I'm frequently asked "How does the Bay Tree Bookstore handle all those students at the start of the quarter? Aren't you really busy?" Well, yes, we are, but we’ve developed a darn good system that enables us to handle over 6,000 sales transactions a day during peak periods.
When the new Bay Tree Bookstore opened in 2001, a "queuing" approach to cash register lines was instituted. Rather than building individual lanes like those you see in supermarkets, we have only one line, truly allowing a first-come/first-served approach to our customers. It's a faster system than individual lanes because a slowdown at any one register has less impact. Any number of things can trigger a slowdown: a credit card not authorizing immediately, the need to change a roll of receipt tape, a product’s barcode won't properly scan for price, answering a variety of interesting questions from customers, and so forth.
During peak periods, four registers are added to the typical complement of six in the Bookstore proper and a staff member is stationed at the head of the line to direct the flow of traffic. While many visitors have seen this single line grow surprisingly long—often weaving through the aisles—they’ve also noticed it goes remarkably fast. New students often gasp in dismay when they first see the length of the line, but happily comment on how fast it moves. At fall opening, the longest wait was only 12 minutes.
October 2nd earned “most customers served” honors this fall with a total of 5,915 of which 1,844 were processed through the three registers in the Express Store (employing the same queuing approach described above). This was a shade off the all-time high of 6,639 on September 24, 2008.
Processing nearly 6,000 transactions in one day with a maximum wait-time of just over ten minutes is good evidence of a very well thought out process. But none of this would have been possible without the Bay Tree Bookstore’s real superstars—the excellent crew of super-speedy cashiers and the rest of our terrific employees!
