Near where I live is a gas station that is almost always packed and overflowing into the road. It's not particularly small, but they have decent prices.
I've wondered why the station always looks so busy. I think I have the answer. In addition to having decent prices on gas, they also have a big sign that reads "9c/gallon off with cash". I've observed that the vast majority of the users wait in line until their car is in front of a pump, then walk into the store to get in another line to prepay in cash for their gas. Once they've prepaid, they return, pump, and sometimes go back in for change. If you add all this up, they spend about 5-10 minutes with their car in front of the pump for every 1 minute or so of actual pumping of gas.Pump utilization is abysmal, leading to low throughput, leading to long queues. Sounds like a dumb algorithm to me.
What I don't know is if this behavior increases their sales or decreases them. I know that Cristin and I sometimes avoid this station because of the congestion meaning lost sales. However, it's possible that the lines of overflowing cars out into the road draws attention and gives a false sense that this must be the cheapest around driving more sales still.
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