Elect me Emperor

[Rick Potter]

My first campaign promise is to immediately demand that all supermarkets, and other food stores put bread, dairy, meat, and other real foods close to the entrance. This would mean relegating candy, chips, cola, toys, and greeting cards to the rear, where people who want them will go to get them. Yes........I do understand why they do this, that is why I want to be the Emperor.

Vote early, and often.

Rick Potter

[Stephen Cherry]

Rick- disregard what Robert said, you are now emperor!

[Larry Frank]

I hate they way they put the milk way in the back. They may think it is good but it stops me from buying milk there. I typically will get it at a gas station or drugstore who has good prices and easy in and out.

[Rick Potter]

You know, what I really don't understand is why there are three rows of 1% milk in my local store. The top row is $4.99 gal. name brand, second row is $3.99 for store brand, and the bottom row is $2.99 for the 'Value brand'. I figure milk is milk, I guess that makes me a bottom feeder.

Hey, there is the second plank in my platform............Equal milk for all!

Rick Potter

[Mel Fulks]

Yeah, If they insist on arranging the milk the way liquor stores arrange the liquor ....they need to put some alcohol in the milk !

[Brian Elfert]

The stores I frequent usually have just name brand and store brand milk. I have never been able to tell the difference between different brands of milk. Store brand tastes the same as the name brand.

[Sal Kurban]

You have my vote; but wait, do emperors get elected???:D

[Rick Fisher]

The method works.. Grocery stores are merchandised for women shoppers. Milk at the back .. bread in the bakery..

The smell of baked goods alone will cause the impulse shopping on the way to the front to work .. :)

[Perry Holbrook]

The method works.. Grocery stores are merchandised for women shoppers. Milk at the back .. bread in the bakery..

The smell of baked goods alone will cause the impulse shopping on the way to the front to work .. :)

Some grocery chains have been known to install fans that are ducted between the bakery and the front of the store, to make sure you smell the fresh bread.

Perry

[Kevin Bourque]

Can you get rid of the plain M&M's while yer at it? Everybody knows peanut is where it's at.

[Matt Meiser]

Can you get rid of the plain M&M's while yer at it? Everybody knows peanut is where it's at.

That is quite possibly the most offensive post ever :D

[Kevin Bourque]

That is quite possibly the most offensive post ever :D


That reminds me... can you get rid of the plain Hershey's chocolate bars? The ones with almonds are by far the better choice.

[Jim Creech]

That reminds me... can you get rid of the plain Hershey's chocolate bars? The ones with almonds are by far the better choice.

Now you're getting personal!

[Benoit Rochon]

Just get rid of all chocolate products that has no peanuts/almond/pb in it.

[David Weaver]

When I was a kid, when you walked to the back of the store, the grocery store was about 60x100. Food turned over faster in it, I guess. Now if you have to go to the back of a store to get milk, some of the grocery stores are over 100,000 square feet in an attempt to be all things to all people and in multiple brands of all things to all people. It's a long walk! Maybe a sign of getting old, but I won't go into a store like that any longer to get milk or bread or anything else that's in the back.

I wonder what would happen if a grocery store intentionally put the milk in the front - would their sales drop, or would they get enough addition traffic to make up for it? Most of the stuff in the middle store is probably no better than animal feed, and probably worse (at least animal feed usually has sustenance requirements).

[Mike Cutler]

Hmmm,,,,
I'm mentally going over the grocery stores we shopo at, and only two have the milk at the back. Most have it to the left, or right, opposite the produce section.

Rick
I guess the stores in So Cal. have changes their schematic since I worked in them. They used to all be laid out with the perimeter philosophy, which is why we used to load up the ailse ends with the high profit impulse items. I know you got to have a Whole Foods near you.Wait, that's one of the two we go to that has the milk in the back.:eek:

[Brian Elfert]

Regardless if milk is at the side or back of a grocery it is almost never near the entrance and convenient for those who just want milk. Over the years I have seen a few grocery chains experiment with placing a small group of common items right at the front door for easy access. They must have decided it hurt sales more than it helped as I am not aware of any store doing it today.

[Harold Burrell]

My first campaign promise is to immediately demand that all supermarkets, and other food stores put bread, dairy, meat, and other real foods close to the entrance. This would mean relegating candy, chips, cola, toys, and greeting cards to the rear, where people who want them will go to get them. Yes........I do understand why they do this, that is why I want to be the Emperor.

Vote early, and often.

Rick Potter

Really? Seriously? THAT is your platform???

I can think of WAY more reasons and issues that would need to be addressed by a newly elected "emperor". (Unfortunately, the TOS here won't let me go there. ;))

So...no. I probably won't vote for you for emperor. However...I would be interested in shopping at your store, if you were ever to open one. :D

[Jim Rimmer]

At least with the milk, they don't move it around because they can't move the coolers. I think your third plank should be that once a store has established where goods are to be displayed, they can't move it to another part of the store at their whim.

[Matt Meiser]

Kroger just had the grand opening for the expansion of "our" store which turned it into the worlds largest Kroger. My daughter bought shoes there last week. They're right next to the milk (seriously.) They sell couches too. And there's a whole aisle of Legos.

During construction one week it took us over an hour to do our grocery shopping because we couldn't find anything. It was still fun going to see what had changed that week.

[Steve Meliza]

I dislike mandates so you won't get any votes from me.

Milk isn't just about taste and price alone. The cheap stuff at our grocery store is trucked in from the Midwest and regardless of the "sell by" date it will go sour about 6 days after being opened which is particularly annoying when you shop on a weekly basis. The slightly more expensive "name brand" stuff comes from local dairies and has never gone bad on me even after being open over 2 weeks.

If you go shopping for milk so often that you feel the need to gripe about the extra exercise your drinking habit results in then I don't guess you need to worry about open jugs of milk going bad. But if you're like me the local stuff ends up being more affordable because you don't pour half the jug down the drain. Oh ya, and it's local and not trucked in from half way across the country which I've heard burns up a lot of diesel.

[David Weaver]

1 kid, soon two, and a wife who demands organic for the kids, so we have two separate types going. Getting a gallon of milk is a twice per week thing, usually it's tied with a grocery trip.

I'd much sooner walk into a store where it's 20 feet from the door than waste my time wading through a pile of cars to park 150 feet from the door and then walk 400 feet to the milk and then back and then stand in line waiting behind people getting couches and shoes.

It's not the exercise, it's the time (I already walk a half an hour in the hills as part of my commute). A 15 minute trip to get milk that is less than a mile from my house is just stupid. Part of that is just how busy the shopping area is across the road from where I live, part of it's the store design. There is a convenience store at the bottom of the hill for my development that has regular milk, but they don't have organic. I personally don't see any value to drinking it and don't use it for anything other than cooking 99% of the time (yes, my parents were farmers on both sides, but like jack lalanne says , "what other grown animal drinks milk. Get rid of it!"). Come to think of it, we'd probably all be healthier if we ditched the bread, too.

In terms of the timing, separate aside, I remember often my dad would pop his head up around 8 pm when I was a kid (in gettysburg) and say "I have go to pick up milk". That was 3 miles away, and it took him about half the time to get it. I can't see anything from my house because it's in the hills (thank goodness, no line of sight means I don't see or hear anything in the commercial parts of my area), but if I walk out to the edge of my old development, I can look down at target and the grocery store right beside it, it's that close - across a 6 lane suburban traffic area.

Now, I don't argue that the way stores have gotten bigger and made it harder to do convenience shopping isn't in their interest. Only a fool would state that they know better than target et. al's essentially data driven setups, but what's good for them isn't good for me. *especially* when you get to the back of the store and the organic milk is out. I hear jack lalanne in the back of my head every time that happens.

[Mike Henderson]

My complaint is how difficult it is to find things in a store. Why can't they have an app that you open on your phone, put in what you want, and it tells you which aisle it's on?

I want to shop quickly so my main issues are how quickly I can find what I want and how quickly I can check out.

Mike

[Harold Burrell]

268060
I hear jack lalanne in the back of my head...

Man...that explains a lot. :D

[Brian Elfert]

During construction one week it took us over an hour to do our grocery shopping because we couldn't find anything. It was still fun going to see what had changed that week.

I quit going to the local Walmart while they built an addition to sell a full grocery selection. They kept moving everything around and basic items they should have in stock were constantly out of stock. There was a period of two or three weeks where they had no grocery items at all. It also didn't help that they shrunk the parking lot to the size of a postage stamp during construction. I don't mind when I have to walk a ways from the parking lot to the store. I get really agitated when I there are not parking spots period and I have to drive in loops looking for a spot.

[Jim Rimmer]

[QUOTE=David Weaver;2140539] "what other grown animal drinks milk. Get rid of it

What other grown animal has cookies? :D

[ray hampton]

keep the candy and the bakery where they are [close to the front NEXT TO the bank, I am diabetic and need the candy close to the front, and close to the back, and close to the sides
I am surprise that No-one know the real reason that the milk are in the back of the store, the milk are stock from the back of the freezer so that the older milk will stay in the front

[Steve Meliza]

the milk are stock from the back of the freezer so that the older milk will stay in the front When I was a wee grasshopper my momma taught me to look at the expiration date on milk and dig deep to the back for the fresher stuff.

Some excellent points made about time wasted rather than the exercise of it. Our nearest non-convenience store remodeled a few years ago and put half of its parking around on the end and back where there are no doors. I really hate parking at that store now.

[Mike Cutler]

Rick

When you become emperor, you also have to abolish cruise control. The cruise control co-pilots on my morning commute are driving me postal. Oh, and no Garmins, or Tom Toms unless you're actually on a trip. A cruise control co-pilot, with a Garmin running, on the way to work, is automatic banishment.;),:D

[Brian Elfert]

Cruise control? I wouldn't be able to do any long road trips without it. I never use it around town. Where are you commuting that it is possible to use cruise control? It would be impossible to use it while commuting locally. I got a rental car back in 2009 and didn't realize it didn't have cruise. It totally sucked doing a five hour road trip without cruise.

Back to milk, stores could certainly figure out a way to keep the stock rotated if they had the milk coolers near the front door of the store. I can think of several different ways to do it without even thinking hard.

[David Weaver]

My complaint is how difficult it is to find things in a store. Why can't they have an app that you open on your phone, put in what you want, and it tells you which aisle it's on?

I want to shop quickly so my main issues are how quickly I can find what I want and how quickly I can check out.

Mike

Almost 20 years ago when I was in college, we had a professor who had some exposure to walmart at the time, and one of his quiz questions to people was "why are there some items next to others where it seems to make no sense".

You can guess what the answer was. Analysis that the arrangements drove more sales. So it's been going on for a long time.

I'd imagine there is a happy medium where you have some items oddly placed to get a quick sale, but if you did it with too many, the whole place would just become disorganized.

[Brian Elfert]

Grocery stores are starting to put stuff that commonly is purchased together in the same area. In the packaged meat section where hot dogs are sold they will sometimes have hot dog buns and ketchup displayed. Typically, the ketchup and hot dog buns will be expensive name brands rather than the less expensive products found in the bread or condiments aisle.

[Mel Fulks]

Remember the Southpark episode about Walmart ? A parent standing in the check out line buys peel off stickers and puts them on his face because they were only a dollar. We've all been there.

[Larry Whitlow]

If I were building a supermarket I would put the dairy case adjacent to the cold storage room. I would put the cold storage room next to the general stock room. I would put all of that next to the loading dock. I would put the loading dock in the back of the store. I don't care much about M&Ms or Hershey, but if they try to get rid of Payday's you got my vote.

[Brian Elfert]

If I were building a supermarket I would put the dairy case adjacent to the cold storage room. I would put the cold storage room next to the general stock room. I would put all of that next to the loading dock. I would put the loading dock in the back of the store. I don't care much about M&Ms or Hershey, but if they try to get rid of Payday's you got my vote.

That is pretty much how most traditional grocery stores are built. It works to make stocking dairy easy, but it also makes one trek through the whole store just to buy milk.

I'm single and the type of grocery shopper that usually only buys a few things on any one trip. The layouts of most grocery stores make it hard to just quickly pick up a few things. Target stores that just have the small grocery section sometimes put the grocery area at the far end of the store. Target used to put the grocery stuff where one could get in and out easily.

[Jim Matthews]

Emperors aren't elected.

Their terms never end quietly.
I forsee the reign of Padashah emperor King Shaddam the IV ending under a grain silo full of Gummie Bears.

That, or you'll be made greeter at the first WalMart in Addis Adaba.

[Jim Rimmer]

I saw a program on convenience stores on the History Channel recently. They have customer psychology and movements very finely analyzed, even to the point of which direction a cooler door opens in order to control the flow of traffic. Given that most people walk in particular direction depending on which way that door opens, they can control traffic flow and place related items in the path. For instance if the door opens to the left, most people will exit right (I think) so why not put a display of chips and nuts to the right of the beer cooler?

If 7-11 has it that detailed, I'm sure the big box stores have done their own research.

[John Christian]

I agree with Harold a fairly weak platform for emperor election......... I will run on the death penalty for people who eat pineapple on pizza

[Larry Whitlow]

I saw a program on convenience stores on the History Channel recently. They have customer psychology and movements very finely analyzed, even to the point of which direction a cooler door opens in order to control the flow of traffic. Given that most people walk in particular direction depending on which way that door opens, they can control traffic flow and place related items in the path. For instance if the door opens to the left, most people will exit right (I think) so why not put a display of chips and nuts to the right of the beer cooler?

If 7-11 has it that detailed, I'm sure the big box stores have done their own research.

I saw something similar for Costco. Very interesting how they merchandise and especially the sway they have over their vendors. I'll bet the supermarkets have this down to a science. I've heard that those free standing product displays are coveted by the vendors. It would be interesting to see a special on the big super markets. On a related note, I was at the local Rockler equivalent to a black Friday sale. The place was packed and there was a long line down one of the outside aisles to the registers. That isle contained a lot of higher priced specific-use items. As I stood in line, I was thinking I would have loaded those shelves with the smaller impulse buy items.

[Rich Engelhardt]

(dead man walking........)-----> = me.....

I like pineapple and ham on pizza...


Isn't Bill Gates emperor of the world or is it Larry Ellison?
Or is one of them the Dark Overlord of the Universe?

[ray hampton]

(dead man walking........)-----> = me.....

I like pineapple and ham on pizza...


Isn't Bill Gates emperor of the world or is it Larry Ellison?
Or is one of them the Dark Overlord of the Universe?

I think that Donald are holding the Trump card , I hope that I spell his name correct

[Matt Meiser]

If you want to see where Kroger is headed, and its not the way Rick wants to go, here's an article about "our" Kroger. http://www.freep.com/article/20130818/BUSINESS06/308180054/kroger-store-marketplace-supermarket-costco

For a little background as to why they would do this here, the northern suburbs of Toledo are in SE Michigan, we live about 2-3 miles north of the furthest out subdivisions. The township where all those subdivisions are has, for years, tried to stifle any economic development, blocking a Meijer, then a Walmart (more than once) and numerous other non-residential projects, but meanwhile complaining that everyone heads to Toledo to shop. There are 2 small-ish grocery stores, a great local hardware, and numerous other local businesses. But, for example, there's NOWHERE to buy a shirt unless you want a logo printed or embroidered. Kroger finally got permission about 10 years ago to build a regular Kroger. 2 years ago they bought a nearby gas station. Last year they announced they wanted to expand the store. After the expansion was approved they revealed that this was to create a Marketplace store and sell all this other stuff.

[Rick Potter]

OK,

I have decided to postpone my Emperoreal ambitions, and instead open a pizza shop specializing in pepperoni/pineapple pizza, with peanut M&M's on every table. I want to thank all my supporters for their contributions to my election fund, and assure them the monies will be spent in a fiscal and environmentally responsible way, at an undisclosed beachside South Seas resort where I will hold seminars discussing the perils of sun damage to the skin of beachwear clad young ladies.

Don't thank me, it's the least I can do to serve humanity.

Further contributions still accepted.

Rick Potter

[Justin Ludwig]

I agree with Harold a fairly weak platform for emperor election......... I will run on the death penalty for people who eat pineapple on pizza

You may as well nuke the entire chain of Hawai'ian Islands, it'll save on lethal injection expenses.

Pineapple and Ham on pizza is deeeeeelish!