The Dangers of Going to Buy Milk

We have all been there, haven't we? Realized we are out of milk so decide to take a quick trip to the grocery store. However, despite our itty-bitty shopping list, we still come out of the store with bags of stuff.

Oh, the masterminds behind grocery stores. 

I am also sure you already have heard strategies of grocery stores about the placement of milk in the back of the store, how certain items get placed at eye level, and the enticing end-of-aisle displays.  From my experience grocery shopping overseas, these principles typically stay the same. However, during my time in Turkey (as well as Sweden in a few cases), I got to experience a completely different layout of grocery which I found to impact my behavior in grocery stores.

After some research online, I have identified the layout I experienced in Turkey to be called a "race track" or "loop" store. The major aisle of this store begins at the entrance and then loops around the store before returning the customer to the entrance of the store to check out their items.

American grocery stores typically used a grid layout. In this layout, consumers can go down the multiple aisles at their will and grocery store managers must be strategic on the placement of their items as a result.

I found the racetrack grocery stores in Turkey to be both wonderful and irritating at the same time. I liked this layout because it helped me be more efficient shopping. In theory, I would only have to keep walking along the track and pick up all the items I needed. There would be no need to figure out which aisles I needed to go to or incorrectly guess where an item would be because I would pass every item.

My mood when grocery shopping is not time consuming or confusing 

However, this some times did not work. For example, I would realize I forgot to pick up olive oil once I got to the end of the loop while the olive oil section was at the start of loop. I would then have to go against the flow of traffic to get the oil. I also found I bought a lot more random items. As a result of being exposed to all of the products, I would constantly stumbled upon things that were not on my list and I would buy them.

My feelings realizing I forgot once I reached the end of the loop

For that reason, I believe the grid layouts of grocery stores give consumers more control on the items we look at depending on the aisles we choose to walk down. However, this adds time to our shopping trip as we have to find the locations of these items by ourself.

What Do You Think: Would you prefer to shop at a grocery store with a loop layout or a grid layout?