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

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.

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

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.

you forget about the candy at the cashier hehehe

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)

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

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.

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 :)

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

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.

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.

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.

Why did this just get recommended to me? It's been seven years and I only discovered this channel a year ago. Not disappointed though.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Facing was a really big deal when I worked at a grocery store. It makes everything seem so much more neat and tidy when the product is straight on the shelves. Every single morning we opened the entire store would be faced by night crew. Go into a store where they don't face (Wal-Mart *cough*) and it looks like total shit always.

One thing i know my store does is that after you enter and begin your counter-clockwise movement cause i am american, they put the bakery and deli area to the right so you have to walk by all this sugary food and fried chicken which is intended you too make you hungry. The hungrier you are the more likely you are to impulse buy.

One major thing thing you failed to mention is the frequent rearranging of merchandise in the store or, as I call it, the "musical chairs" principle. This is designed to force you to spend more time in the store, increasing the likelihood of impulse buys, since you cannot depend on the items you buy frequently being in the same place you found them on your last shopping expedition. This has always been a thorn in my side since I hate to shop, always shop with a list, and go to great lengths to make sure my list is sorted in the order I like to go through the store.

Why this was just recommended to me, I'll never know. However, I'll treasure it forever.

One recent french study tried different environments in grocery stores in order to hierarchize what are the predominant criteria to incentive consumption. They found that layouts is obviously important and can make significant changes in consumption all by itself, everything else remaining the same, but what's more surprising is that they identified the musical environment as the most influencial criterion by itself. I don't remember the stats exactly but it seemed enormous when I read it. The average consumption of an individual could vary something up to 50% and more, between a grocery playing classical music in the background, compared to a grocery that would play hard rock for instance. The sound level is also important, but less than the musical genre and types of instrument.

Healthy cereals = cardboard So true

I have a new grocery store near me that has curved isles. It's designed so you have to walk down each isle to find what you are looking for. It is in an up scale area so the people who would normally shop there can afford it.

I work as a vendor for keebler. our cheezits are arranged a lil differently. the original cheezits are the best sellers, yet almost always have the bottom row of product (up to 8 2 story rows) while the variety products are displaced in the middle and usually family size stuff is up top. this is simply because as a large established brand people know where to look for cheezits at, and so to boost variety sales they shove them in the eye level spots. same with zestas always bottom and sometimes up to middle shelf because they are the best selling saltine and people will stoop for them saving valuable space for variety products in middle. of course these are vendor items and are arranged a lil differently than store bought items.

Its amazing how much improvements on production quality has been made in under 2 years, Love your work!

2:38 This may be the best visual representation of US-made cereals to date.

They should arrange the isles in a labyrinth with one possible path from door to cashiers, so shoppers would have to pass all shelves.

0:07 You might say its... Half as Interesting? ;)

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.

2:22 I don't think you meant "frivolous". Maybe you were thinking "thrifty"?

Finally I know, why I prefer one Shop over the other ;-)

Also (and not sure if this is a thing in US or UK but definitely appears in Australia) chocolate bars are placed literally right next to the cashiers (next to the conveyor or the self-serve machine), because these are what kids pester parents for and, since it's right at the end, it's the hardest to ignore.

There is a great episode of planet money (a podcast) about this topic. They get on some experts in the field and they have some interesting things to say. The grocery store planner that they interview talks about how milk and meat are at the edge of the store because that is the easiest place to have large refrigerated displays. Also that many of the design decisions are based on customer feedback and habit, not so much marketing. They cant make layouts that people don't like or people will just shop elsewhere.

Milk is almost always on an outside wall, at the back of the store, near the loading bay/dock (where delivery trucks unload). Milk is heavy and perishable, and most stores sell a lot of it, so locating it where they do cuts the amount of work required to move it from the truck to the shelf. It also makes most customers walk all the way to the back of the store.

This matches my local grocer almost to a T. (The meat is actually at the back on the right side in several stores, just past the bread section; milk at "northwest" corner with the eggs nearby).

I live in the UK - Most of the large supermarkets (ASDA, Tesco, Morrisons close to my house have entrance on the right side. Also meat & milk are usually in adjacent aisles due to both products being refrigerated, eggs are often close by next to baking.

The delivery isn't bad in this vid at all but your delivery has improved so much, it's kind of cool.

There are other interesting tactics as well. Retail stores will remove items off a line of similar shaped items to break up a flush wall of products that shoppers won't want to break. Also, there are often intake vents for air next to bakery sections (if they have baking bread) to flood the store with hunger-inducing baked bread smell.

Interesting to see how they will cope against internet based grocery stores that could use this info to differentiate themselves as the "good guys"

There is another thing going on at the grocery store and that is companies buy shelf space to prevent competitors from getting in the store. Sometimes a company will require that the store carry every format of there product. You see this in beer. Beer companies will provide different configurations of product, log, cube, six pack and other multiples of packaging, this will provide a wall of product. These companies are paying rent for those shelves, to keep competition down and your price up.

There are probably other factors that contribute to this, but our local Costco is a great example of American's preference for going counter clockwise influencing sales. There are three stores in our region, two that have customers enter on the right and have check stands to the left and one that customers enter on the left and have check stands to the right... the one where customers enter on the left routinely has the lowest sales numbers (at least according to the person I know who works at Costco, this is all friend of a friend and could be completely wrong).

At some grocery stores, they use Tungsten light bulbs over the produce section to give them a glossier look, therefore making them more attractive.

Another day another great video by Wendover!

One thing overseen here is that fruits and vegetables are often near the supermarkets' entrance, to entice even those who intend not to buy to come in and purchase. Music is also an important factor here. A friend of mine did his thesis on this and he has able to dictate the day's earnings using the playlist that he generated and the songs that he himself wrote.

I work in a grocery store, and the cereal is absolutely on point in this video... wow, never thought of it...

As far as Iv seen in Canadian grocery stores you almost always enter into the produce section, meat and fish is along the back wall, and dairy products, juice, and eggs are along the other side of the store. Our cereal isles are usually organized by "healthiest to least healthy" But not every grocery store does this and calling most cereals healthy is quite a stretch.

I thought that American's like to shop in a counterclockwise direction because they are influenced by NASCAR and thats the direction the car's race around the speedways.

Very interesting video and pretty accurate. Worked in a grocery store for 4 years. I do recall that the company had hired a group of 3-4 gentlemen from corporate to come down and spend 1-2 days reorganizing the aisles set-up, hence indicating the importance of it as you've stated. However, along with end caps my store implements two other things that are now more common in a lot of major store chains. First is that we have two "main aisles" in the front between the aisles & registers and behind the aisles in the back. These serve as extra end caps by exposing the consumer to more items whilst waiting, especially in the front if customers have to wait in line for the register. The second thing is that many stores either implement other businesses within themselves or offer more than the general grocery store environment. In my case, the store implements a cafe beside the bakery and a cafeteria with TVs for the customers to stay and eat after their shopping. In other stores, such as Walmart for example, you see other fast foods, banks, medical, and other smaller forms of businesses near the store entrances/exits. But you hit the gist of the store layout, well done ;)

I'm from Venezuela and ... Jaja! you have to laugh so you don't cry.

Come on! Vance Packard in "The Hidden Persuaders" told all about this stuff and it was back in the 40's. Marketing people are quite clever and must be to survive. Thanks for the video!

It's true about systembolaget here in Sweden not having end caps. Some shelves in the store usually do though, but thet house the alchohol-free alternatives there.

"This topic probably doesn't sound very interesting, but I promise its at least somewhat interesting" Would you say, Half as Interesting?

Also to mention that stores rearrange items around to different aisles every few months. It may be because vendors don't want to pay more for premium space. Mainly because we have habits knowing where the items are located and skip much of the store. Moving things around, we're forced to look and explore the shelves.

I goto Coles in Melbourne. You are right, milk in these stores are kept in the opposite back corner from the entrance. Can't quickly get it to, without passing through a myriad of other promotional items.

In Switzerland right after the entrance comes the fresh vegetable section. The green and colourful display should give a positive mood.

crazy ive been shopping at the grocery store in a counter clockwise manner for years and never really thought about it

I think about this video every time I go to the grocery store.

Most important place for customer in grocery shop is discount corner where they put stuff near expiration date for less than a half of price. only if you dont find what you need there you go and buy it for regular price. another trick is to spread outdated products so that customer has to check price of everything to find product which cost 30% of its normal price.

Also in the checkout line that’s where they put all of the individual warped candy so when kids are standing there. They nag there parents for the candy. They also have magazines there for adults to get interested in. Also they have the bakery right by the deli so people have to walk past the pies or cakes.

the store i work at has a slimier design (the entrance and exit are reversed) and the electrical section is right next to the entrance to hopefully entice people to buy a sparkly chandelier, the grocery are all the way in the back of the store surrounded by hardware, and the mill work in the back corner on the opposite side of the entrance. ( i work at a hardware store)

Some stores have a long unbroken shelf that practically divides the store into two halves, with one side having the entry and the other the checkout, forcing a long detour around the obstacle if you only need something from one side and making it a pain in the ass if you forget something. Out of the shops I regularly visit, it affects two REWE stores and a Kaufland store (I live in Germany). At one REWE store, the drinks section (both alcoholic and non alcoholic) is near the checkouts and has a shortcut entry which I usually use if I don't need vegetables or dairy which are closer to the "regular" path. At the other REWE store, staff didn't ever complain if I enter at the checkout side (one of the counters has an extra wide aisle designed for wheelchairs and strollers) At the Kaufland store, there is one tiny gap near the entry/exit area, likely intended as a staff shortcut. It is barely wide enough for one shopping cart. This store is also very large, so the detours are quite extreme. The worst case would be trying to buy beverages and magazines, which are physically very close to each other but you have to walk through the entire store. It's more tolerable at the REWE stores since they are smaller. It's part of the reason why I hate that Kaufland store, I only go there when doing family groceries with my mother because she inexplicably likes that store. I prefer a nearby (500 m at most) Real store which has a simple Manhattan style grid layout which makes ways short and straightforward.

i love your use of the term 'end cap', i work in a grocery store and use it all the time. My mates think im nuts

Most supermarkets rent shelf space and delegate those decisions of what products go where to the distributor. All the supermarket does is collect the funds at the register and relay money for units sold. That's why route people just walk in and out. The store doesn't own the inventory. Seemingly unrelated brands are stocked by one route person. Driving delivery trucks to deliver only a small line of products is inefficient. More than likely, most of the brands of bread are from the same company - Bimbo. Kellogg's owns Pringles, Austin, Cheezit, and Keebler. PepsiCo owns Quaker Oats, FritoLay, 7up, Tropicana.

Designing a grocery store for optimized efficiency of the workers and consumers is the opposite of designing one for profit. This video is essentially an argument for planned economy.

Our grocery stores also have the addictive items like candies for kids, small alcoholic drinks and cigarettes at the counter so that some people are more likely to buy one of these

This just in....Adults in Wheelchairs are inexplicably hooked on Sugary Childrens cereals....

And don't forget that the least important thing would be at the end, like all the choco garbage sweets, so when you decide to leave the supermarket you'll be tempted to buy a bunch of Snickers and other stuff you didn't really need. If they were at the beginning you would just pass them because you were already focused on buying the important stuff like milk and vegetables

Here in America our race tracks (people, animals, boats, etc) are in a counter clockwise fashion as well, long before cars were here.

Surprised you forgot to mention they put the bakery close to the entrance to make the shoppers feel hungry

Also I notice in the UK sometimes they shift the aisles around every so often, i.e the cereal aisle is now the snack aisle.

there are also shipper displays sent by a company of a product that get stuck in the middle of isles, causing traffic jams and forcing you to wait and look around at the products around you. causing more impulse buys

And this is why Wegmans is the best!!! (Too expensive I know but...) they have a convenience counter right next to the door that had milk cheese and meats and other stuff like that!

what about regularly changing the layout of the store so that you have to search for the aisles you always walk down and therefore see more products? Is that just a thing in the UK?

Kroger changes out their produce weeks before it goes bad. They estimate that doing so brings back about 8% of customers consistently, a 9.6 million difference.

Forgot one key point, The produce department is almost always right when you walk in for presentation reasons, Walking in and first seeing a pile of healthy looking peppers, or apples stacked up neatly and faced properly makes people think the rest of the store is relatively organized and clean.

I find this stuff very interesting, especially when you compare it with different countries. Here in the Netherlands the design idea looks more like the UK. In the Albert Heijn here for example we have the cash registers on the left and the infodeks to the right, as well with the gates you have to go through in order to enter the shopping part of the area. It's all in one place though. The wine department is to the right-down corner and to the right of the info-desk. I'm not sure why that is designed that way. If I think about it I could ask one of the klerks (I think they're called) the next time I'm there.

Eggs, milk and meat are usually pretty close in UK stores, and not usually around the edges either.

Walmart has department 82 - "impulse". It's the department for all the register candy and cheap clip strip stuff that goes around the store.

In Finland stores are generally arranged clockwise but counter clockwise is common too.

It's funny. Most of the stores I go to have the doors on the left side if they have only one (though many of the larger ones have doors on both sides) and I tend to move more in a clockwise direction. The reason I do this is because the refrigerated and produce sections are usually to the right side, and I buy that stuff last (after canned and packaged things) so there is the least amount of time they are not being kept at the right temperature. This keeps everything fresher for longer.

Normally there are candies around the checkout counter to make the kids make their parents buy the candy while waiting in line. I would also normally find batteries and toothbrushes (Idkw) and weird stuff. And the entrance to the supermarket at my city is at the left although we drive on the right. Most of the meat and dairy are on the same corner and the eggs just nearby so maybe the market I shop in does not have some of the things you mentiones, it still has some. This vid was great

And the stuff near the queue and till areas are specifically designed to be there, for my store I Merchandise this stuff so its stuff like sweets and chocolates and nice sort of fancy snacks that are decently cheap that attract customers, easy money

the whole foods I go to in friendly center greensboro, it's main entrance is on the left and it's cash register is on the right, though on the right they do have a single door you can enter, so if you don't fill like taking a lap across the store you don't have to.

Don"t forget, big brand name companies also pay big bucks to have their products placed where they want them

The entrance to our stores in the UK are also on the right, so I don't know where he got his info from.

Fascinating and makes total sense which is why I shop my groceries online

Some stores put the deli right inside front door so you smell and see food cooking when you first walk in to make you hungry. People buy more when they hungry. Always eat before going to store and have list and hand basket so you can't load more than you can carry. Only take cash and leave cards at home.

Given this is a two year old video, it has probably been pointed out that grocery stores actually sell "eye-level" displays to companies who want to sell more stock. Granted it's a symbiotic relationship between the grocer and supplier, but the supplier will lower the price in return for prioritised displays.

I go counter clock wise because the Walmart near me has the groceries on the left side and I don't want my food defrosting while I'm getting the other stuff.

Most grocery stores in the USA have two entrances. One for grocery items the other for the Pharmacy.

Not just grocery stores. Pretty much every major retailer uses Planograms and Counter-clockwise isle placement

Man I love BenDover productions

2:38 Cardboard, my favorite cereal!

Few things have been forgotten. The front caps have been forgotten. There is also the produce section that most stores have where you walk through it after you walk past the sale wall. It might be my store in particular that i work at because i haven't seen it any other store or haven't noticed is having pop, liquor, and water on sale over by produce on the opposite side of the first aisle.

I make a point of avoiding the aisles and run the outside perimeter, ending up in fresh produce. Except the other day I bought that large clear plastic container of bright orange, cheese balls..I could help myself. they were displayed on the end caps..

Chocolates & candies alongside billing counters, so children can shout on top of their voices & make you buy those items while you're waiting for your turn!