This “move things around so customers spend more time and buy more stuff” just flat out ignores reality.
We go there with a grocery list. Outside of produce we don’t browse looking for something not on the list.
We have a finite amount of energy and a shopping trip is tiring. All too often we’ve found ourselves saying “Where’s the blogafrickles now?” and decide we’ve had enough and check out. If they kept the blogafrickles in the same spot they would have made a sale.
All too often marketing people have an idealized customer they are oriented towards and no real person meets that ideal.
Trader Joe’s is excellent with this. They have around 25-30 registers, and when it’s busy they look to all be staffed. Even when the line looks super long and wraps around the store, it moves very quickly.
My hand-held device works as a credit card. One tap on the reader and I’m done. It’s pretty funny to me that in one sentence you complain about people taking forever to use credit cards, and in the next say smartphones should be banned, when they can completely cut out the need for fishing around for a card.
I hate the practice of rearranging everything periodically, as I like to write out my shopping lists in the order I know I will pass by things at the store. I don’t know how much Ranch does this in the US, but they were horrible in Jakarta - I would just have one arrangement down and they would alter it again.
I have been in Hawaii for 10 months and so far am very pleased with my Safeway - they haven’t moved stuff around, and unlike a lot of store layouts they do the smart thing and set it up so that you will hit the produce section at the end, so you don’t have to rearrange your cart contents to avoid squishing fresh produce.
The only thing I found to be terribly weird is where they put their raisins. With baking stuff, including nuts and chocolate chips? Nope. With dried fruit? Nope. With snacks like granola bars? Nope. Next to oatmeal in the breakfast aisle? Nope.
They put the raisins on a shelf underneath one of their fresh produce bins (I forget what, but it isn’t even grapes IIRC). Now that I know where to find them, it’s okay. But the first time I wanted to buy raisins, I couldn’t find anyone in the store to ask, and since I knew they HAD to stock raisins, I spent about 20 minutes going through the store trying to find them.
We don’t bag our groceries in northeastern college town either, though, and if I tried bagging my own in a store near the campus of the university I work for, the cashiers would be horrified. Not just groceries either - if you don’t go through self-check out, you aren’t expected to bag any of your items be it clothes, drill bits, or butter.
Aldi is the only store I’ve ever shopped in that doesn’t bag your items for you. Since Aldi is pretty new to this state, it’s a novel experience for many shoppers.
I occasionally do at my local grocery store. And it is a local grocery store, not the local location of some national or regional chain. I can’t remember the last time I had to wait in line behind more than one person, and more often than not I walk right up to a cashier. Their prices are a bit higher than the chains, and since it’s on the small side, their selection is sometimes less than what it might be, but I’m happy to pay a bit more and never have to wait in line.
They even have decent music for a grocery store. Last couple times I’ve been in, it’s been 1960s and 1970s stuff, but I’ve often heard songs over their system that came out in the past few years.
There are a few specific items I wish they’d carry, but that’s the main thing I’d change if I ran the grocery. And of course I’d love it if they charged Food Lion prices, but let’s be real: I’m not gonna get Food Lion prices and not having to wait at the cash register and the lady at the deli counter knowing my regular order by heart.
Ditto. I’m at the store every other day, at least. My recommendations:
Stop prepackaging fruits & vegetables in plastic clam shell containers (looking at you, Trader Joes). It’s wasteful & bad for the environment, plus then I’m forced to take the 4 zucchinis you picked out & packaged together, rather than pick the 4 that appeal to me.
Yesterday I bought a pie from the bakery section (Pie Day!!), and the bar code was on TOP of the pie container. I was at self check, so there was no hand scanner & I had to turn the pie upside-down in order to scan it. Stop doing that.
On the prepackaged meals, make the expiration date easy to find. Sometimes I can’t find one at all, so I wont buy it.
I thought of another one, but this may be specific to my local stores…
At the checkout, they always ask, “Did you find everything?”
STOP FUCKING ASKING PEOPLE THAT!!!
It’s too late! Don’t invite people to hold up the line while you send someone off to find the jar of mustard these assholes forgot! You’re at the checkout line, that’s it. You’re done, get out of there.
Never have the same exact item in two locations, especially with two different prices. And of course at the checkout, you are charged the greater price, regardless of where you got it. “2 for $5” turkey sausages, my ass!
And if there’s a deli counter, give samples. People really do buy them.
I’d require all cashiers to place coins in the customer’s hand first when giving back change, then place the bills on top. No more plopping the coins on the bills, or worse yet, using the bills as a coin hammock when handing it to the customer!
I want to reply to this idea again and once again affirm it is a myth. Grocery stores do not move things around simply to make you hunt and spend extra time. Grocery stores move items around to reflect changes in products and consumer preferences. Remember 10% of last year’s products are gone. What was new and exciting last year has been replaced by a newer fad this year.
I’d let the poor cashiers sit down, like the do in Europe.
I’d also offer them cattle prods, for customers who use the express lane with more than 12 items.
Our Giant Eagle is like a freaking maze. The aisles go every which way. I avoid going there unless I have to, and before they rebuilt it, it USED to be the first place I went. Well, that and Shopper’s Choice. (Where I worked for four years.)
Is there a Kuhn’s in your area? They’re pretty good.
That makes perfect sense – why the hell didn’t I think of that.
I would like more ethnic food, wherever it was. But then, I live in Italy and yes, Italian food is great, but I don’t need the same pasta shape by three different brands and would prefer some Thai red curry paste or some Mexican flour tortillas.
Contrary to most here I would have more cashiers if there were queues but no self check outs. I don’t like being made to do what you previously paid an employee to do for me, thereby doing them out of a job.
The company I work for actually stopped doing that. Apparently enough people had your complaint (including me!) for there to be an actual impact and change.
Never been to a Kuhn’s, but I’ve heard the name. Never heard of Shopper’s Choice. There is a Shop-and-Save near me as well as a Naser’s (single store). I drive an extra 10 minutes to go to Giant Eagle. I like Giant Eagle, I’ve even participated in a focus group for them.
I’ve never seen a line where it was convenient to bag your own groceries before the cashier is done with your order so you’re not blocking anyone and are still near enough to the cashier to complete your transaction. All the places I’ve seen you’d have to push your cart far forward to get around the bags, and if there is another person there already bagging your order, you’d be in their way. But yes, I suppose that if there were not someone else assisting the bagging, and I had a large order, then I could help the cashier bag once I’ve paid for my stuff. I’ve sometimes wanted to do this when there is one particular exceptionally slow bagger, because helping him would actually speed up the process, but when I just grab the large items and put them in my cart without a bag, he STOPS WHAT HE’S DOING in the already slow process and blankly stares at me, possibly considering it an affront to his dignity that I might want to get out of the grocery store before my frozen dinners thaw. (I sometimes go to other lines if I see him bagging even if the other lines have more people in them.)
But only once or twice a year do I encounter a situation where it would speed things up to help bag stuff, and that’s not often enough to modify my behavior.
