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Comment by wodenokoto | Hacker News Reader

That's pretty much the thinking behind layouts of malls and grocery stores.

Grocery stores put common items like milk way in the back, in order to have you traverse the whole store and get exposed to as many meters of shelf as possible. They generally also like to change placement of product, to make sure you don't learn the layout and get too efficient at navigating.

Malls try to balance enabling people to find what they are looking for, but also make sure they don't find it too easily so that people can wonder about and be exposed to as many stores as possible.

If you enter the Dubai Mall from the metro, there's a big sign that points to the left and says "Food Court". You'd get to the food court much faster if you turn right.

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Don't forget IKEA.

I went the other day just to look at a dining table. It was only in the 3rd or 4th showroom. Of course, to get out I had to wander through the majority of like 13 or 14 other showrooms because you pretty much can only take the linear path to get to an exit.

Besides the shortcuts mentioned by the sibling comment, you can also just go from the exit (yes, you can enter through the exit), straight to the warehouse.

You need to know the name of what you're looking for and then use their kiosks to find where the thing is in the warehouse and just pick it up directly.

This trick turns 1 hour trips through Ikea into 5 minute trips.

I'd imagine anyone concerned about efficiancy at Ikea would just order online.

The value proposition of the long Ikea walks is the set up rooms showing how the products look in use, allowing you to visualise before you buy. I take a friend and a coffee and take my time at Ikea.

Didn't work for my usecase there. I specifically went to check out a table in person. Not necessarily buy it. It was only on display in a showroom, not the warehouse section.

Yeah, that sometimes happens. I don't really understand why they don't have all their products in the warehouse. Plus they don't deliver some stuff, despite the fact that they deliver almost everything. It's quite confusing.

Funny you mention the delivery thing. When I was in the store, I checked the website for a couple of tables. According to the site neither were deliverable to me (in a major city, FWIW).

So I went up to a couple salespeople and asked why. They couldn't say why, just that they did have it in stock at this warehouse and they themselves could ship it for X fee.

I don't really get it. They said maybe they were out of stock at the factory or online order fulfillment center. But the pages said they were available.

Generally Ikea stores have a few shortcuts, but you usually have to pay attention to find them.

I heard from a friend that they're only there for IKEA staff to get around the store faster. I'm sure IKEA would otherwise do away with them.

> I heard from a friend that they're only there for IKEA staff to get around the store faster.

I doubt it. They are even marked on in store navigation. Example, https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*ZSJ1cE-FjFzNjIVz8l0a4Q.jp...

> Grocery stores put common items like milk way in the back, in order to have you traverse the whole store and get exposed to as many meters of shelf as possible. They generally also like to change placement of product, to make sure you don't learn the layout and get too efficient at navigating.

Wonder if the covid-catalyzed uptake on grocery pickup options will change this in any way. I certainly discovered the joys of making grocery errands much more efficient, to the point where the decided majority of my store runs are pickup-only: I don't waste time navigating the store.

(And hey, the store can show me random products based off ML analysis of my purchase history, win-win.)

Obviously they can't analyze your purchase history in-store, but I do like how sometimes grocery stores put commonly bought items together. For example the supermarket I often go to has marshmallows, Hershey's chocolate, and graham crackers together. They also keep cans of beans (and perhaps other stuff that goes in chili? I can't remember) by the ground beef.

This just moves the tracking, stalking & dark patterns online.

I wonder how much of this is an urban legend

There's a reason why refrigerated items are usually at the back: fridges usually face a wall. You can have a shelf at the back sometimes but that's not always possible

Also, for those quick purchases you can always go to somewhere closer, a gas station, etc.

In fact in Europe some places do have the quick purchases right in front of the store so you don't need to go around (Tesco as an example).

I think store documentation from the 'food store franchise' have been publicly shared in Sweden and had instructions on how you should place the milk.

The dairy section is the most infuriatingly obscure section in Swedish stores. To the point that I've seen it hidden away in a small subsection only accessible by a rather narrow entrance.

Nah, I saw this on my last shopping trip to a mega grocery. Bought basically all the items on my list on the right side of the store (produce, other food stuffs) and then had to walk past a half dozen aisles filled with random crap (non food) to get eggs from the dairy section.

Conversely at my local supermarket (major chain), the milk, meat, fruit and veg are all near the front of the store and easily accessible.

Also, why would your eggs be in the dairy section?

> They generally also like to change placement of product, to make sure you don't learn the layout and get too efficient at navigating.

I dont know if this is really happening. Grocery stores where I go are fairly static. They change layout once in years and larger one have big signs that tell you where what roughly is.

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