英國人不再願意排隊 網絡讓人失去耐心

Queuing, along with warm beer and afternoon tea, was once a quintessential British trait. But it would seem we are no longer prepared to wait in line.

Two minutes is the longest many British consumers are prepared to queue, down from five minutes just six years ago.

Two-thirds of us have walked away from buying something in a shop because we were so fed up with queuing, the survey also found.

Queuing patiently was once considered a typically British trait, fostered during the era of rationing. It was deemed a sign of civility that consumers were prepared to wait a long time, sometimes only to discover the shop had run out of butter or meat.

British buses, with only one place to hop on, are also believed to be a key reason why we have been more prepared to queue than our European cousins – where the predominant form of public transport was the tram, with multiple doors, which discouraged the single, disciplined line.

However, the survey undertaken for Barclays and Barclaycard discovered that two fifths of British refuse to queue for longer than two minutes and 51 percent of shoppers refuse to even enter a store if they spy a queue.

This is in contrast to a similar survey back in 2004 which discovered half of shoppers refused to queue for more than five minutes in a high street shop.

The internet, which allows shoppers to buy most goods, with just a click of the mouse, is one of the reason why people's patience appears to be so thin. While ever longer working hours has also meant British employees have lost the art of queuing.

Some shops, the study found, made the queues appear shorter, by shifting the position of the till.

Stuart Neal, head of contactless payment at Barclaycard, said: “Our research shows that consumers are much less willing to stand in line compared to six years ago and it would seem that as the Internet has become more popular among shoppers, impatience with queuing has increased.

"Used to buying without delay, customers are even abandoning purchases rather than wait their turn. Shoppers are also less likely to queue for long if the item they are buying is of low value, and as a result food and drink retailers are having to find innovative ways to deliver good customer service.”

排隊、熱啤和下午茶曾一度是英國人的典型特點。而如今，英國人似乎不再願意排隊了。

英國人購物時能忍耐的最長排隊時間已從六年前的五分鐘降至目前的兩分鐘。

此外，調查發現，由於不願排隊，三分之二的英國人在購物時寧願不買走人。

耐心排隊一度被視爲英國人的典型特點，這一習慣是在（戰爭）配給年代培養起來的。排隊被視爲一種禮儀的象徵，人們在買東西時願意排很長的隊，有時候排到時卻發現他們想要的黃油或豬肉已經賣完了。

英國的巴士只有一個上車門，這也被認爲是英國人比歐洲其它國家的人更有耐心排隊的一個重要原因。歐洲其他國家的主要交通工具是有軌電車，這種車帶有多個門，所以人們就無需規矩地排成一隊等待上車。

然而，這項爲巴克萊銀行和巴克萊信用卡發行公司開展的調查發現，五分之二的英國人排隊超過兩分鐘就不耐煩了，51%的人在購物時如果看見商店裏排着長隊乾脆就不進去了。

這一調查結果與2004年的一項類似調查形成對比，當年的調查發現半數受訪者在繁華商業區購物時排隊最多可以忍耐五分鐘。

互聯網也是人們失去耐心的原因之一，人們只需輕點鼠標即可在網上買到大多數商品。此外，工作時間變長也使得英國人失去了排隊的藝術。

調查發現，一些商店試圖通過變動收銀臺的位置以讓等待結帳的隊伍看起來短一些。

巴克萊信用卡發行公司的非接觸式支付業務主管斯圖亞特•尼爾說：“我們的調查顯示，相比於六年前，消費者排隊等候的耐心減少了很多，隨着網上購物越來越受歡迎，人們也變得越來越不耐煩。”

“習慣了無等候的購物方式，人們甚至寧願不買也不願意排隊。如果只買一些小東西，人們就更不願意去排隊了，因此食品和飲料零售商必須想出新的辦法來爲顧客提供優質服務。”

Vocabulary:

fed up with: 對……感到厭煩

rationing: the policy of limiting the amount of food, fuel, etc. that people are allowed to have when there is not enough for everyone to have as much as they want 定量配給政策；配給制

high street: 大街（城鎮的主要街道），繁華的商業大街

till: 交款處