Should you avoid the first open checkout line you see?
Visibility attracts demand.
Not necessarily. Highly visible checkout lines often attract more customers, but queue speed depends on transaction complexity and service rate rather than position alone.
Many shoppers choose the first available line because it minimizes decision-making.
The hidden mechanism is visibility bias. Customers tend to react to the same obvious opportunities at roughly the same time.
Imagine a newly opened checkout lane. If everyone notices it immediately, the line may fill faster than neighboring options.
A second-order effect appears because customer decisions influence each other. A queue that seems advantageous can quickly lose that advantage once people respond to it.
People often think they are competing against the queue. More often, they are competing against everyone else's interpretation of the queue.
