How the Layouts of Grocery Stores are Secretly Designed to Make You Spend More Money

Did you know that the way a grocery store is arranged is calculated to make you spend the most money profitable? In fact, the way the aisles are arranged can be the difference between a successful and failing grocery store.

Twitter: @WendoverPro

Attributions:
Airport Lounge- Kevin MacLeod
Visuals provided by Wiki Commons
Visuals licensed under Creative Commons 3.0
Additional footage provided by VideoBlocks LLC
Licenses available upon request

[gosnooky]

I worked in a major US chain 20 years ago, one of the things they did was to rearrange aisles every year, so that regular customers who knew where everything was would get lost, and be exposed to more new products they otherwise would not have walked by. Diabolical.

[eriche]

Well, in IKEA they put like a maze around the whole store and you have to search for a few hours to finally find the exit

[limbodog]

This only touches upon the layout. It ignores things like spraying veggies with water, playing certain music in one area vs another, and other tricks. (Also, casinos are the best at this kind of manipulation)

[MaMahmod]

you forget about the candy at the cashier hehehe

[Illinformed.lasvegas]

Interesting. I use to work at a grocery store and there were a few things that also became clear. For one, some stores put the produce section at the entrance of the store as the colors of the fruit/vegetables put people in a good mood. People in better moods spend more money. Secondly, the check out lines. You might notice they will almost always have candy bars situated opposite the cashier. This is because when you're waiting for your turn in line, the candy corporations want you or your children to sit there and look at the candy, increasing the chances of an impulse buy.

[htseg]

LOVE this video. however, at 1:22 this is a $156 increase in REVENUES not profits. Don't want anyone to be misled

[lindaS]

Customers got used to sale items put on end caps. Now stores will put non sale items on end caps, and if you're not paying attention you think it's on sale. They also put expensive items together telling you they're making it convenient for you. Like the most expensive ice cream toppings near the ice cream. If you go to the aisle with the ice cream toppings, you'll find cheaper items and sales. Same thing with the impulse buys at the register. Name brand batteries, etc. If you go looking you'll find cheaper ones.

[poederruiker]

Also colours play a major role. Red makes us impulsive, medium budget, (target) blue makes us think about long term, low budget (wall-mart)

[thetommygunyeah]

Worked in multiple grocery stores in UK, layouts is defiantly a thing in the bigger super stores, the entrance and checkout positions defiantly. The end caps here though are mostly used only for discounted products or shit they can't fit anywhere else like batteries and loose candy. Even when you get up the level to things like supervisor or things like that you won't be aware of this trend though unless you research it, all the big chains will have like marketing psychologists who do major studies into this and it just gets passed back to the drones who stack the shelves.Enjoyed the video :)

[temper]

I'd be interested in an update of this video, now 5 years later. If you could a video about discount stores like Lidl and Aldi, stores that kind of throw away a lot of these basic principles and just focus on volume of sales instead.

[anthonymcgrath]

good little video. what we noticed with Tesco In the UK is just how little of the shop actually sells real food.. eg one aisle for biscuits and chocolate... one aisle for crisps.. one for wine and beer. a huge refined bread aisle.. tins of processed stuff.. an aisle of condiments (mostly sugar).. literally half the shop is selling different combinations of salt, sugar, flour and fats and flavourings. then you have the small section in the middle for fresh meat and fish and fruit and veg. we start there an buy real food so we have proper goods in our trolley then visit the others if we fancy a treat. usually when I look at other ppls trolleys it's filled with brightly coloured nutritionally empty stuff.

[hexx]

Of course, the most obvious one is placing magazines and candy right next to the checkout. You see all your items being rung up and think "Why not just one more thing" and add something on impulse. Or you realize how much money you have left and figure you can spare a dollar or two. And it especially targets kids because while they're impatiently standing in line, they get a good, hard look at the candy and ask for it, or in cases with younger kids, they throw a tantrum until they get what they want, practically forcing their parents' hands by way of public embarrassment. They even implement this tactic in places where it wouldn't make any sense, such as shoe stores, in order to bring in those few extra dollars.

[brockelever]

In Australia and the U.K. they have replaced the fixed rear wheels on shopping carts (trollies) with swivel wheels, the same as on the front. This makes the carts much more difficult to steer and navigate through the store slowing your progress. Slower progress equals more time spent in the store equals more more money spent on impulse items. Using only one type of wheel also saves money in the carts manufacture.

[somniad]

This is actually a topic I'm very interested in, even though I've never designed a grocery store myself. Whenever I'm in a store, I'm always pointing out little things to whoever I'm with

[OptimusPrime-vyvy]

The difference between your videos now and back then is startling. Congrats on your amazing progress!!!!

[GISP]

Fruit, veggies, flowers and other healthy stuff, will allmost allways be at the entrence.

[randomly-genrated]

The real way stores make more money is they run skeleton crews as far as their work force goes and they never give anyone a good raise.

[TheDinkcool]

In the Swedish liquor stores they occasionally put alcohol free wine and beer on the end caps.

[Pining_for_the_fjords]

Here in the UK we have Tiger shops, which are obviously a Danish import and are basically like a museum giftshop without the museum. These Tiger shops are laid out in a circuit, with just one course through the shop so that once you're in there, you have to pass all the merchandise before you get to the tills and the exit.

[joshkorf]

Wendover has been summarizing my college education with bite size videos.








Let me justify the steep cost of my tuition, damnit. Please stop consistently coming out with S tier quality videos.