Faster and more

Migros responded to long queues in the regular service shops with what it called «fast service». However, only self-service could fully resolve the problem. Shorter queues are one reason why the new system proved so successful.

”Gradually, the import products which have been missing for many years start appearing in the display windows again. The imports are increasingly huge”, states the Migros annual report happily in 1945. But the abundance of goods and the rapidly increasing turnover are also a problem: The queues and the waiting times are ever longer. As ”a solution“ for those in a hurry who are buying no more than three items, Migros introduces a ”fast service till“ in well-frequented shops. In other branches the customers are asked to hand over standardised and already completed shopping lists in order to speed up the sales procedure.
The long-term solution is, however, self-service. Here, the personnel no longer have to serve because the customer – as Migros emphasises – takes on this job, ”so to speak, for free”. Due to this, and the larger number of tills, the ”shopping time is expected to be shortened by 50 percent“. In order to achieve this goal, in the early days, the shoppers’ purchases in the self-service system are packed for them.
The new system also solves the problem of too little space. Many shops are too small to stock all the articles of the rapidly growing range. With the conversion into self-service, most of the adjoining spaces are added to the sales floor, and thus, from a served shop with 600 articles, a self-service shop with 900 articles is created. It is therefore no surprise that Migros converted a shop every two weeks from 1950 onwards. Ten years after the introduction, 93 percent of Migros branches are self-service.