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They literally just flipped the order of the frozen foods aisle. WHY.
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this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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They do it to make you spend more time browsing. Shoppers typically get the same stuff every time they get groceries. Over time people learn the layout of their local store and develop efficient patterns to move through it and get everything they want. When the store shuffles everything around they force shoppers to wander around the store and to look at all the shelves carefully for the stuff they actually want. Some percentage of them end up finding new things to buy and spend more money.
Literally trying to disorient shoppers like rats in a fucking maze, truly capitalism is not dystopian in any way!
Eh, it's food, there's only so much I can eat. So it's not as if I'm going to suddenly buying more food because I'm walking around the grocery store. Even if I did, it would be longer before I'd need to go back and get more food.
I think it's more down to certain brands paying the grocery store to have their products placed in more prominent places. So yeah people will buy different things, but not more. But if it's more Brand X instead of Brand Y, Brand X makes more money and kicks back some of that to the grocery store.
I can’t guess what individual people will do but, as a group, shoppers end up spending more this way. Supermarkets and grocery stores typically sell many things besides food; toys, magazines, beauty products, etc.
The store also doesn’t need you to eat all the food you buy. If you throw out a bunch of food, as many people frequently do, the store still gets paid for all of it.
People buy more. It increases sales, it's not some secret. They may not buy more forever but a couple items is enough.
The brands aren't paying stores to do that, most grocery stores have very little interaction with brands directly and just order from warehouses.
Grocery stores don't have interaction with brands? Are you sure? Why do you think most them have discount cards? It's not because they're being generous.
The discount cards allow them to sell that data to market research companies who analyze which products are often purchased together. They use that data to determine the optimal places to put the products.
You get that discount in exchange for allowing them to track what you buy. The money they make from their interaction with various brands exceeds the discount they offer with those cards, otherwise they wouldn't be offering those discounts.
That's a great example of indirect brand interaction and how various brands perform market research without involving grocers.
If they wanted a grocery store could just sell that data. Discount cards guarantee that a given shopper buys their merchandise instead of another brands. Your use of they is ambiguous in this context.
Larger stores, like say Walmart or albertsons, are far more likely to have direct deals with brands. Smaller stores often will with in particular local brands bit it depends on the specifics. Your run of the mill grocer, rarer and rarer these days, probably has very little direct interaction in the way you are suggesting. It's certainly not why stores reorganize, when that is demonstrably because that just boosts sales.
Go chat with managers who do procurement at a grocery store, this isn't secretive conspiracy stuff, it's all just out there.
The average amount of food I buy should be, on average, the same as the amount of food I consume, but the amount of food purchased during a given shopping trip varies, especially in the amount spent on nonperishables. I am likely to buy a lot of a given item, store the extras for when I need them, and buy more when I run out.
If I am wandering around the store, I may see an item (like a snack) that I am interested in trying and pick some up. In doing so, I am slightly delaying the next time I need to buy more, but it is an overall gain for the store since they are getting my money earlier and the future stock up trip may be from a different store.
Also if there's something new in a spot you're used to looking for a regular purchase in, you're more likely to notice the new item, and thus buy it - in addition to the thing you were going to buy anyway.
Some people in these comments are acting like we don't make decisions while we're shopping.
Some people will definitely buy more. One look at global obesity rates shows that people don't buy less food just because they don't need to eat that much. He/she didn't say everyone would buy more, just some percentage. You're obviously not part of that percentage, which is great. But it doesn't have to be many who do to make the effort of rearranging worth it for stores. 1% of people buying more means millions of dollars for a big box chain that does hundreds of millions in sales every year.
But ultimately it's a combination of things. Some buy more. Some buy different brands they don't usually buy. Maybe those brands have a few more in the package than other brands and people unwittingly buy more. Maybe they try an entirely new product line they've never tried and it becomes a new normal thing.
As an adult it makes me mad mostly because I know I'm being played and being made intentionally less efficient but I have to deal with it anyway because I don't really have a choice.