design:retail - August 2017 - 26

the visual eye

026

Food for Thought
PETER-TOLIN BAKER
VISUAL MERCHANDISING SPECIALIST
P-T B DESIGN SERVICES

ptb@ptbdesignservices.com

HOPPING FOR groceries
is such an integral part
of our weekly routine
that it is hard to imagine that the grocery
store as we know it today is a rather
recent invention in the history of food
markets. And with today's growing consumer interest in healthy
ingredients, low prices, product
transparency and technology-
combined with an average profit
margin of just 1 percent-the grocery
industry can't afford to be nonresponsive to providing the quality
environment and services that customers are demanding.
The first grocery store is generally accredited
to Clarence Sanders, with the 1916 opening of his
Piggly Wiggly store in Memphis, Tenn. This store
introduced the world to such novel concepts as selfservice, price-marked items and shopping baskets.
Sanders also opened additional stores, thereby creating the model of franchise stores with consistent
store environments, products and services. Selecting your own items was quite a novel experience at
the time and quickly became popular. Fresh produce and meats were added in the 1920s, in addition
to the dried and canned goods previously provided.
This was soon followed by supermarkets in
the 1930s, notably beginning with King Kullen in
Queens, N.Y., whose founder successfully adhered
to the "Pile It High, Sell It Low" motto through
discount pricing. After WWII, the expanse of the
automobile, suburbs, refrigeration and freeways
further changed the grocery shopping landscape,
leading to more recent retail and grocery concepts,
such as big-box stores, supercenters and warehousestyle stores with an emphasis on low prices and
bulk purchasing.
Despite all the progress, little has changed
with the basic grocery store layout. Sensory
departments-bakery, flowers, fresh produce-are
located toward the front of the store. Destination

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products-milk, bread, eggs-are merchandised in
the back to encourage customers to shop additional
product en route; central aisles are reserved for
dried and frozen goods. Shelving is merchandised
in a hierarchy that places pricier or smaller items
on top, with best sellers and leading brands on the
favored middle shelves; bulk and discount-priced
product take up the lower shelves. Aisle endcaps
are actively used for rotating product promotions.
Additionally, "slotting fees" charged by the grocery
store control much of the actual placement and
space allowed for each product. And you can't easily ignore those impulse items placed at the front of
the store near the checkout stations.
Grocery stores represent a unique challenge to
merchandising given the range of product they
carry to the range of customers they serve. As with
any product, food merchandising relies on a range
of display guidelines for best results. Examples include staggered shelves in fresh produce for better
visibility, alternating color and texture between
produce displays, use of risers and stands for height
and level variations, consistent signage and graphics; cross-merchandising is also frequently used to
help drive sales and product awareness. How about
some salsa with those chips?
Not surprisingly, technology and online shopping are radically changing the way we now shop

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for food as online continues to become a larger percentage of grocery
sales. Online sales also are having
an influence on the size of stores,
with many grocery chains looking
to decrease store size for a more costefficient, curated approach-as well
as adding more store services, such
as cafés or dry cleaning, expanded
private-label product and options for
pick-up, delivery and checkout.
The in-store grocery shopping experience continues to be enhanced
with added digital technology along
with big data mining and analytics.
Think beacons that interact with customers via mobile phones, electronic shelf labels
that allow remote updates to pricing, sensors to
identify issues with expiration dates or temperature control, and smart technology to help with
energy savings on lighting, HVAC and refrigeration.
Further still are the evolving new concepts of
"virtual reality" and "augmented reality" stores,
where product is represented by an image, and customers shop using their mobile phones. Amazon
Go has upended the idea of the grocery checkout
process entirely by opening its first self-serve stores
with a "cashier-free," app-based payment system-
truly grab and go.
Despite all the new bells and whistles, customers still appreciate basic qualities that do not
require technology, including well-priced products presented in a clean and organized manner,
by a friendly and well-informed staff. Interestingly,
keep in mind that a vast majority of shoppers rate
the quality of fresh produce as a top influencer of
where they choose to shop. So don't let that new
mobile app overtake keeping a good eye out for any
limp lettuce. Chew on that.
PETER-TOLIN BAKER IS ACTIVELY INVOLVED WITH RETAIL
DESIGN AND VISUAL MERCHANDISING VIA P-T B DESIGN
SERVICES (OWNER), AND AS A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR TO
DESIGN:RETAIL.

Photo by SANTANOR/SHUTTERSTOCK

http://www.DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM http://www.GLOBALSHOP.ORG

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