Twice a year I go clothes shopping with my husband. First in January when he has some Christmas money to spend, and then in June just after his birthday. Quite how I ended up with a man who has so little interest in what he wears or buys is a mystery to me.

So with some extra discount tokens we headed to the local mall for late night shopping. First we hit Debenhams. The store was reasonably quiet and soon he had a few items to try on. While I was standing outside the changing room I watched the queue of people waiting to pay. In the 10 minutes I was there the two assistants only managed to serve two customers. Why? Because they were signing up the people for a store card which usually takes 10 minutes. The queue just got longer and longer with no extra staff coming to help even though there were plenty about.

Luckily I know the store well and when he had decided what he wanted we headed to another till at the other end of the store. My point is, ‘How many sales did they lose because people just got fed up waiting to pay I wonder?’

The beauty of buying over the internet is there are no queues to hold you up, you see something you like and with one click you can buy it.

Last Updated: July 21, 2008