are having to find innovative ways to deliver good customer service.” Telegraph