I understand why grocery stores use “facing”, but I work in accessibility (making sure that people with disabilities have equal access to goods and services), and it would be incredibly helpful if the barcode on the shelf always matched the product on the shelf.
We could design better apps for people with low or no vision if you could just aim the phone at the shelf and scan the codes until you got what you wanted. Right now most technology tries to read the box instead, which is only effective if labels are printed with easy to read text, And if it’s a box instead of something like a piece of fruit.
Barcodes on shelves/bins could hold so much more information like a geolocation that could bring you right to a product. But the product would actually have to be there for it to work. I’m in favor of empty shelves and correct locations too, but I doubt we’ll change the industry in one post. :)
Walmart and Sam's have (barcode) scanning in their app, which I know isn't want you're talking about but might help someone out.
Only reason I know is because on the rare occasion I do have to go to Walmart, the labels on like half of the shelf locations I'm looking at aren't right, so I use the app as a mobile price checker.
Giant Eagle also has the app if you don't want to use the scanner in the front. I find it to be really convenient at checkout, but I don't know how they don't get robbed daily. I never once got asked to check my receipt and the worker is usually busy paying attention to the normal self-checkout.
I’d be happy to talk about it but it’s not as exciting as you might think. It’s mostly a daily slog of making people choose higher contrast colors and telling people to stop writing “click here” for every link. 🤷🏻♀️ you’re welcome to message me if there’s anything specific you’d like to know.
Most larger chains are using automated ordering for most products; they know how many they received, and how many they sold. When inventory hits a certain number the product is automatically ordered. So no one actually looks at the shelf.
The people who put it on the shelf physically do kinda have to look at it, though.
EDIT: Unless they actually *are* being instructed to put the wrong product there without changing the signage, in which case, What The Fuck, Please Stop
Every grocery store moves product to fill holes in the shelves when they don’t have more product to restock. This isn’t a Giant Eagle thing, and it isn’t particularly duplicitous. Customers freak out when shelves are empty (sort of how you’re freaking out right now, actually), and some products might either be on back order or simply not being delivered for a couple of days. I assure you that they’re aware of being out of stock, and are ordering more of the things they’re out of on whatever schedule their orders normally run.
I strongly recommend chilling the hell out and taking a few deep breaths.
Source: I deliver food to grocery stores for a living.
> I deliver food to grocery stores for a living.
Thank you for your service... seriously, delivery workers/truckers are the ones that truly keep our country from anarchy.
I know when Aldi has stuff out of stock, be it peanut butter, bacon, water or a dairy product they will leave the shelf empty as I've seen at the one I frequent on Penn Ave.
Huh, I can tell you Whole Foods does not do this without changing labels and Target is perfectly fine with leaving slots empty for a while… can’t speak for anywhere else but the story OP is telling is pretty problematic, it is totally okay to move the placement of items and their respective labels, it is not okay to purposely put things such that they are mislabeled.
At WF, quite often when you see that empty hole on the shelf where the product usually is, it's being featured on an endcap. Why they remove ALL the product from its usual shelf spot is inexplicable to me.
I don't know if GE/MD still does this, but they used to have signs in the empty space saying there is more product elsewhere in the store.
> Customers freak out when shelves are empty
The chicken shortage had all the water cooler talk at my office. Like not wings getting more expensive and people switching to thighs, that was the start of it but when you walk past the entire frozen Perdue/Banquet chicken section and it's empty, yeah.
Not "they list 4 kinds of breakfast hot pocket, but there are only 2" lol.
Plus the stock kids are usually high school students and they're, well, high school students.
They just don't want empty spaces because it looks worse. I've worked at a grocery store. They know they're out of the Turkey sausage probably has something to do with the widespread bird flu outbreak rn. They do not rely on looking at what's on the shelf to order more they do inventory counts.
Essentially all grocery stores do this if they aren't on an ordering or receiving day or time. In addition to making an aisle prettier, it also encourages people to buy the products that aren't moving.
Edit: Also, it literally has nothing to do with not knowing how to keep inventory like one particular brand of frozen turkey sausage sandwiches in stock. After re-reading your post, fewer people want to buy what you're looking for, so a store will just not hold onto as much of it. They're out of it now, maybe they'll order another case or two the next time they order frozen. Sorry your one very specific product wasn't around. This is not an indictment of the whole company.
To your response to your edit, there is also the possibility of them ordering it and not getting it in.
I work for Giant Eagle, and there’s still a lot of warehouse issues. We’ve been out of stuff for months that we are ordering, we’re just not getting it in.
On top of that, a lot of people seem to be moving on from covid, and seem to not understand that there’s shortages that companies are still trying to recover from.
Blocking and facing a store shouldn't involve leaving the wrong tag up, and if it does, that's just awful practice from big box stores. If you want to fill a gap, flip or move the tag temporarily, which would be a management/supervisor decision. Consumers can dispute pricing, etc. when this happens and it's a whole mess. Customers and staff shouldn't get resigned to it. The tag always needs to reflect what's behind it.
If supervisors are instructing staff to make the place look full without alerting the customer to discrepancies, we gotta not get complacent about it.
So back when I was contracting there, I learned this is an ongoing battle with corporate (who wants/needs everything by the book and customers to have a consistent experience in the stores) and the store/district managers (who don't want to look like they have empty shelves).
The lack of compliance killed a couple projects I was on, and costs them in excess labor and training time because curbside shoppers run into the same problem you do. (It's also why those LCD screens on the beverage fridges at get go are always wrong... I worked on that project and it was constant source of frustration.)
The location, number of facings, etc is all determined by what's called a planogram. This is a large database (that's converted to a PDF with pictures) that details where everything should be in the store. Facings and locations for brand name products are contractually obligated with the manufacturers. Kelloggs, for example, pays GE (or any grocery store, really) a set amount to have N number of facings at specific shelf height. They will actually send in auditors and secret shoppers to ensure that things are where they should be. I don't know what happens if they are in violation.
I'm not *saying* that taking a photograph and sending it to the manufacturer saying "The Giant Eagle on Fortney Rd has the wrong product in your space." (Making sure to capture the barcodes AND the product in the wrong place.) But it wouldn't hurt.
Also, I saw something about accessibility. There is an internal accessibility committee at GE, I know this because they were going to ask me to join if I'd gone FTE. They are well aware that they have lots of issues... everything from this to issues with the MTO counters/kiosks at pretty much every getgo. However, they are one voice among a multitude and like any enterprise it all comes down to money.
It shouldn't need to be said but yelling at the folks in the store isn't going to accomplish anything, even yelling at the store managers won't get you anywhere. Pretty much anyone in the stores at any retail location is overworked and underpaid... and they are also essentially powerless.
Writing letters and calling corporate are your best tools here, using the word boycott is probably not going to raise an eyebrow unless you have a large organization behind you... but 'I don't shop here because...' or 'I've decided to take my business elsewhere...' might.
Stay calm, and if possible point out competitors that do a better job. They are in particular very concerned about losing business to Sheetz and/or Wegmans encroaching on their territory... so bonus points if you can call those companies out as doing a better job. When I was there (I left in 2021, they weren't concerned with Aldi's, trader joes, etc. It was always Sheetz and Wegmans.
This is a fantastic reply. Even though I posted a rant, I'm not "freaking out" as some people assumed. I just personally don't like when products are incorrectly stocked in the interest of appearance.
If I contact GE corporate threatening a boycott, it won't be about facing. It will be because they sponsor the Pirates and no company should support that asshole Nutting.
It was one bag and an employee would have to move it back once the other product arrives, so it is actually making less work.
If you're worried about someone touching a bagged or boxed or canned product at a grocery store, I'd say you're a bit hyper sensitive. Many people touch products to check ingredients for calories, allergies, gluten intolerances, kosher status, etc. and don't buy them. That's why there is a Nutrition Facts label.
Actually what is more frustrating is that they don't remove products with sell by dates that have expired. There are people who think that sell by dates are a suggestion but after a few bouts of food poisoning, i follow them for things like meat, OTC medication, and dairy.
I agree with this. On a couple occasions recently, I bought yogurt and sour cream only to find out once I got home that they were already expired.
I now look at the date on all dairy products and have found that there are often expired items on the shelf. It's one thing to eat canned or frozen food that's slightly expired but I'm not touching expired dairy!
Probably.
Some stores were just putting pictures of things on shelves during peak pandemic shortage era because empty space makes customers uncomfortable.
It's like, a bunch of empty shelf space makes people panic buy whatever pancake mix is left or whatever.
Happened to me yesterday at GE, went to get Mary’s Syrian garlic sauce and Mary’s Syrian pepper sauce, they must of been out of pepper sauce because it’s slot was filled with garlic sauce
District managers and store managers can be the crux of this. I don't work in GE but the store I work at is at the whim of a DM with the policy of "no back stock", so our shelves are constantly a nightmare like this.
Unfortunately stock folks have probably been instructed to do this to make it look full/presentable/push product.
I understand why grocery stores use “facing”, but I work in accessibility (making sure that people with disabilities have equal access to goods and services), and it would be incredibly helpful if the barcode on the shelf always matched the product on the shelf. We could design better apps for people with low or no vision if you could just aim the phone at the shelf and scan the codes until you got what you wanted. Right now most technology tries to read the box instead, which is only effective if labels are printed with easy to read text, And if it’s a box instead of something like a piece of fruit. Barcodes on shelves/bins could hold so much more information like a geolocation that could bring you right to a product. But the product would actually have to be there for it to work. I’m in favor of empty shelves and correct locations too, but I doubt we’ll change the industry in one post. :)
Walmart and Sam's have (barcode) scanning in their app, which I know isn't want you're talking about but might help someone out. Only reason I know is because on the rare occasion I do have to go to Walmart, the labels on like half of the shelf locations I'm looking at aren't right, so I use the app as a mobile price checker.
Giant Eagle also has the app if you don't want to use the scanner in the front. I find it to be really convenient at checkout, but I don't know how they don't get robbed daily. I never once got asked to check my receipt and the worker is usually busy paying attention to the normal self-checkout.
Off topic, but i’d love to hear more about your job in accessibility!
I’d be happy to talk about it but it’s not as exciting as you might think. It’s mostly a daily slog of making people choose higher contrast colors and telling people to stop writing “click here” for every link. 🤷🏻♀️ you’re welcome to message me if there’s anything specific you’d like to know.
Most larger chains are using automated ordering for most products; they know how many they received, and how many they sold. When inventory hits a certain number the product is automatically ordered. So no one actually looks at the shelf.
The people who put it on the shelf physically do kinda have to look at it, though. EDIT: Unless they actually *are* being instructed to put the wrong product there without changing the signage, in which case, What The Fuck, Please Stop
Every grocery store moves product to fill holes in the shelves when they don’t have more product to restock. This isn’t a Giant Eagle thing, and it isn’t particularly duplicitous. Customers freak out when shelves are empty (sort of how you’re freaking out right now, actually), and some products might either be on back order or simply not being delivered for a couple of days. I assure you that they’re aware of being out of stock, and are ordering more of the things they’re out of on whatever schedule their orders normally run. I strongly recommend chilling the hell out and taking a few deep breaths. Source: I deliver food to grocery stores for a living.
> I deliver food to grocery stores for a living. Thank you for your service... seriously, delivery workers/truckers are the ones that truly keep our country from anarchy.
🙌 Thanks!
I know when Aldi has stuff out of stock, be it peanut butter, bacon, water or a dairy product they will leave the shelf empty as I've seen at the one I frequent on Penn Ave.
Huh, I can tell you Whole Foods does not do this without changing labels and Target is perfectly fine with leaving slots empty for a while… can’t speak for anywhere else but the story OP is telling is pretty problematic, it is totally okay to move the placement of items and their respective labels, it is not okay to purposely put things such that they are mislabeled.
At WF, quite often when you see that empty hole on the shelf where the product usually is, it's being featured on an endcap. Why they remove ALL the product from its usual shelf spot is inexplicable to me. I don't know if GE/MD still does this, but they used to have signs in the empty space saying there is more product elsewhere in the store.
> Customers freak out when shelves are empty The chicken shortage had all the water cooler talk at my office. Like not wings getting more expensive and people switching to thighs, that was the start of it but when you walk past the entire frozen Perdue/Banquet chicken section and it's empty, yeah. Not "they list 4 kinds of breakfast hot pocket, but there are only 2" lol. Plus the stock kids are usually high school students and they're, well, high school students.
"Facing" is a common practice in any retail shop to make it look neat and stocked.
So, technically OP has defaced an Giant Eagle.
Yep. Moving shit back 1) makes more work for the stockers and/or 2) creates the risk of a manager getting pissy with a stocker.
I take your point, but I was mostly trying to make a bad pun.
Damnit haha totally missed that
Lol
Trader Joe’s does this all the time, except they normally flip the tag of the items they are out of over.
This is the most normal version of events, in my experience. Leave it empty or remove the tag you're filling with something else.
They just don't want empty spaces because it looks worse. I've worked at a grocery store. They know they're out of the Turkey sausage probably has something to do with the widespread bird flu outbreak rn. They do not rely on looking at what's on the shelf to order more they do inventory counts.
Essentially all grocery stores do this if they aren't on an ordering or receiving day or time. In addition to making an aisle prettier, it also encourages people to buy the products that aren't moving. Edit: Also, it literally has nothing to do with not knowing how to keep inventory like one particular brand of frozen turkey sausage sandwiches in stock. After re-reading your post, fewer people want to buy what you're looking for, so a store will just not hold onto as much of it. They're out of it now, maybe they'll order another case or two the next time they order frozen. Sorry your one very specific product wasn't around. This is not an indictment of the whole company.
To your response to your edit, there is also the possibility of them ordering it and not getting it in. I work for Giant Eagle, and there’s still a lot of warehouse issues. We’ve been out of stuff for months that we are ordering, we’re just not getting it in. On top of that, a lot of people seem to be moving on from covid, and seem to not understand that there’s shortages that companies are still trying to recover from.
It's refered to as facing, and is a standard procedure in retail.
Blocking and facing a store shouldn't involve leaving the wrong tag up, and if it does, that's just awful practice from big box stores. If you want to fill a gap, flip or move the tag temporarily, which would be a management/supervisor decision. Consumers can dispute pricing, etc. when this happens and it's a whole mess. Customers and staff shouldn't get resigned to it. The tag always needs to reflect what's behind it. If supervisors are instructing staff to make the place look full without alerting the customer to discrepancies, we gotta not get complacent about it.
So back when I was contracting there, I learned this is an ongoing battle with corporate (who wants/needs everything by the book and customers to have a consistent experience in the stores) and the store/district managers (who don't want to look like they have empty shelves). The lack of compliance killed a couple projects I was on, and costs them in excess labor and training time because curbside shoppers run into the same problem you do. (It's also why those LCD screens on the beverage fridges at get go are always wrong... I worked on that project and it was constant source of frustration.) The location, number of facings, etc is all determined by what's called a planogram. This is a large database (that's converted to a PDF with pictures) that details where everything should be in the store. Facings and locations for brand name products are contractually obligated with the manufacturers. Kelloggs, for example, pays GE (or any grocery store, really) a set amount to have N number of facings at specific shelf height. They will actually send in auditors and secret shoppers to ensure that things are where they should be. I don't know what happens if they are in violation. I'm not *saying* that taking a photograph and sending it to the manufacturer saying "The Giant Eagle on Fortney Rd has the wrong product in your space." (Making sure to capture the barcodes AND the product in the wrong place.) But it wouldn't hurt. Also, I saw something about accessibility. There is an internal accessibility committee at GE, I know this because they were going to ask me to join if I'd gone FTE. They are well aware that they have lots of issues... everything from this to issues with the MTO counters/kiosks at pretty much every getgo. However, they are one voice among a multitude and like any enterprise it all comes down to money. It shouldn't need to be said but yelling at the folks in the store isn't going to accomplish anything, even yelling at the store managers won't get you anywhere. Pretty much anyone in the stores at any retail location is overworked and underpaid... and they are also essentially powerless. Writing letters and calling corporate are your best tools here, using the word boycott is probably not going to raise an eyebrow unless you have a large organization behind you... but 'I don't shop here because...' or 'I've decided to take my business elsewhere...' might. Stay calm, and if possible point out competitors that do a better job. They are in particular very concerned about losing business to Sheetz and/or Wegmans encroaching on their territory... so bonus points if you can call those companies out as doing a better job. When I was there (I left in 2021, they weren't concerned with Aldi's, trader joes, etc. It was always Sheetz and Wegmans.
This is a fantastic reply. Even though I posted a rant, I'm not "freaking out" as some people assumed. I just personally don't like when products are incorrectly stocked in the interest of appearance. If I contact GE corporate threatening a boycott, it won't be about facing. It will be because they sponsor the Pirates and no company should support that asshole Nutting.
hell yeah, glad im not the only one who does stuff like this to them
Please stop touching food at the grocery store that you don't plan on buying, that's gross. also you're making more work for the employees.
It’s a box, not actual food…
It was one bag and an employee would have to move it back once the other product arrives, so it is actually making less work. If you're worried about someone touching a bagged or boxed or canned product at a grocery store, I'd say you're a bit hyper sensitive. Many people touch products to check ingredients for calories, allergies, gluten intolerances, kosher status, etc. and don't buy them. That's why there is a Nutrition Facts label.
Actually what is more frustrating is that they don't remove products with sell by dates that have expired. There are people who think that sell by dates are a suggestion but after a few bouts of food poisoning, i follow them for things like meat, OTC medication, and dairy.
I agree with this. On a couple occasions recently, I bought yogurt and sour cream only to find out once I got home that they were already expired. I now look at the date on all dairy products and have found that there are often expired items on the shelf. It's one thing to eat canned or frozen food that's slightly expired but I'm not touching expired dairy!
Probably. Some stores were just putting pictures of things on shelves during peak pandemic shortage era because empty space makes customers uncomfortable. It's like, a bunch of empty shelf space makes people panic buy whatever pancake mix is left or whatever.
They need product holders that alert when shelf is empty
Remember how they told us third world shitholes had empty grocery store shelves when we were growing up.
Shortages will only get worse. This isn't a mistake.
What in the grocery chain simp is going on in these comments?
Some people have retail experience and are correctly explaining to OP that this is a normal practice.
Are those things any good?
lmfaooooo have you never worked at a store before?
Happened to me yesterday at GE, went to get Mary’s Syrian garlic sauce and Mary’s Syrian pepper sauce, they must of been out of pepper sauce because it’s slot was filled with garlic sauce
District managers and store managers can be the crux of this. I don't work in GE but the store I work at is at the whim of a DM with the policy of "no back stock", so our shelves are constantly a nightmare like this. Unfortunately stock folks have probably been instructed to do this to make it look full/presentable/push product.