Order for pick up. They give those workers a handset that optimizing their walk through store.
The fact that they have this and don't make it part of the customer experience is another reason these companies are fucks.
They want you to wander and spend more. Physical dark patterns. Grocery stores are full of them.
I started using Aldi pickup during lockdown and never stopped. Saves so much time.
The Target app is the best that I’ve seen for customers. It won’t plan your route, but you can search for items and it will tell you the aisle, location within the aisle, and stock level for any item at your local store.
Kroger app does all that, plus sorta plans your route. You make your list head of time and then you can sort the list by aisles ascending or descending; or store layout or store layout reversed; or by departments; depending on which side of the store you go in or if you want to save cold items for last. Its not completely without fault but overall works great once you get the hang of some of the apps complications.
yeah let me spend 5 bucks extra for groceries, sounds great
It’s very annoying in general. I’ve got a visual disability. Meaning I see about 20 percent.
When shopping, I know where all of my most used items are, and where the general category of products is. But if they move things around too much, it’s really exhausting trying to find what I need. And no, I don’t really want to bother staff to ask where things are; I just want my shopping done quickly with as few annoyances as possible.
Making lanes so small that 2 grocery carts can't even fucking pass each other.
The only grocery store near to me has shopping carts... with poles extending upward toward the ceiling.
They also have signs which hang from the ceiling, most of which hang 3 inches lower than the poles are tall.
The aisles are also so small, and have end stands, such that often a single cart cannot even actually turn into them.
Fuck my life.
Imma be honest, hate shopping, so I always hated when they rearranged. I literally make mental map and plan most optimal route to gtfo asap from whatever shop I have to suffer through so making that plan moot irks me.
God bless automatic checkouts.
I suspect that a big part why they rearrange at least once per year is precisely because they don't want people speed running their grocery shopping. When you know exactly what you want and where to get it, you stop looking at all the other products they offer.
I used to literally try to speedrun grocery shopping. I wanted to be in and out in the least time possible. I'm older and lazier now. Plus, now I listen to podcasts, so I'm somewhat distracted while I tend to the task. Maybe that's the biggest difference and the real reason I've settled down a bit.
What really bothers me is when they stop selling the brand that I like
Rage inducing. I found something I really like, make it a part of my weekly shopping and it vanishes. I really am old.
My oldest son is autistic and has taste and texture aversions that are powerful enough that he will sooner starve himself than eat something that isn't right. So when we find something he will just eat? You better believe we are buying as much as our fixed budget can support. There's a mighty rage to be had from us when something he does eat gets changed or discontinued.
Wegmans is notorious for removing all the other brands but their own. I call it "pulling a Wegmans."
Never heard of that, thankfully
“Brands”. Bleh.
This is why I stick to eating whole foods and not shit from a box.
Ok bro, you can make your own dijon mustard, but I'll buy the jarred stuff.
🤡
You also get mad when you think they would have rearranged the grocery store, but actually you just forgot where that one item you needed was.
Or they just stopped stocking that item, and so you spend 15 minutes looking for something that isn't there. -_-
Between my ADHD and the amount of different places we go for groceries I can never remember well enough where anything is to get mad about them changing it. My wife though has finally gotten to the point where the music they play on the radio in the grocery stores is actually getting good which was her sign she's getting old.
Yeah if grocery stores had played The Cure and The Smiths back in the 1980s it wouldve blown my mind. But they sure are playing it now. Grocery stores seem like 2-4 decades behind in music selection. or maybe it's just that '80s music was the last time good music was generated through the music industry, and that's why grocery stores stick with it, 80s music. But I hope for the sake of the peace of mind of future generations 20-40 years from now grocery stores aren't playing whatever bizarre noises the current "music industry" has been generating lately
Truth. That, and grocery stores are laid out to be frustrating so you spend more time wandering around looking for what you want in the hopes that you’ll come across something else you decide to buy.
Just remember, you either have to run the entire market anyway, or the thing you are looking for wasn't on the right place anyway. So no reason to be angry.
Yeah I kinda like taking my time shopping at a grocery store. Got my audiobook in and just relaxed looking for what I need and I don't mind finding new stuff, yeah I know they design it that way.
So you’re the one in my way when I’m shopping in a hurry!!!
I see it as a mild training for keeping up with an ever changing world. Keeps ya brain from getting crusty.
I think I've read previously they do it because if they rearrange they can get you to walk past stuff you wouldn't have previously seen as you try to find the stuff you want. I.e. it increases sales.
Me: "man this is a pain in the ass, let's go to [competing store]"
Me: never shops there again
Store: "well shit"
I used to know where every single thing I wanted in Walmart was. In and out very fast. Then they put up signs saying they're remodeling and they moved entire sections, then moved those same sections to completely different parts of the store within a few months, then they put everything behind locked cabinets so I have to wait around for an associate to unlock a cabinet everytime I need shaving cream. Who the fuck is stealing shaving cream. Now I shop on the app and do pickup because who the fuck has time for that shit
They've already done that at least twice in the ten years I've been shopping there! So inconsiderate!
I'm autistic, this made me mad as a kid too.
Too true. Tonight I had to go searching for the fucking goldfish….
Only time I've ever seen a grocery store rearranged is after a remodel. Kind of expected. That also only amounts to twice in about 3 decades.
I tend to avoid grocery stores who do that. But in Belgium at least it's a known strategy that half the grocery stores use to make you spend more time looking for stuff.
Luckily there's also a store that avoids it because they want to save time of their employees and customers. So if use their app to make your list and select the location you're going to, the app will arrange your list to be in the order you encounter everything if you follow the lines on the floor.
Wtf that sounds amazing.
Loblaws and Sobeys would never.
God both Safeway and Costco rearranged recently and I am indeed mad.
(Note: they do this on purpose so you have to wander around the store and end up buying more stuff because you spend more time and walk down aisles you normally don't)
I just order online, they're yet to redesign the website.
Our local Walmart did a full scale reorganization recently and we can't find ANYTHING anymore. Even the employees are confused when you ask them for help locating something and the app hasn't updated yet.
It's terrible. Even worse is when they remove what you're looking for and re-arrange at the same time, so I can't find what I want no matter how well I search.
My former grocery store rearranged several aisles in the last few years and I never fully recovered.
Ohmigosh, this happened to me today.
yet another reason i'm quite glad to live in sweden, our stores actually respect you as a customer: they rearrange like once per year at most, and are generally designed such that the exit is visible from the entrance and easily reachable, and you can just grab what you need and be out of the store in minutes.
Especially nowadays with self-checkout and some chains even letting you use your phone for checkout, it's an absolute breeze.
