Nah, carts and boxes are not placed intentionally - at least not typically. A store manager may do so but that is because they only understand the most basics of pedestrian traffic habits. My business modeled, and consulted on, vehicular traffic but we expanded to human traffic analytics, modeling, optimization, patterning, and consulted as well as designed throughput metrics. You may well have been in a product of our design or driven on a road that we helped optimize. (Do not blame us, they fail to listen much of the time and half-assed implementation is sometimes worse than no change at all,)
I feel a novella coming on. You have been warned. Skip or read it, it is up to you. I think you may be surprised.
Anyhow, clutter is never good. Specifically look at end caps and in-aisle displays. Those are actually supposed to be in rather specific places. They create bottlenecks at places with colorful items in large boxes or in places where things smell nice. They are usually expensive items or, more accurately, items with a good ROI.
The reason things are grouped together is because it avoids confusion. Trust me - they'd love to scatter stuff randomly around the store and would doubly love so if they were the only game in town. However, base ingredients will be as far away from each other (while still intuitive - usually) as possible while still being as far away from the stuff that you will use it for. Eggs are, for instance, nowhere near the cake mixes.
You will, almost invariably, travel to your right. To your right is, almost invariably, something that you can smell and see. We built, and staffed, a grocery store in the real world and in a laboratory environment. (The lab was able to be configured for a variety of simulations.) You *will* go right given the choice. You will smell stuff and look at large pretty things. It will make you hungry and in the mood to buy more. (Now that you know this, or thought you did before, you are not immune - you will do it.) Very little sells at the bakery and it operates almost at a loss - and in some instances at a loss. However, next on the list, is often a deli. The deli is lovely and there is a metric fuckton (professional vernacular) of profit there.
Then you have stuff in your way - usually after another attempt to assail you with colors and scents known as the produce section. This slows you down for the fish, prepackaged or custom meat cuts, and a frozen goods section just ahead. Wait - no - you can't go there... You have to figure out how to go to the aisle now. Or, best case, you walk down and walk back. There you view the "end caps" which are things on sale. Great, you saved money, now you can spend more in the next aisle.
No, you say! I decry such manipulation and I am immune! I only buy stuff on my list! Ever! Great - that is cool because you spend less time. While you spend less time you do two important things. You buy nothing on sale or no loss leaders. You use an alternative route which serves to slow people down. You are in and out quicker but have done more for us than we could have done on our own - we appreciate that and we plan accordingly. We count on your behavior. We price the markup at such that you pay more. Thank me later.
The milk, eggs, and dairy? Yeah - we all need that stuff. So we are going to put that in the back left. We are going to make it tough to go left to get to the items. If you do then you're going to be faced with traffic and end caps directly facing you. We do put the pharmacy close, usually, because we do not want sick people in the store. Frozen and chilled goods? Yeah - let's put those in the middle. Why? People often go there last. We want you to go back and see all those end caps (things on sale that are not really on sale or are a loss leader).
Printed an ad in the newspaper with coupons? Yup... It just so happens that those items are around other big colorful or smelly items - and often have been moved and that just happens to coincide with when the sale began. Thought you knew where the items were? Yeah - sucker. We moved 'em and we truly did so just for you.
Those cameras? They are for theft, that is their primary purpose. However, we use those to track the hell out of you and design our algorithms accordingly. But not you, you are not a sheep. You are smart and independent. Heh... We use the hell out of you. Go backwards through our store - we don't mind. You look silly and annoy people. They will feel sorry for us, even for a little bit. You will slow them down at key locations because we know where the bottlenecks will develop because f your traffic. Seems like a fine spot to attract sheep, just use some pretty large logos and something they can smell.
You do not even want to know what we do with vehicular traffic... That rough section of road? It is not being repaired because it slows traffic down. We are going to repair it at the last possible moment - just prior to a riot preferably.
Now that was not my hope, not at all. My goal was to improve things. We consulted and designed. We did research and made recommendations. How they implemented or what they implemented of those recommendations was not up to us. We did not design store or highways. We recommended where they should use safety controls and how they should use them and provided data to back up our conclusions.
I do not usually mention specific clients but... I will make an exception as none of this is covered by an NDA any more (though I am covered by a non-compete for another 12 years or so).
Pilots, Kroger, and Hannaford get marks for being the best at listening to and implementing recommendations.
Sears, TJ Maxx, and (believe it or not) Wal*Mart get good marks at listening to recommendations.
Florida, Pennsylvania, and Nevada get great scores for implementing changes as advised.
Safeway, Stater, Wal*Mart (grocery sections) get the worst.
Target, JC Penny, and Macy's get the worst.
Georgia, Washington DC, and California are abysmal and are willfully unsafe to control traffic.
And no... You are not immune to these things. You may think you are, you are not. I was lucky. I ran my business for about 20 years and sold it for an upper eight digit sum in cash and another eight digit sum in stocks in the now parent company. The price was such that I could not refuse it so I made sure my employees were taken care of and that the culture would not change (much) and went through with the sale. The now-parent company does almost nothing except fill government contracts for everything from IT, food, building/highway construction or repair, logistics, and even medical. Some of their subsidiaries are quite well known and not something I necessarily agree with but, frankly, the price was right and I am inherently lazy.
I too am subjected to manipulation in things like grocery stores or retail outlets. I too am manipulated when I drive down the highway. Even when we think we are acting in an unexpected fashion we are being manipulated or being used to manipulate others.
Anyhow, there is my novella for the day. I'd not read all of that. That's because, as mentioned, I am inherently lazy. There may be some insight in there for you - something from a different view. My goal is not, was not, to argue so much as it was/is to share some insight from a different viewpoint, to share something from an "insider" view. Take it for what you will. I still maintain contact with the company and still contract with them once in a while (I try to avoid it - it is a bit awkward feeling) so not much has changed. They are still putting out fine information and it is still being ignored or used for reasons other than what was stated. Often they are unable or unwilling to implement the changes and end up with halfassed solutions that are worse than they were before hand. Such is up to them.
