Imagine entering your local store, ready to walk through the aisles, only to find that everything has been rearranged.
Once next to the eggs, the bread is now across the store between cleaning supplies and pet food. The dairy section that was always at the front is now at the back, past the snacks and frozen foods.
It’s enough to make even the most patient shopper’s blood boil. This isn’t just a hypothetical scenario. It’s a reality that shoppers across Australia are facing, and it’s causing quite a stir.
But why do supermarkets do this? According to Paul Harrison, professor of Consumer Behaviour and Marketing at Deakin University, it’s all about influencing customer behaviour.
Harrison explained that supermarkets ‘use a little bit of data and a little bit of gut feeling.’
‘Someone will have noticed a change in customer behaviour, and they will be speculating about what they should do about it,’ he said.
The underlying goal is to encourage shoppers to try new products or to create cognitive confusion that might lead to impulse buys.
‘They might trial moving the entire fruit and [vegetable] section nearer the meat so everything people want for dinner is in one place. Or there could be some cognitive confusion, and people might just buy this instead of what they came for,’ he added.
If a new layout works in one store, it might be rolled out to others, even though the same success isn’t guaranteed due to varying local factors.
Finding that elusive formula that will increase our spending is a game of experimentation for supermarkets. But for shoppers, especially those who have been patronising the same store for years, it’s an unwelcome disruption.
On social media, customers are voicing their frustrations loud and clear. ‘Why do grocery stores have to randomly rearrange? I’m so lost?’ lamented one shopper.
Another exclaimed, ‘If I walk into a store that’s been redone, it completely ruins my week. And I get angry every time I go back.’
‘So. mad. They do it to make you wander around more and buy more. That’s how ‘they’ get you!’ vented one shopper.
Most people won’t switch stores after a redesign despite their frustration. Harrison noted that sticking with a supermarket often involves two practical considerations: location and parking availability.
Harrison pointed out that Australians are ‘compliant complainers’.
‘They’ll keep going to the same store. It might be enough to make us trial somewhere different, but really, you’d need a big thing, like moving house, to make us change where we shop,’ he said.
Are you a fan of changing supermarket layouts or not? Have you been affected by a supermarket layout change? How did you adapt? Share your stories in the comments below.
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This is designed to make you wander throughout the whole store to get your staples, and therefore are exposed to more “spur of the moment” or impulsive buying, it’s an old and tested model that tends to work on a major selection of shoppers.
My local Woolworths is in the middle of a reorganisation, which includes the car park, where they’ve blocked off one of 3 much needed disabled spots. Inside, they moved vitamins and minerals from the front left to the back right, swapped the butter and cheese, and I still haven’t located the eggs, if there are any.
As someone who only goes to the aisles where I need to shop, due to limited mobility, I am finding this extremely frustrating.