If you have ever walked into your local grocery store and found that it has been completely reorganized, you have experienced a powerful psychological marketing strategy. Stores intentionally move popular products to different aisles to disrupt your normal shopping routine. This forces you to walk through more of the store and look at more shelves, a process that is designed to expose you to more products and trigger impulse buys. This frustrating experience is a deliberate tactic to get you to spend more money.
1. Salad Dressing Moved Away from Produce
For years, salad dressing was always located in the produce section, a convenient placement for shoppers buying lettuce and other salad ingredients. Many stores have now moved the entire dressing aisle to the center of the store with other condiments. This forces a customer who wants dressing to take a separate trip through the middle aisles, exposing them to hundreds of other processed foods along the way.
2. Tortilla Chips Moved to the Soda or Beer Aisle
Around major sporting events like the Super Bowl, stores will often move the big displays of tortilla chips and other salty snacks away from the regular snack aisle. They will instead place them in the soda or beer aisle. This cross-merchandising strategy is designed to make you think about buying chips and salsa when you are picking up your drinks, a powerful suggestion that leads to a larger total purchase.
3. Coffee and Tea Moved from the Breakfast Aisle
Coffee and tea used to be a staple of the breakfast aisle, logically placed next to the cereal and pancake mix. Many retailers have now moved coffee and tea to their own separate, dedicated aisle. This change forces you to navigate to a completely different part of the store than your usual breakfast routine, making it more likely you will pass by and grab other tempting items.
4. The Entire Spice Aisle
The spice aisle is one of the most frequently moved sections in a grocery store. Because most people only buy spices occasionally, they can never quite remember where they are. By moving the entire rack of spices every year or two, the store forces these shoppers to hunt through multiple aisles, increasing their exposure to other products.
5. Cream Cheese Moved Away from the Dairy Section
While it seems completely illogical, some stores have moved the cream cheese away from the main dairy aisle. They will instead place it in a separate refrigerated case near the bread and bagels. This forces a shopper to make an extra stop, and it is a powerful way to remind them to buy bagels when they are just looking for cream cheese.
6. Popular Items Scattered Throughout the Store
Stores know which specific products are their “destination items”—the things that people come in for every single week. To break up a quick, efficient shopping trip, they will often scatter these popular items throughout the store. For example, they might put the peanut butter in a different aisle from the jelly, or the pasta in a different aisle from the pasta sauce. This maximizes the amount of ground you have to cover.
7. The Entire “International Foods” Aisle
The international or ethnic foods aisle is another section that stores seem to love to move. A shopper looking for a specific ingredient like soy sauce or tortillas might find that the entire section has been relocated to the opposite corner of the store from where it was last month. This forces a long journey of discovery that is great for the store’s bottom line.
8. Batteries and Light Bulbs
Non-food essentials like batteries and light bulbs used to have a predictable home. They are often in a hardware or general merchandise aisle. Now, stores frequently move these items. They sometimes place them in a checkout aisle or on a special display rack in a random location. This makes them harder to find when you need them and more likely to be an impulse buy.
Breaking the Shopping Script
The goal of a store reorganization is to break your “shopping script.” By forcing you off this script, the store makes you more attentive, more engaged, and ultimately, more likely to see and buy things you did not plan on. The best way to combat this trick is to always shop with a detailed list and to remain disciplined in the face of the store’s manufactured maze.
Read More
10 Grocery Store Layout Tricks That Cost You More Without Realizing It
Inside the Radical Psychology of Grocery Store Layouts
Has your local grocery store ever been reorganized? How did it affect your shopping habits? Share your experience in the comments!
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