Emperor1956
Posts: 2370
Joined: 11/7/2005
Status: offline
|
Fast reply because I'm replying to a whole bunch of folk. What you have to understand is that the moment you park your car in the Safeway/Kohls/Jewel/Dominicks/Kroger/Von's/Roundy/A&P (Ok...I'm flashing back to my childhood...anyone remember Roundy's? A&P?) anyway...you are being manipulated. Now this isn't all bad, because part of the manipulation is to get you in a position to find what you need, and ideally to pay a fair price for it. But in the grocery game, manipulation is king.
The key is dollars per square foot. EVERY department is measured on an hourly basis (in the sophisticated big stores) to figure out where the maximum $$/square foot are generated. The successful Grocery store manager is the one who makes those numbers jump. By the way, the OTHER industry that measures $$/square foot religiously, changes up their floors so things are new and you can't find the same old in the same place and manipulates you within your last quarter? The "Gaming Industry". Ever notice that no one who isn't IN that business calls it that? We usually call it "Gambling". Well, a casino is manipulating you down to the square foot, too. And you don't even get the Nutter Butters.
So, a few tricks of the Grocery Store trade:
1. There are two schools of thought on what goes on the lower shelves...someone said "cheaper stuff" so you reach for the eye level more expensive. That's possible but NOT NECESSARILY. The modern theory is you stock the harder to reach places with the strong brands people will demand. Eat peanut butter? The odds are you have a brand preference, and the odds are that brand preference is SO STRONG you will skip the PB if you can't get your Jif, or Skippy, or Peter Pan or... (OK, you wingnuts who buy Whole Foods all natural ground cashew butter...yes, I love it. Yes it is healthier. Yes it is not that nasty hydrogenated trans fat stuff. Fine. now try and get your brand conscious 10 year old to eat it. Uh HUH. and besides, not eating Skippy is unAmerican. And only weirdos and fruity types eat Jif. But I digress). My point is that you put the STRONG BRANDS down low, because people will go get them...you put the store brands, etc. at eye level.
2. Where do you put the tampons? Well, it doesn't really matter except you put them DEEP in the store because women who need tampons well...They NEED them. And they'll walk thru aisle after aisle of stuff they DON'T need to find them. And when they walk...they buy. (so do men, but we don't usually get the sanitary supplies, preferring instead death). So you put impulse items near the tampons, etc. BUT what's an impulse Item? Well...MOST of those fancy cleaning supplies for one. You don't go to the store LOOKING for a swiffer, or a Mr. Clean eraser (aren't those things great? Why don't we make cars out of them? You'd never need a car wash you'd just....but I digress again...) The FIRST buy of a Swiffer is impulse...and the rest is consumer addiction. So you put 'em near the tampons.
3. LaTigresse -- the reason you can't find your favorite tortillas with the OTHER Mexican foods, your salsa with the OTHER salsa, etc. is that Mission apparently believes that to sell its products it needs "kiosk marketing". Kiosking (yes, that's a word) is done when a brand wants ALL its related products grouped together, away from the others. So Mission puts its salsa, chips, tortillas, peppers, chiles, day-of-the-dead sugar skulls, etc all in one area. They PAY the grocery store for this. Which brings us to:
4. PRODUCT PLACEMENT FEES. probably the biggest innovation in grocery store management of the past 20 years, and the reason that the Vernor's Ginger Ale is NEVER right front and center in the fizzy sugar water aisle, is that brands pay to play....they pay to have their products on a certain place on a certain shelf, they pay to have their products kiosked, they even pay to have their products featured IN THE STORE period. Which is why some really great brands never get on the shelf. (NOTE: Whole Foods and Trader Joes do this, too BUT they are smarter in that they feature certain funky products w/o needing placement because it confirms that they are organic/cool/groovy/have a rad tat and a nipple ring...which makes suburban moms for some reason swoon over their stores. This is why Dr. Bonner's Peppermint Soap is sold in Trader Joe's, tho I don't think Dr. Bonner ever paid a product placement fee in his long, sweet scented life. And if you know who Dr. Bonner is, you ARE a goddess.)
5. Store Brands. OK, if you make SOME money on product placement fees (and you do...approx. 20-30% of the net profit in a modern store because the margins on grocery sales are sooo slim -- and if you don't know what "margin" means, just shake your pretty blonde head and flex your pecs and giggle) where you REALLY make money is selling stuff you private labelled. Viz: Trader Joe's, which has a brilliant financial plan in which almost EVERYTHING (except the forementioned funky/groovy products) are store brands.
6. Which brings us to why the milk and the prescription counters are in the back of the store. You know this one. See impulse buy and margin.
So if I'm laying out "Emperor's Grocery and Bondage Toy Emporium" and I know my customers will be the lovely Dommes and subs who posted on this thread...I put the high priced, cool floggers next to the Ultra maxi pads with wings. And I watch my sales take flight.
E
_____________________________
"When you wake up, Pooh," said Piglet, "what's the first thing you say?"
"What's for breakfast? What do you say, Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?"
Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.
|
RE: A trip to the grocery store - 
Profile
RE: A trip to the grocery store - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread