98 percent of internet places dont tell you the shipping until the last possible second and youve entered your info you needed to …
I ordered Aquaman with store pickup because it eas on a mega sale for a sort of relative as an Easter gift from target …they said it was ready so we went to pick it up taking uber … which is a six dollar trip
They didnt have it ready or at all in the store …apparently they scanned 25 copies of it in inventory and after that they were never seen again …
I called target corporate through the website and apparently, there was an investigation that raised some hell but I never did get the 20$ gift card they promised …the regional manager said …" either there’s a box in a corner… or someone made some money at the swap meet that weekend …"
There used to be a local supermarket that boasted about having no stockroom. There were no shelves. Everything was stacked in their shipping cartons and you had to bag your own groceries. If you didn’t see on the floor, there was no “in the back”. Without shelves, the goods were really a mess, dented cans and without labels. And what you think is an extra case of something below, is a different product. Also, since most people that don’t it all day, having customers bag their own groceries was really slow. The store lasted only a few years in that configuration before it was switched to regular style supermarket.
On the other hand, warehouse stores like Costco have figured out the minimal “in the back” wasted space by stacking as much as they can up top on their super high shelves. Once something is sold out or almost sold out, the space is filled with another pallet of goods, sometimes, but rarely out of place.
I suppose it’s better than wholesale stupidity.
One thing the cashiers at my store are required to know is the general merchandise in every aisle, and the aisle worker who handles it. Want summer stuff? Aisle 10. Can’t find what you want? Esther to the front for customer assistance.
Actually, I saw a clickbait article that claimed that Costco makes a point of moving stuff around the store, not to make it hard to find but instead to force you to wander the store.
Broomstick Broomstick is offline
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“Yes, there are some traces of dirt on your ORGANIC potatoes. That is what they grow in. Let me tell you about what mushrooms grow in…”
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Or what lobsters eat!
I can see that, but what about Velcro? Ever heard of it? Is there anybody on the continent who has never heard of it? Why yes, yes there is. The Sears employee I spoke to some years ago had no idea what it was. I even described what it looks like and sounds like when you pull it apart, and that it was used on practically every fucking thing from shoes to watchbands to wallets to jacket closures. Still had no clue. By the time the conversation was done, my wife was pulling me away because I was really losing it with this moron.
Target’s app does tell you where an item is. For instance I just searched and at my local store, their $3.99 wall clock is in aisle E29.
I’ve seen an article in Consumer Reports about how grocery stores do this all the time for just this purpose.
But Costco is the rare store that doesn’t seem to do this. I’ve been going to the same one for 15 years and I haven’t seen them move categories of items more than an aisle since I’ve been going there.
Never halfway across the store, the way my Kroger just did for a good portion of its items just recently
I have been in the grocery business for 35 years and I have NEVER seen a store move products just so that customers have to wander around so that they buy more. I would appreciate a link to the Consumer Report article. I believe this to be a myth.
You mean this article?
Playing games with consumers to make them spend more is a time-honored tactic.
If I had a quarter for every time I told a customer “If we have it, it’s in aisle XX” I’d be doing laundry free for the rest of my life. But it gets them in the aisle and usually to the register, where the impulse buy items are displayed.
What really worries me about this is the emphasized “again”.
I recommend the Customers Suck forum to my fellow customer service types in this conversation.
Now, if you get this result at a Velcro Store, you really know you’re dealing with a moron.
And, for the benefit of others, yes, my wife explained to the 'droids what hardware cloth is, what is is used for, and that their website said their store had some in stock, which is what I mean when I said she wouldn’t take no for an answer; they tired to tell her they didn’t carry it. Not just one, but at least two of the workers. And, I’ll admit, the name is not entirely self-explanatory, but neither is chicken wire, a product I would also expect someone working at a hardware store to know regardless of whether or not they had raised chickens or even been to a farm.
Slotting Fees are another reason for odd placement that may seem stupid to the consumer, but has a strategic marketing reason. Ever have a product display that wasn’t there before in the middle or jutting out into an aisle? It’s annoying but at least it’s reminding you of the product and ideally will cause you to buy it. Or you see the majority of a shelf filled with a name brand product and a single row or two of your favorite? That’s because of Slotting Fees which is where product manufacturers and distributors pay to have their product featured. Think the products on the ends of shelf aisles are there because they’re popular? Nope, someone paid to have their product placed there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slotting_fee
Another thing that the product reps do is try to expand their product space when they restock the shelves, typically soda, candy and chips. I’ve seen the reps get caught by the store manager and have to take their extra product off the shelf/rack. Just because the space is empty doesn’t mean it’s available to stock your product.
In the case of the olive oil search, I’d place money that the product that was with the other oils was there because they paid to have it there in the hope that people would just buy that instead of searching for regular olive oil.
Are you saying you’ve never seen supermarkets move the placement of their products or have never been told that’s the reason they’re changing the product layout. I’ve had supermarket managers (with me as a consumer) tell me outright that it was to keep people shopping longer.
When I worked in flooring, the owner would constantly remind us that it cost money ($250 in marketing and advertising) to bring customer into the store and our job was to make sure they bought something, even if it was a $2 doormat. The per customer cost for a supermarket is much lower, but they (and any retail store or business) really don’t want you to just walk in and walk out with a single product.
A prime example of Slotting Fees not only in supermarkets, but other businesses as well.
Ever notice that the soda case in front of the cashier will suddenly change from Coke to Pepsi or vice versa? Yep! Someone paid more to have their products there. In the rare cases where the store has both brands, the one who paid the higher fee is likely to be at the cashier location(s) that’s always open.
Same thing with soda fountains at local fast food places. They switched from Coke to Pepsi? Yep, they’re probably not getting outright paid for it, but the syrup prices are cheaper than the previous brand.
I am saying I think there are plenty of reasons to move product around in stores that have nothing to do with making the customer have to search for their items. Grocery stores are laid out to encourage everyone to spend time, to move through the aisles filling carts, to see impulse items easily, to encourage the purchase of profitable items. 10% of the items every year are new at the grocery store, so that means 10% of last year’s items are gone. Tastes change. Items sell differently in season. You are not going to market charcoal, bug spray, and sunscreen the same way in January as July.
If you are coming into my store just to find Olive Oil, we want it to be easy for you to find it. Hopefully you buy some of the items at the entranceway or the endcaps. But if we have moved the oils to a new location it was not done in order to make you search. I stand by that from 35 years work experience with different grocery stores.
It seems we’re talking about two sides of the same coin. The bottom line is having the customer spend more time in the store. I shopped at the same store for over 40 years and every so many years the bread aisle is switched from one side of the store to the other. End result, I search every aisle looking for the bread. That is until I realized that at least for this store, bread is always the first or second aisle on either the left or the right. And peanut butter and jelly is always next to the bread.