They literally just flipped the order of the frozen foods aisle. WHY.

i always got mad, as long as i remember because WHY would they change it if IT WORKED FOR ALL MY LIFE
god damn it
- In order to make you walk around the store more giving you more opportunities to buy stuff you didn't intend to buy
  
  i don't care I'm gonna buy my whatevers and I'm out of there
  it's their fault then that i have to run through the store to get to it
- Local Asian markets don't rearrange.

- Not to mention, with the in store employees who are shopping for customers now, I can tell you at my store it would regularly take months to update the new locations of items in the system, that's at a Kroger....
- As a career manager in a grocery store, I'm just getting a kick out of the conspiracies here over why stores reline products or display items on cardboard shippers. I want to hear theories on why end-caps tend to change each week.
  
  Easy. Manufacturers pay for endcap displays and choice shelf space. It's advertising for them. (source: I work for a brewery, and that's how they put together the beer aisle. I've seen the software used to build the shelf arrangements.)

I've always assumed it's to keep you browsing. You might notice something you'd otherwise usually walk straight past.
- That and they monitor how people shop and create heat maps of where people move. If one part of the store is underused and others are overused they might shuffle around and see if they can improve on the cold parts by putting them where people go or on the way to the stuff people actually want to go to.
- shouldn't be allowed
  
  It's their damn store, they own the place. Why shouldn't it be allowed?

To force people to spend more time shopping. More time means more chance for impulse buying and better sales. Basic marketing.
- I will keep this in mind next time my store rearranges things.
  Thank you.
  
  That's also why they have those goddamn cardboard displays of random bullshit standing in most aisles. They form choke points that slow you down in front of the shelves.
- More time also means your appetite is starting to get engaged, since it's usually after work and you're surrounded by attractively laid out foods. It's just a fact that people buy more if they're hungry.
  So even if you just went to pick up a bag of milk on your way home, maybe some other stuff looked good too while you were there.

They do it to make you spend more time browsing. Shoppers typically get the same stuff every time they get groceries. Over time people learn the layout of their local store and develop efficient patterns to move through it and get everything they want. When the store shuffles everything around they force shoppers to wander around the store and to look at all the shelves carefully for the stuff they actually want. Some percentage of them end up finding new things to buy and spend more money.
- Literally trying to disorient shoppers like rats in a fucking maze, truly capitalism is not dystopian in any way!
- Eh, it's food, there's only so much I can eat. So it's not as if I'm going to suddenly buying more food because I'm walking around the grocery store. Even if I did, it would be longer before I'd need to go back and get more food.
  I think it's more down to certain brands paying the grocery store to have their products placed in more prominent places. So yeah people will buy different things, but not more. But if it's more Brand X instead of Brand Y, Brand X makes more money and kicks back some of that to the grocery store.
  
  The average amount of food I buy should be, on average, the same as the amount of food I consume, but the amount of food purchased during a given shopping trip varies, especially in the amount spent on nonperishables. I am likely to buy a lot of a given item, store the extras for when I need them, and buy more when I run out.
  If I am wandering around the store, I may see an item (like a snack) that I am interested in trying and pick some up. In doing so, I am slightly delaying the next time I need to buy more, but it is an overall gain for the store since they are getting my money earlier and the future stock up trip may be from a different store.
  
  I can’t guess what individual people will do but, as a group, shoppers end up spending more this way. Supermarkets and grocery stores typically sell many things besides food; toys, magazines, beauty products, etc.
  The store also doesn’t need you to eat all the food you buy. If you throw out a bunch of food, as many people frequently do, the store still gets paid for all of it.
  
  People buy more. It increases sales, it's not some secret. They may not buy more forever but a couple items is enough.
  The brands aren't paying stores to do that, most grocery stores have very little interaction with brands directly and just order from warehouses.
  
  Some people will definitely buy more. One look at global obesity rates shows that people don't buy less food just because they don't need to eat that much. He/she didn't say everyone would buy more, just some percentage. You're obviously not part of that percentage, which is great. But it doesn't have to be many who do to make the effort of rearranging worth it for stores. 1% of people buying more means millions of dollars for a big box chain that does hundreds of millions in sales every year.
  But ultimately it's a combination of things. Some buy more. Some buy different brands they don't usually buy. Maybe those brands have a few more in the package than other brands and people unwittingly buy more. Maybe they try an entirely new product line they've never tried and it becomes a new normal thing.
  As an adult it makes me mad mostly because I know I'm being played and being made intentionally less efficient but I have to deal with it anyway because I don't really have a choice.

If they mix up the layout you're forced to look at more products instead of automatically going to the places you expect a product to be. It's a marketing tactic.
There's more reasons than that but if it's definitely one of the bigger reasons a small stock change can trigger a total mix up of the whole aisle.
- It's also why stores are more and more being designed like mazes, without clear signage, and with related products spread far apart. They inconvenience you specifically to extract money from you.

I've always found it funny, because they'll move it again next year, and its pointless. Self-important supervisors changing stuff to feel important. Somebody thought it was important 🤣
- It's far from pointless, these large companies hire psychologists to help them with the layouts of their shops. They tend to move staples around so people have to look around for them increasing the chances they'll spot something they don't need but will buybon an impulse. I used to work for one of the largest supermarket chains in the uk, they have an empty store that they use just for planning the layout of goods. Alot of time and money goes into these decisions.
  
  I really want to find out who these psychologists are studying to come up with these findings. Anytime the layout changes or items are placed in obtuse places that make no sense I just get pissed off. I start brisk walking and scanning the aisles faster than normal and ignoring stuff even more. A lot of times I just say screw it and leave without buying anything out of spite. Then go buy the item elsewhere. A month or so later after they move all the stuff around again, I'll randomly find the item in the dumbest place ever, but no longer need it now.
  Like I don't want to be shopping, I hate navigating around idiots that block entire aisles for no reason. It's not a leasurely or fun experience. I understand why they want me to stay longer, but they don't seem to understand that no matter how many times I look at the same stupid products my wallet and the lack of fucks I give about their stupid products far outweighs the amount of time I stare at it.
  So tired of of having my time wasted by marketing analytics that report a 1% increases if such and such stuff is done. Makes me feel like I'm trapped in an MMO with only hardcore players who optimize their builds for the smallest negligible increases. It's exhausting
  
  Here in the US, grocery stores of the same chain with the same corporate are all arranged wildly differently.
  
  I just get stressed out and leave when it takes too long to find what I'm looking for...
  
  I think maybe it's pointless in the sense that the average shopper doesn't think it influences them. Statistically, it does, but they may not feel like it does.
  It's still shitty, regardless of how effective it may appear. There's a reason the common items are always spread out, as I'm sure you know. Can't have someone grabbing milk, cheese, eggs, bread, and fruit all from the same section, then they'd miss the donuts and the cakes and the frozen pizas and the 'managers discount' almost expired meat section (I like almost expired meat, I'm poor too, but still)
  
  I'd love to know why they moved the kalamata olives from the section with pickled onions, gherkins etc to a section of shelving next to the pet food, along with other Greek foodstuffs such as antipasti, pesto and Bolognese sauce. Because that one really had me scratching my head.
- It's not even the local supervisors. It's the ditsy bimbo at corporate who's there because she's got an okay ass to look at.

I'm more upset about places trying to charge $8 for a goddamn box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
- Try buying actual food instead of garbage
  
  One man's trash is another man's treasure.
  
  So $12 for the healthy cereal then, got it. /j
  
  Cause people who buy "actual food" never buy some snacks.
  And also, suuuure, only the garbage food is the expensive stuff, riiiight?

I saw Ryan Gosling at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.
He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?”
I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying.
The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
- i guess you could call this copypasta 'vintage'. it's over ten years old.
  
  reddit copypasta
  
  A really great classic copypasta
- I was the girl at the counter and I can confirm this happened.

Grocery store by me rearranged the store so that it was organized by country, instead of by type of product. Now there's 4 individual locations to pick a bag of beans from because the red kidney beans from Iraq are sooooo muuuuuch different than the red kidney beans from costa rica.
- I think that's kinda neat actually. Like it sounds annoying, but as far as gimicks go it's not the worst
  
  Maybe stores that care about shopping locally should stock all the local products near the entrance, the interstate products beyond that, and the imported products right at the back. Encourage supporting local growers and producers, reducing transport carbon emissions, and make it real easy for the consumer to recognuze the difference

Studies show more time spent in the store equates to more sales. They have to measure time in store and extra sales against time to reorganize. As regular time moves forward it becomes increasingly worth more to rearrange until it outweighs the time to reorganize by a certain margin.

Or try doing your shopping in a store you’ve never been to before. That’s some Tomb Raider shit right there.
- the real Tomb Raider were the stores we visited all along

Walmart keeps moving the Cheetos Jalapeno Popcorn. It's like they don't want me to buy it.
- Soooo that may be the distributor for that since Frito lay generally stocks their own products. That popcorn be good though
- They dont want you to die

I cried when they closed the old Walmart for a super center when I was a child. This isn’t an age thing it’s a comfort from familiarity thing.

Even the Disney store has a Frozen Isle now.
- Don't use the ATM. It will freeze your account.

Grocery chains have software for putting together shelf arrangements. Suppliers have to pay if they want their products at a quality location at eye level, or near the ends of the aisle. And of course pay more for things like endcap displays.

It's just some Sales Optimization Consultant trying to justify their existence. Leave them be, they have their own problems.
- yeah their problem is living with the fact that all they do all day is make the world worse.

I don't get mad at that as much as I get mad when products are placed in the wrong fucking isle, like the fucking Wal-Mart in Heartsville, SC, where everything is everywhere except on the isle it's labeled to go in.

I think Aldi is so successful in the US because they don't do this. There is an aisle or two with random crap, and seasonal items in another spot, but I can be in and out with everything I went for in ten minutes. Trader Joe's might do this too, I haven't been to one in a long time. I wonder if Whole Foods or the other upscale stores fuck around with their shoppers like that.
Smaller grocery chains or independent grocers didnt change their store layouts from what I remember, but they went under or were bought out by the big chains that are already very profitable but still try to wring everything they can out of their captive audience.
- We have Ikea in the UK , which is a single track that meanders through the store. It forces you through every aisle. There are exits and shortcuts built into to it, but they do not make them obvious. I absolutely refuse to shop there. The few times I have been in the store has always left me angry for wasting my time.

Thars why i order groceries online. Let them find their own damn food.

they do it so you have to look around more and thus buy more, they also separate essentials like eggs bacon bread milk etc. at different parts of the store to make you walk more and buy more as you go. they also put veggies first and treats last so you feel less bad getting treats because youve alreafy just got veggies
- It's funny because it has a literal opposite effect on me...I just go without and don't bother or I go elsewhere.
- That essential list seems a bit weird to me. Are people really eating that much bacon? And no veg?
  
  i was trying to give examples of the most common bought items, veg is an umbrella term for many different items

Expectations don't being met is a problem for every age group. Most kids simply don't expect the grocery store aisle to look a certain way.
Getting out of our comfort zone can help us to grow.
- … it’s to sell more stuf. Nothing else.
  
  Well jokes on them, I used it to improve my resilience and adaptability anyway!

Joke's on them, I don't remember where anything is anyway.

only one store near me has a very specific cider that they only ever stock occasionally it is pain 😩

I will make then pay

The pain is real. Like… they never fucking asked ME about the rearrangement. No-oh! They just go ahead and please themselves!

People just need to breathe.
- Fuck breathing. People just need to stop being manipulative and sneaky about getting other people to waste money and time. This should be outlawed.

Get mad? Nah. Life needs these little curve balls.
- Keeps life exciting

Damn this happened to me last month and just today I got pissed looking for my Chex Mix.

Your Safeway getting remodeled too? Why the F are the lunch meats crammed next to the lotions behind freezer doors that prevent people from passing if they're open.
- It rubs the lotion on its lunch meat

https://youtu.be/lH3fo38dySI?si=0lnPltwEXq260Nnj
- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://youtu.be/lH3fo38dySI?si=0lnPltwEXq260Nnj
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.

I kind of like it, I never know what I want until I'm there. Shopping for food is honestly one of the more enjoyable times I have.

I've litterally never heard of this happening.... They build these stores to specific organization standards and almost never change....
- You, my friend, are living in Plato's ideal world - a world of perfect, abstract reality, the shadow of which is our tangible world. You have escaped the cave shadows we call a "grocery store", with it's rising prices and shifting aisles, and now shop within The True Grocery Store, the noumenon of all our vain replications...
  How have you done it? How have you escaped the earthly bounds of ever changing grocery stores? You have achieved enlightenment...
  
  I mean I use the same store repetitively...

Wait, people still go shopping in-store instead of getting a delivery?
- According to Statista.com in the U.S. only 10% of people shop for groceries "mostly" online.
  
  That's suprising. Poor guys, imagine actually going to the shop

I'm still confused on why anyone is still going inside. All the stores around here are still doing grocery pickup and it's faster for everyone. Going in and having to deal with children running around the aisles, people in the way, stuff in the wrong places, etc. Only a handful of times a year I need to do that now and it's glorious.
- I don't trust them to pick good produce for me.
  
  This right here. The amount of notes I had to leave on instacart saying things like "do not buy if rotten" or "check for broken eggs" which seem like overly obvious things was too much for me. I had enough after I could get my vaccine and the last grocery order I put in involved frozen food. In spite the store being relatively close to my house, the tracker showed the driver go alllllll the way out to the suburbs 30 min away after leaving the store. Then when they delivered my groceries finally, I went to put everything away and realized the bagger didn't put the frozen stuff in a cold bag. So all that stuff was completely ruined. Never ordered groceries again. But I also laughed at the time I ordered 1 zucchini and they picked out the smallest zucchini I've ever seen in my life. Like... ok there's nothing wrong with it, but I didn't even know 2 inch zucchinis even existed 😂
- cause i feel like a dick making them come out and wait on me. i'll get them properly delivered or just go in [which is usually somewhat enjoyable since stores are designed to be dopaminergic]
  
  I shop at Aldi and it costs money. They aren't even employed by the store but by the service.