Every time I visit a supermarket I marvel at the layout of the aisles.
I usually end up hanging around the store a lot longer than I intend to to find (say) that particular bottle of mustard because now there’s a way to tell if it’s on display alongside the steak sauces and salad dressings or with the articles of “International Flavors”.
The problem is even worse if I am in a supermarket that I do not know. As if they had signed a secret international agreement to confuse their customers, most supermarkets have almost opposite floor plans.
If at your local family supermarket, for example, you were walking towards the bakery section when you walked in the front door and turned right, you can be 100% sure there will be no bakery, but perhaps a produce section or a grocery store. florist. , at your next supermarket.
The point is not that all items should have fixed locations in all supermarkets. No problem.
My point is that I’m not sure if all that endless walking between the long corridors, always arranged in parallel rows, is necessary. I’m not sure if that’s the smartest way to design a supermarket assuming of course that customer satisfaction and “ease of use” is top of mind for any corporation.
So here I propose an alternative plant that I have never seen in any of the supermarkets I have visited: CONCENTRIC CIRCLES.
Imagine you are looking at a series of concentric circles like those on a dartboard, connected at 90 degree angles with perpendicular access aisles. The entire floor plan, when viewed from above, should look exactly like a shooting target overlaid with a plus “+” sign on top.
Customers must enter the supermarket from one side of the concentric circles. The cash registers and the Exit should be aligned in an arc on the other side.
When you stand in the CENTER of these concentric circles, all the aisles would be the same distance apart and that should really cut down on the number of safari excursions you make to find your items. Cross access channels should make it much easier to walk from one end of the supermarket to the other, in less time.
Add to this floor plan the high-tech help of VOICE RECOGNITION DIRECTORY TERMINALS, located in the CENTER of the store…
You can speak at these terminals and request the item you are looking for. Then the VRDT (what’s a human mind but to create acronyms?) responds with the precise location of what it’s looking for: “French mustard, aisle C-4. Thanks!”
I guess the same floor plan can also be successfully applied to other types of stores.
I am also aware that forcing customers to wander aimlessly between aisles is a conscious strategy to get them to buy on impulse to maximize profits.
But in economic theory there is the law called “Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns”. As supermarkets get bigger and bigger, and as busy customers have less and less time to effortlessly walk around a supermarket, I think it makes more corporate sense to create a pleasant shopping experience through better designed floor plans. . Ultimately, customer satisfaction is where the real profits are.