A British retailer is road-testing a new way to deal with shopping centre gridlock by introducing a pedestrian "fast lane" for shoppers at a Liverpool shopping mall.

After gauging interest in the idea and finding that almost half of shoppers cited slow sidewalks as their biggest shopping gripe, Argos installed the fast lane in their Liverpool store.

The research found the "slow pace of high streets", "pavement hoggers" and "dawdling pedestrians" were the biggest shopping bugbears.

Central operations director at Argos, Andy Brown, said shoppers had indicated speed was critical when navigating shopping centres.

"We want to test consumer reaction to a dedicated pavement fast lane," he said.

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"We hope it alleviates some of the biggest shopping high street frustrations."

Twitter users have applauded the idea, and called for cities including Hong Kong, London and New York City to consider the idea.

Argos shoppers have been testing out the fast lane for the past week.

But the lane currently remains merely a experimental idea, with no word yet on whether the lane will be implemented permanently.