Every spring there is a pop-up carnival that occupies the south side of Coquitlam Center’s parking lot (the mall that is 5 minutes from our house). I took my daughter there over the weekend to go on some rides, play a few games, and buy mini-donuts. When we got there we saw that the mini-donut line was very, very long.
Why was the line at the mini-donut stand so long, but there were no lines for the poutine stand, hot dog stand, or nachos stand? The long queue almost scared me away, but my 4-year old daughter had her mind set on eating mini-donuts. So we walked to the end of the line and waited with everyone else.
As we inched forward I hear the girl behind us say to her friend with a bit of frustration, “We’ve been lining up for 10 minutes already.” And then her voice perked up as she continued, “But the donuts smell so AMAZING…” It was true. You could smell the sweet, delicious scent of the donuts from the end of the line.
Having a logistics background, I thought that the mini-donut stand could make more money if they churned out donuts faster (part of the appeal of these donuts is that they are freshly made.) I saw several people protest aloud when they saw the line-up, and turn away half-disgusted, half-disappointed.
But what if the long line attracted more people than it scared away? The funny thing about people is that they want what other people want (like how my daughter only wants to climb on my lap if her sister is there). Whenever I see a long line-up of people on the street I always wonder what the line is for, and if there’s something amazing happening that I was missing out on. As I read in an article in the Globe and Mail about huge lines for food trends, “Nothing attracts a line like a line.”
Most people think that lines are a big waste of time (like lines at the grocery store, border-crossing, passport office, car rental place, etc.) A line actually adds to the cost of the product or service a business is selling. Not only is there the actual cost of the product ($5 for twelve mini-donuts), but also the cost of the time waiting in line (17 minutes).
But sometimes waiting in a line can increase the appeal of a product. This was probably true with the mini-donuts. Maybe because I had waited in line so long, the donuts tasted better than if I got them right away.