How or why big box retail stores organize their product displays in a particular way?

Question

What is the science or psychology behind the way how they display their products?
I understand that it’s supposed to drive sales, but what is the reason behind their method?
Why, or how does it work?

In: Other

Answer 1

This is an entire science basically involving psychology, industrial organization, etc that big retail chains hire people to do for them. grocery stores are one of the best examples. Most grocery stores have their produce right at the main entrance. This serves to give off the assumption of “freshness” as you enter the store. flowers are usually there too. then you walk through the bakery. now, especially if you’re hungry you’re totally screwed because you’re even more hungry and everything you walk past just looks amazing.

then they put stuff that is an “ingredient” in those center aisles to force you to go deeper into the store and walk past other stuff that you didn’t plan to buy today.

staple goods like meat, dairy, eggs usually somewhere far away from the door so that you have to walk as far as possible to get the stuff you need. again, making you walk past a bunch of other stuff.

put the “impulse” items like candy and what not by registers. etc.

Then you get into even more detailed stuff like specifically which shelves certain things go on. Notice you rarely see the discount brand items at eye level. Our brains tend to want to put stuff in order so on store shelves, a higher shelf assumes higher “quality”. So stores put more expensive stuff right there at eye level even though it might be the exact same quality as the store brand one at the bottom. big chain grocery stores generally have very high ceilings and the signs are up higher which serve to draw your stare upward toward them top shelves. or, it might be high profit margin items right there even though they are cheaper. certain items stores make way more money on even though the product itself is significantly less costly.

Every time you’ve been in a store and thought about how it would make more sense if “X & Y” were by each other, is exactly why they are not by each other.