The older you get, the less excited and more annoyed at New for New’s Sake; the yoots either find it normal (everything is new when you’re brand new) or thrilling and exclusive (“Look, something changed! Wow! I bet fewer (older) people understand this!”)
When I go to the grocery store I’m not looking for an adventure, I just want to buy the things and leave. But that’s not as profitable.
Welcome to autism, more like.
Never gotten mad or irritated about this. The only times where it happens, at least here in Sweden, is when they renovate/expand the store (which very much isn’t often). It only happens when it’s a good thing. And I like walking around and discovering the new layout and see what they did with the space and modernised tech.
Am I the only one feeling super unconfortable seeing these types of memes when the next article in my feed is about how 25% of people worldwide don’t have access to clean water?
No, you are not. The vast majority of people here and anywhere else on the Internet live in a luxury bubble compared to most of the world and a disturbing amount of them will never realise that.
i don’t get angry because they rearranged the store, i get angry because they ONLY rearranged the store so some worthless, nepo-baby dipshit can justify their existence at the company because they came to the conclusion–after 25 focus groups-- that it’d increase shareholder value by $0.0003 to move the pasta to aisle 3
I figured they just do it regularly so customers have to look at more extra shit they might impulse buy, rather than based on some study of product location adjacency.
typical shareholder meeting in america:
ceo: i’ve come to a stunning conclusion, and i don’t want to ruffle too many feathers or cause a heart attack–we know what happened to MCfunky last week.
uneasy laughter
ceo: but i have a crazy idea that i’m sure is going to shock everyone in the room, and i’m hesitant to even say this out loud, but, how about we cut one employee per store and raise the prices on ALL items by a nickel!
the room of shareholders went completely silent, until the oldest of the bunch cut a huge fart. what happened next was a raucous laughter that wasn’t heard since the first test screening of ‘a princess bride’ and a round of applause that was usually reserved for a barack obama speech @ $200k a seat (champagne optional).
the forbes editor who was deployed to the meeting immediately came in his pants and a rothschild graciously committed to buying him a new pair, despite the known frugality of the ultra-wealthy (they wouldn’t be rich if they didn’t know how to work a penny). she told him, ‘meet me on rodeo drive next week and i got you covered’ but he missed the appointment because he was supposed to cover alysa liu’s birthday extravaganza.
she was fat anyway, at least that what he told himself. she was kinda fat by european or asian standards but we were in america and the rules of the wild west still apply. who cares how much money she has. alysa dyed her hair green this week. that’s all that really matters,.
You summed up one of the biggest problems in America pretty succinctly.
The things that irk me are: Narrowed aisles / space between the shelves and reduced selection.
The local Wally World was the worst about all of the above, but the grocery store in town also remodeled recently and seems to have done the same thing.
I think one of the reasons it irritates me is because it makes no logical sense to me, they’ve moved the shelves closer together and reduced aisle space so they can fit in more shelves, wouldn’t that theoretically mean there’s room for a bigger selection of items? How is it even possible that the aisles are smaller and yet so many of the brands/items I bought regularly are no longer available?
Actually, in the case of Walmart, I think I know the answer. The main aisles used to be wide enough for 6 - 8+ shopping carts minimum, except from September through early January when all the displays of holiday junk would be placed out. Now, they’ve placed a mix of seasonal and non-seasonal displays in the center of all the main aisles year round, using all that space people could use to traverse the store more quickly.
Most of the year, those displays are filled with the exact same brands and products that are also sitting and taking up regular shelf space as well. Heaven forbid if I want some Marie Sharp’s hot sauce. They’ve got 8 types of Texas Pete, and a display of Texas Pete hot sauce in the main aisle, and a smaller display on an end cap near the meats. If I want some Dolly Parton cake mix and icing, there are 4 places in the store that they keep it. Suppose that’s also why they stopped carrying my preferred flavor/brand of gum.
YELLING AT CLOUDS
Not mad. Quietly dissapointed, heavy sigh, start searching.
I’ve ended my relationship with stores for this reason.
We need a standardized grocery store organization system. Like dewey decimal.
What makes you think stores would want that. The reason they reorganize stores to increase profits. They identified certain areas of the store that sell better and move product that they want to increase sales there.
Hank Green gave a half joking presentation on this topic
I second this notion
I motion to pass
Aye.
Two Ayes here
“GO AROUND”
they moved the electric kettles ONE SHELF OVER. that’s all. i was just waiting for the pharmacy, i wasn’t even buying anything. hold on i just got myself worked up i need to make some tea. ELECTRIC KETTLES AAAA IT’S GONNA BE LIKE THIS ALL WEEK
Bruh, i just experienced this yesterday. I had my kid with me too, so I was on edge and distracted and couldnt find the goddamn cauliflower
The new Aldi layout at mine is terrible. The vegetables are right at the entrance, which clogs things up because everyone browses vegetables. Plus basically all the regular groceries are in one aisle now, so its all crowded.
This is why I can’t fuck with Trader Joe’s.
I swear Trader Joes does this specifically to make you walk the whole store. It’s small enough that you’re probably walking the whole thing anyway, but I can never just run in and grab what I might need.
100%. I don’t know how people shop there. It’s like a place to wander around and find random stuff.
The soft drinks and sports drinks used to be right next to each other, now they’re 3 aisles apart. What were they thinking?!
sports drinks are a ‘health food’ now their sales are going up
soft drinks are a ‘bad food’ and their sales are going down
so they must be separated
so they must be separated
Marketing
I just don’t understand why the international foods are a separate aisle. Can those sauces not sit next to the other sauces? Can all types of noodles not co-exist in the same aisle? Why can’t masa flour live next to wheat flour?
The more I think about this, the more it annoys me.
There’s a lot of time and money spent analyzing where to put things to maximize customer spending. It’s why milk and eggs are usually at the back of the store, so that you have to walk through the entire store to get them, and you may find something else to buy on the way there. It’s also why “low-interest” items like international foods get put together in their own low-traffic aisle.
That’s also why they rearrange things - not to optimise the layout, but because they hope people will impulse-buy things while looking for the things which have moved
International foods might be “low interest” for many consumers, but for me it’s the most interesting aisle in the supermarket.
Nothing I like more than finding some new and interesting stuff, so I’m happy they put it all in the same place.
As far as price goes, it’s all over. You might find a bottle of Japanese Kewpie mayo for way more than speciality Asian supermarkets ask for, but on the other hand find a huge bag of pistachio nuts for way less money (by volume) than they’re charging for nuts in the ‘regular’ nuts section.
It’s genuinely like supermarkets know they need to sell this stuff but haven’t quite worked out what to do with it yet.
