Why was the milk kept at the back of the supermarket?
Supermarkets are 77 years old in August and they have learned many lessons in self-service that can be applied to websites. Getting a litre of milk must be amongst the top tasks of customers going to a supermarket yet traditionally milk was always at the back of the store. Old style grocery marketing suggested you could manipulate consumers into more impulse purchases by making them travel past tempting goods on their way to get staples like milk.
This kind of thinking is being challenged by market leaders like Tesco with multiple format stores allowing customers to do quick one stop shops or go for longer weekly shops through all the aisles. Customers have more cash but are time poor so convenience is what keeps the customer. It’s the same on the web, having your top customer tasks two links down will not lead to more traffic for weaker parts of the site.
Loaded! Why supermarkets are getting richer and richer
