This practice was called "zoning" where I used to work. It was explained to me that people think the shelves are more full and will report in surveys etc. that the store has a better selection.
But the shelves were getting bare. there was space around cans and bottles on the shelves, and there were a limited number in each row.
It definitely gave you a feeling of impending demise. That the store was sad and unhealthy, and that prosperity was limited.
also, all of this stuff also works in casinos, where every part of the design is carefully chosen.
Dimmer warm lighting, since you and your companions always look happier and healthier even a 4am when complexions are actually pale, eyes are bleary, and makeup is smudged.
- “There’s only one facing of these hard drives”. - “There aren’t customers, go face up”.
I haven’t worked retail in well over a decade yet I still sometimes subconsciously face up shelves when I go shopping, especially if I take something off a shelf. It’s a curse.
> I haven’t worked retail in well over a decade yet I still sometimes subconsciously face up shelves when I go shopping, especially if I take something off a shelf. It’s a curse.
Same here!
Worked at a couple of fashion retailers after Woolies and will also ensure clothes hangers are always facing the same way.
And I also still do the casual facing up. It's kind of satisfying, but also my wife is a bit short so there are times when someone her height can't see any stock left and I've had to dig for it so I guess it's nice to be helpful and bring it forward so people can at least see it's there.
Still do it, too, when I happen on the occasion. Partly that's because it's no effort and it helps keep the store looking nice, because I shop there too, and because Giant management gives the people who work there more than enough problems already.
And partly it's because fronting shelves in passing, in the days when stocking and bagging were my summer job in high school, was what prompted the first compliment I ever had in my life that I knew I'd really earned. Leaving things to look like they're about to fall off a shelf isn't how you get told "you ain't no scrub," by a man who looks as if he's worked that store for five hundred years and has absolutely no reason to waste words he doesn't mean on a weird nerdy high school kid. So I do it right.