One of the aspects of the in-store shopping experience that aggravates consumers the most is too long a wait on a checkout line. People get very impatient when they think their time is being wasted. Now, Kroger — the supermarket chain — is one of the retailers that is actively addressing this issue.

As Julie Jargon writes for the Wall Street Journal: “Supermarket giant Kroger Co. is winning the war against lengthy checkout lines with a powerful weapon: infrared cameras long used by the military and law-enforcement to track people. These cameras, which detect body heat, sit at the entrances and above cash registers at most of Kroger’s roughly 2,400 stores. Paired with in-house software that determines the number of lanes that need to be open, the technology has reduced the customer’s average wait time to 26 seconds. That compares with an average of four minutes before Kroger began installing the cameras in 2010.”

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Photo source: Kroger