Ok I'll give my 2 cents now, thanks for all of your answers everyone. Imho they're purposely incoveniencing small-time shoppers, in an effort to increase each

Ok I'll give my 2 cents now, thanks for all of your answers everyone. Imho they're purposely incoveniencing small-time shoppers, in an effort to increase each shopper's purchase amount. If you're constantly met with 5-10 minute wait times at the checkout, you're going to make sure that it's worth it (by buying a lot of items). They probably see multiple efficiencies by customers purchasing 20+ items at once and wish to keep it that way. With 20 or more checkout lines in most stores, I can't really justify why they wouldn't dedicate at least one to 10 items or less. I thought about this the other day when I was contemplating going in just to get a tub of baking soda. I didn't pull the trigger. I'll go back when I have at least 10 or 20 things I really need to stock up on. I agree with jotux though, a single queue would really be the best of both worlds imho. They get their efficiences with the big buyers, and everybody gets through the line at the same (faster) rate.