Musings from Dennis #48: Hey cashier! It was 30 minutes to store closing and I wandered in to this GMS store to see if I could do any last-minute shopping after a long day of meetings. Lo and behold only one cashier point was open on that floor with the others all closed! A long and slow queue had formed with shoppers up to 30 people deep patiently waiting to pay but you can also see a line of abandoned merchandise left behind by those who simply could not wait. When I had a chance to chat with the buyers later, I asked why the case. I mean they lost sales opportunities and also disgruntled customers. Sigh, it was a company decision for the cashiers to be under Operations they informed. Clearly these guys at Operations just want to pack up as soon as they can and go home without a care for the store's bottomline but don’t they know that most store purchasing decisions are made at the cashier points – and much sales are also lost from those who could not wait at the queue? My retail experience made sure that no queue was more than 5 customers or so deep wherever possible. When I was duty manager, we would direct customers to less busy cashier points whenever we spot long queues. If cashiers are not opened we had to address that. If we could add more cashiers to that single point we would and sometimes we ourselves will get in to help do the packing. Never lose a sale we say! The death note to any retailer is this customer line “Oh I will come back and buy another day” because they never will. If retailers take pains to observe their customer traffic near closing time, and address this misstep, I am sure their annual sales revenue would deliver an upside. And that cashier may get an extra bonus even!