Queue management innovation after House of Fraser's virtual initiative: What do retailers need to know?

Why are we talking about this now?

House of Fraser has begun a trial of a new ‘virtual queueing’ system for customers waiting to collect from its Buy & Collect service in its City of London store. The move follows a number of multichannel innovations from the department store under the stewardship of executive director for multichannel Andy Harding including next-evening delivery and its introduction of retail’s first standalone click-and-collect stores.

How does it work?

Customers collecting online orders check in at self-service kiosks when they enter the store. They will then receive a text message giving them an estimated waiting time and a link through which they can check their progress. The method allows shoppers to enjoy a more leisurely experience and House of Fraser to potentially gain further sales. “Early signs are that customers enjoy the experience and prefer to be given the option to browse the store or enjoy a coffee rather than wait in a queue,” says Harding.

What other beneifts will the initiative drive?

Shoppercentric managing director Danielle Pinnington believes House of Fraser’s initiative will enable the retailer to better harness the power of mobile by getting shoppers used to using in store wi-fi. She says: “It will get consumers used to using their mobile in store and allow retailers to push offers to them once they are on the in-store Wi-Fi. Ultimately that will benefit retailers with an omnichannel approach. The key will be to ensure store staff understand the technology to prevent frustration.”

What other queue management methods are there?

The major grocers are driving a number of innovations as shoppers look to cut the time spent in supermarkets out of their busy weeks. Retailers including Tesco, Asda and Waitrose have introduced drive thru click-and-collect services in their car parks to cut the time customers spend walking in to stores and queuing to pick up their online orders.

At the tills, Asda has introduced a Rapid Scan till which uses 360 degree laser scanning technology to pick up bar codes from every angle and speed up scanning to up to 100 products a minute, three times faster than manual scanning. Sainsbury’s has introduced Scan and Go technology allowing mobile users to scan products themselves before checking out at till.

Tesco is ramping up the use of self-checkouts in many of its stores in an effort to cut queuing times while a number of the major grocers use Intelligent Queue Management systems which use infrared sensors to ensure the right number of tills are open at the right time aligned to how many shoppers are in store.