Saturday 17 March 2012

In-store links

When physically arranging stock in a store, particularly in a supermarket, it's not possible to cater for all product relationships in customers minds, and hence where they expect products to be. This has been overcome in part by standardising shop layouts such that customers have learnt where products should be. However, some tricky products remain, which could logically be in two different sections. The store has the option of putting the stock in both locations (which is inefficient from a stock control point-of-view) or putting in just one location (which seems to be the case in my experience). If the latter, customer experience would be significantly improved with signed in related sections pointing on a map to where related (and thus expected) goods are located - a physical world equivalent of links (or "customers who bought this also bought" type recommendations).

(Obviously an electronic map and search function is the optimum, but higher tech solution.)

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