Artist florist

Each time I visit a supermarket I marvel at the way the aisles are arranged.

Usually I end up walking around the store for a lot longer than I intend to in order to find (let’s say) that single bottle of mustard because there is now way of knowing either it is displayed together with the steak sauces and salad dressings or with the “International Flavors” items.

Artist Florist

The question is even worse if I’m at a supermarket that I’m not well-known with. As though they have signed a secret international bargain to confuse the heck out of their customers, most supermarkets have roughly opposite floor plans.

If at your well-known local supermarket, for example, you were walking into the bakery section when you entered from the main door and turned right, you can be 100% sure that there will be no bakery, but maybe a produce section, or a florist, at your next supermarket.

The point is not that all items should have fixed locations in all supermarkets. Not at all.

My point is, I’m not sure if all that endless walking among the long aisles — always laid out in parallel rows – is indispensable at all. I’m not sure if that’s the smartest way to fabricate a supermarket assuming, of course, that buyer delight and “user friendliness” is what matters most for any corporation.

So here I propose an alternative floor plan that I’ve never seen in any of the supermarkets that I’ve visited: Concentric Circles.

Imagine you are finding at a whole of concentric circles like the ones on a dart board, linked at 90 degree angles with perpendicular way corridors. The whole floor plan when looked at from above should look exactly like a shooting target superimposed with a plus “+” sign on top.

The customers should Enter the supermarket from one side of the concentric circles. The cash registers and the Exit should be lined up on an arc on the other side.

When you stand at the town of these concentric circles all aisles would be at an equal distance and that should unmistakably cut down on the whole of safari excursions you make to find your items. The cross-cutting way channels should make it much easier to walk from one end of the supermarket to the other, in less time.

Add to this floor plan the hi-tech help of Voice Recognition Directory Terminals, located in the town of the store…

You can speak into such terminals and ask for the item you are finding for. Then the Vrdt (what’s a human mind if not for creating acronyms?) talks back with the accurate location of what you are finding for: “French Mustard, Aisle C-4. Thank you!”

I suppose the same floor plan can be applied successfully to other types of shop as well.

I’m also aware that forcing the customers walk aimlessly among the aisles is a aware strategy to make them buy things on an impulse and thus maximize profits.

But in economic principles there is the law called the “Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns.” As the supermarkets get larger and larger, and as the busy customers have less and less time to walk needlessly around a supermarket, I think it makes more corporate sense to originate a pleasant shopping caress straight through good designed floor plans. Finally buyer delight is where the true profits are.

A New "Concentric Aisles" Floor Plan build for Supermarkets

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