Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

Seth Godin got a lot of feedback regarding a post he wrote about how to better organize the retail environment to increase profit:

The most fascinating takeaway for me is this: many retailers believe that they still have the power to inconvenience shoppers as a way of increasing revenue. "Too many stores in that mall," in my opinion, for me to stay with you if it's easier and more fun to go over there instead.

In Canada there are two - yes just two - supermarket chains. These stores frequently drop items from their inventory and reorganize products into different locations. I've seen this happen as frequently as twice in one week. Clearly they are doing this to push customers toward other product areas that they may not normally see. And they can do this with impunity because they have so little competition.

However this leads me, and probably many other customers, to bother staff to ask where the items have moved to. And the staff are clearly bothered by this shifting as well, and have no problem telling me so.

So in the end, I buy nothing I wouldn't otherwise be buying, I waste staff time, and both they and I are inconvenienced. So nobody wins, and I walk away having had a poor experience. The stores certainly have the power to inconvenience me, but I sure as heck am not going to help them increase their revenue. In fact, I just shop frequently enough so that I can limit my purchases to sale items only, decreasing their revenue even further.

All I want is to be able to find a product in the same place I found it yesterday.