Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by krisoft 1328 days ago
Very good points on the benefits of talking to strangers. :)

A total aside on the tortellini pointer idea:

> when a store moves something a note or something similar would be helpful to tell shoppers the new location for the item

This is a complete misunderstanding of why the stores move items. :)

https://bettermarketing.pub/the-secret-brilliant-and-questio...

"Supermarkets relocate their products around the store to make sure their customers get lost. As they struggle to find what they came in to buy, customers can’t help it but scan the freshly-redesigned shelves. That’s when the marketing magic happens.

[...]

That’s how you end up with three additional products you didn’t even think about before stepping in the shop. Your active search for pasta made you notice other merchandise and buy some of it.

In short, rearranging the store makes you spend more money — enough money for supermarkets to invest in this technique on a regular basis."

If they would want you to not get lost looking for tortellinis they could just leave them where they were. Heck there could be a tacit understanding between every shop to use the same schema and then you could just go in, grab and get out.

It would just result them earning less money. That is why they don't do it.

3 comments

I’m glad I’ve started using online pickup. The only annoying thing is sometimes they give me a marketing goodie bag with various food stuff samples (usually high calorie almost candy snacks like some new granola bar) in it. I used to open it but now I throw it in the garbage without looking. I didn’t consent to them trying to get me to eat more stuff I don’t need.
Maybe. I’d like to see the research that says this effect is greater than the impact of consumers switching elsewhere in frustration. Especially in the current age of increasing availability of online grocery shopping.
It seems there would be a trade-off with folks going faster through checkouts, but I guess that benefit only extends to busy stores.