Drabble by Kevin Fagan for January 24, 2022

Good response, Honeybunch.

They did it because they know you will buy things on your way to each spot.

Ralph gets more exercise which makes him hungry so he buys more junk food.

Genius.

I avoid the aisles..too much overprice junk food.

Interesting double-face look for Ralph, there…

I hate when they do that. One store I go to has paper sheets hanging on the ends of aisles that tell you which aisles stuff is on.

For the same reason they put the milk at the back of the store. They want you to walk through and be tempted by all their displays.

They redisorganize like that every few years. I think it’s mainly just to annoy the regular customers.

All supermarket rows lead to the cookies.

That’s an expensive re-arrange, since it involves moving the refrigerator/freezer cases.

I’ve occasionally had complaints like this, only to later realize that I’m not in the same store. Different stores in the chain often have different layouts.

It seems like Costco rearranges their entire store merchandise layout every week…….

WalMart does this rearranging all of the time. I was complaining to one of the stocking people and he said they hate it, too. WM (and probably other stores) does it to make you wander around to find things and knows you’ll buy more stuff.They don’t know me or my sister very well. Ever since they started the online orders that’s what she and I do. Actually go into WM? I don’t think so. For meat and fresh fruits and veggies, we go to the local family owned store in town. There are just two here in town – WM and Lins.

In just about every big chain I have gone into candy, chips, cookies and crackers are on adjoining aisles. It makes avoiding all the sugar easy.

There is a definite pattern and agenda to placement of items. Costco is the best at doing it……

I used to go to this one store because I knew where everything was. When they moved everything around I started going to another store that’s closer and haven’t been back.

They rearrange things in the commissary once, there was a bunch of very confused retirees wondering about.

There needs to be a special place in Hell for grocery executives who put their loyal customers through this kind of frustration for the sake of a quick buck.

I agree with Ralph. I hate it when Kroger keeps changing the layout.

It’s done by the marketing demons. The ultra suggestable among us will buy unneeded things because they run across them while doing their shopping. Remember, half of all people are on the left side of the IQ curve, so it works.

I go in with a list. It helps a lot to keep me from splurging on groceries.

It’s the same reasoning a Casino uses… The longer you stay, the more money you’ll spend.

Thankfully the Pandemic and the current employee shortage for retail companies has made this a thing of the past – for now anyway. Neither of the two grocery stores I use has changed their layout in years. One has had three owners/brand changes since I moved here but the layout stays about the same.

That happened in my local Safeway a few years ago. They provided customers with maps/charts showing where products were. Took several weeks for the employees to learn where product was. And, of course, in the rearranging, some product were eliminated- usually what I liked.

The grocery store “move and confuse” gimmick.