What changes would you make to your local grocery store if you could?
This came to my mind last night when I stopped off to get my wife her preferred sparkling water. I stopped at an unfamiliar Jewel grocery, and figured it would be either with the soft drinks, or near the alcohol (with mixers like tonic/club soda). No - it was somewhere completely different, in a “sparkling water” aisle.
So I was going to simply ask, which products would you shelve differently - such as peanut butter and jelly being together and in the same aisle as bread. But I figured I would open it to any supermarket tweaks or rants you might have.
Here’s another of mine - when they remodeled our local Jewel, they removed the self serv aisles. Don’t know why - my only guess is that it had something to do with theft. But it is ALWAYS a pain in the ass to get thru the check-out lines in this particular store. I can only imagine self serve lines would help somewhat. (I tend to think it should NEVER be a hassle to give a store your money and get out of there with your purchases.)
This question raises an internal conflict with me. Our most used store has twice in recent years radically re-arranged the location of things. This causes a ton of problems for us and takes a long time to adjust to.
So the first rule of re-arranging a store is to not re-arrange the store!
But if one is starting ab novo, then I have some ideas.
First, all the products of a given type are in one location. It is maddening to find grains and flours kept in 4 or more different spots due to being “normal”, organic, bulk, “sort of like, but not really, breakfast foods”, etc.
Canned goods should go on one aisle. Not some on one aisle, some on another, etc. I have no idea why our store has the chili in a different place from the soups.
Another oddity at our store: napkins are nowhere near the other paper goods. Somehow tissue near the paper towels makes sense but napkins near the paper towels is some sort of crazy, far-out idea.
If I ran my local grocery store I would stock Tapatio hot sauce. They used to carry it, and now they don’t anymore. Although I don’t mind vinegar based hot sauces, my favorites do not use vinegar. (El Yucateco, Tapatio) Why can’t I have my hot sauce, Store Person?
There’s a simple reason for this: When a customer learns where things are, they go right to them. Most people buy the same things every time, and don’t go into aisles where things they don’t buy are located.
Every time the store “shuffles the deck” people go into other aisles and do more impulse buying.
The store I work at has a policy: Get people into the aisle. If a customer asks you where something is, don’t say “We don’t have it.” Say “If we have it, it would be in aisle 4.” The customer goes into aisle 4, doesn’t see the item, but sees other items they buy impulsively.
Okay. I know from experience if you tell a customer “We don’t carry that item,” some will go around asking other workers the same question. Asking two or three people for the same item does not make it magically appear.
That one I agree with. More self-service check outs would be nice too.
I’m a first cashier at the store, meaning that if there’s only one station open, it’s mine. The three situations I have to get another line open are: three or more people on the line, a person with a full cart, and if anyone says “Can you open another register?”
Pretty much every grocery store has a policy like that.
Me, too.
It might be because the new technology is for you to download an app on your smartphone so you can scan and bag your stuff as you shop, then at checkout the register gets the information from your smartphone, you pay, and you go.
Which does save time at the register. When it works. You are aware of the time you spend scanning and bagging as you go unless you’re really paying attention (I recently tried this at the store where I work).
And yes, we’re going to have theft problems with it. That’s the first thing EVERYONE brings up with this. I’m sure the actual thieves have thought of it, too. Doesn’t matter, the Powers That Be have decreed it is the Next Big Thing so it will be done. Fewer employees, more automation… hey why is no one buying our stuff? It’s because the humans don’t have jobs anymore and therefore have no money with which to buy stuff…
At my store we have done that - the two weeks before Christmas, maybe the day before-Thanksgiving-Black Friday, and sometimes when the TV had predicted a weather apocalypse, at which point everyone has to run out and buy all the bread and milk in the store, even if they do not normally consume bread or milk.
There are three Stater Brothers stores in my town. Each of them has a different layout. Stop that! Just keep the sodas in the aisle next to the condiments and we’ll get along fine.
One of the grocery stores I frequent has frozen items at the beginning of the store. That makes no sense to me. If I pick up ice cream moving in a logical way through the store, it would be melted by the time I finished shopping. So I have to bypass the front section of the store and try to remember to go back and get the frozen items before I check out.
I was making a large batch of tacos for a get-together. I wanted the large container of taco seasoning, not the small envelopes. I searched high and low in the Hispanic section where all of the other taco ingredients were. I finally had to ask. The large container of taco seasoning was in the aisle that had other bulk size items - like giant cans of tomato sauce for restaurants.:dubious:
I roamed up and down the aisle that had breakfast cereal and pancake mixes 5 times looking for Bisquick. Where else could it be? It was in the baking aisle. :dubious:
Canned crushed tomatoes should be with the tomato sauces and pastes. Nope, they’re in the aisle with the canned vegetables :dubious:
I’d add a “cash only and we mean it” register. I know this board leans hard to the card-swiper side, but it just seem like every time I get behind a card user, it goes like this:
Wait for every item from a $150 order is rung up and bagged.
Cashier says the total price.
Customer goes digging in purse or wallet for card.
Customer swipes card. Card doesn’t work.
Customer inserts card into chip reader. Card declined.
Possible, but I’ve never noticed a hint of that - either through posted signs or checkout behavior.
Jewel is one of the major brands of supermarket in our area. Our closest Jewel is an easy walk of a couple blocks from our home. Which is REALLY convenient. Only drawback is that it is pretty much hands down the crappiest Jewel - or other supermarket - we’ve been to. Surly, incompetent, insufficient cashiers/baggers, expired foodstuff on shelves, stocker/vendors clogging the aisles … We often consider shopping elsewhere - but it’s so damned convenient! :rolleyes:
Sounds like an example of what I have long accepted as a truism - beware becoming overly attached to any specific brand or product, because if you do, it is a good bet your store will stop carrying it!
Ah, yes, the “credit card shuffle.” And the cashier is standing there, doing nothing, while three people wait on line. And when you tell the customer their card was rejected they say “Are you sure? That can’t be. Try again.”
I actually had this conversation with a customer the other day:
Me: I’m sorry. We don’t take American Express.
Customer: Are you sure?
I’ve worked here for over five years. I think I know what credit cards we take. And if I forget, there’s a sign on my register.
I sometimes do the “last cash” line at closing, meaning I only take cash payments. And I mean it. “CASH ONLY. NO CREDIT OR DEBIT CARDS.”
