Grocery store trickery

One of the grocery stores in my city vexes me to no end by its constant rearranging of products. As soon as I get used to learning where to find the items that I regularly buy, everything moves to a new location. This shuffling of items is probably not just due to changing inventory, but rather a deliberate attempt to get me to buy more stuff. Food and Wine explains this and other tricks that grocery stores use to drive sales.

A 2020 Reddit thread discussed the topic of my vexation and one response from a grocery store employee confirms that rearranging items is “a tactic to keep shoppers wandering because if they can’t spot the items they’re looking for quickly, they’re more likely to keep walking around the store, picking up more items than initially intended.” One method to avoid this is to use online tools to pinpoint the location before going to the store. Many apps and websites will tell you in which aisle the product is located. Of course, that gives the store another chance to pitch an item to you via a popup or advertisement. There is no real way to win this game other than through sheer willpower.

Where items are displayed on the shelves also drives shoppers’ choices, as anyone who has wheeled a shopping cart with a toddler seated in it through the cereal aisle can confirm. Items at eye level are more likely to be chosen than those on high or low shelves. How produce items are displayed is also aimed at driving sales. One high end store near me has devised a wall of cubbies that make up a stunningly gorgeous, colorful geometric display of vegetables and fruits, but sticker shock has kept me from buying much from that location. Paying $7 USD for two small leeks just ain’t gonna happen, no matter how attractively they are arranged.

Strangely enough, the discount chains tend to do less of this than the more upscale stores despite running on thinner margins where the tricks might really help. Aldi keeps products in more or less the same place so it’s easy to find what I need. Of course, they don’t have multiple brands competing for shelf space in the way supermarkets do. Nonetheless, it is a reason I appreciate Aldi and similar stores – I can get in and out without wandering aimlessly for the better part of an hour. (To be fair, the “Aldi Finds” can be impulse buys, but if you avoid that aisle you are safe.) Sometimes I enjoy taking my time and looking for new items, but in other circumstances I just need to find the damn tahini. Time to pull up the app and find out where it is hiding this week. Oh look – they have Ferrero Rocher on sale (do not add to cart do not add to cart do not add to cart – oh, why not). Sigh.