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Milk is kept at the back of the store because that's the easiest please to put it from a logistics stand point. The truck the milk comes in pulls up to the back

Milk is kept at the back of the store because that's the easiest please to put it from a logistics stand point. The truck the milk comes in pulls up to the back of the store and can immediately unload it into the giant refrigerated rooms at the back of the store. The fact that it helps "build the basket" by being at the back is a happy coincidence for the store.

dawnerd 10y ago
Every Target I've been to has the milk before just about every other grocery item. Strangely enough, the seasonal stuff is tucked away in a corner. Then again, I guess if you're going to target for milk you're probably doing it wrong...
- jdmichal 10y ago
  Your last sentence is more relevant than it seems on first glance. If the majority of Target shoppers are looking for the seasonal section and not milk, then it's actually pretty equivalent.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  I always find this interesting, as Target is pretty smart about merchandising. My guess here is that they know that they usually (at least around my hometown) are not top of mind for grocery. Milk is probably a trigger.
- nuclear_eclipse 10y ago
  Definitely down to personal preference, but the milk at our Target is generally in better condition, tastes better, and lasts longer than the milk from Safeway. And the shopping experience in general is much nicer than Safeway.
  - dawnerd 10y ago
    Oh totally. What's weird is their organic milks expiration dates are really far out compared to other brands. Kind of insane actually.
    - nommm-nommm 10y ago
      It's not weird, there's a good reason for it. As I mentioned in a previous comment, its because the milks with a longer shelf life are UHT pasteurized, which uses higher temperatures for a shorter period of time than traditional pasteurization. They are typically labeled "ultra pasteurized." This extends the shelf life of milk. Additionally, any time you see milk that is shelf stable (doesn't require refrigeration until opened) its been UHT pasteurized and packed in special aseptic packaging. And, yes, I've noticed that, for some reason, organic milk tends to be UHT pasteurized more often than non-organic milk.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Safeway is pretty much the bottom-of-the-barrel grocery store in my area, so while I'd agree with that comparison of Safeway to Target, it's less true of Target than just about any competing conventional grocery store.
- bluGill 10y ago
  Seasonal stuff needs to be in an area of the store they can close off for a few weeks everytime the season changes while they redecorate. During those times they want the seasonable stuff to be out of the way so the construction efforts do not get in the way of customers. I don't know if this is their logic, but it makes sense.
ozaark 10y ago
The amount of consumer studies done on grocer layouts is enormous. The direction of foot traffic has been decided from rtl despite our common ltr reading format because it's more profitable to do so, the checkout line with small items marked higher than in other parts of the same store for the same reason, and so much more. If your sentiment were true, most heavily weighted expendables would all be located in the back simply because of labor. Labor is cheap when you can increase revenue from every potential customer with basic layout adjustments.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Kadin 10y ago
  > most heavily weighted expendables would all be located in the back simply because of labor They are. At least in almost every grocery store I've been in. The milk coolers are almost invariably against the back wall, accessible from the stockroom (which itself has the loading dock), as is the butcher / meat department. Both of those departments are probably getting daily deliveries, and it's of stuff that needs to be kept cold, has a short shelf life, and in the case of milk specifically, it needs to be stocked from the back of the shelves so that the oldest items get bought first (i.e. it's FIFO not FILO). It's a real pain to do this if you can't get to the back of the cooler. Bread, however, is generally in its own aisle because it's not stocked by the store. Vendors (the bakeries) send their own delivery/logistics people in to stock it, so the stores don't really care about how easy it is, and those vendors also pull expired or near-expired items back off. Produce, despite being expendable and delicate, tends to be towards the front because it's very high-margin for the store and also requires a lot of continual employee attention (and it generally has dedicated employees who just do that). It's admittedly been a long time since I worked in a grocery store, but back in the day in the pecking order of grocery-store floor workers, the produce guys were sort of at the top of the heap. (Although maybe that was because they could hook you up with the "damaged" fruit...)
  - ozaark 10y ago
    The store is inevitably surrounded by 4 walls. Often more than one of those walls leads towards the front as part of the "cold chain". If it were more profitable for the store to stock milk in the front they would - I agree. But the reasoning isn't delivery layout when they manufacture their own layout. Either way, I thought this was an interesting take on it http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/07/23/334076398/episode-555-why-is-the-milk-in-the-back-of-the-store http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/07/23/334076398/episo...
ams6110 10y ago
My supermarket has a stock of the higher priced name brand milk at the front of the store, near the checkouts. I assume that's to grab both people who forgot to get milk and don't want to lose their place in line, and people who are there only for milk and want to get in and out. The less expensive store-brand-label milk is at the back of the store where the big walk-in coolers are.
- LordDragonfang 10y ago
  Contrary to what you would think as a consumer, grocery chains almost always want you to buy their brand (the less expensive one) because the margins on store-brand items are much better. That's why the stores bother selling them in the first place (and why margin-hungry companies like CVS will have every popular placed side-by-side with a store brand)
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    Name brands pay for premium shelf/fridge space.
    - Kadin 10y ago
      And that is probably the reason for the milk up front. The name-brand milk producer is paying big bucks for space in that cooler near the checkout, enough to offset the supermarket's probable loss in sales of their own store-brand milk in its normal location in back.
Spooky23 10y ago
The cold chain thing is plausible, but I doubt it. Supermarkets have varying strategies for stuff, including cold items. The supermarkets around me put ice cream in either a center aisle or the second to last aisle, in the front of the store. The "smarter" store from a data standpoint has pint ice cream in an end cap next to the florist to nab women. Milk is always back corner. If they can figure out how to maintain the cold chain for ice cream, I'm sure milk would be easier to move around.
- xapata 10y ago
  > pint ice cream in an end cap next to the florist to nab women My wife never buys me flowers :-( But I am a sucker for a pint of ice cream :-)
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  They almost certainly move vastly higher volumes of milk than ice cream, making logistics a bigger concern. It not that it's impossible to maintain the cold chain with other placements, it's that there is a cost (including that imposed by floor traffic) in doing so. Putting it someplace where a large volume walk-in cooler can be directly loaded from a truck and the display stocked from that without employee floor traffic across the store reduces the costs (labor, losses, and otherwise) of selling milk.

dawnerd 10y ago

Every Target I've been to has the milk before just about every other grocery item. Strangely enough, the seasonal stuff is tucked away in a corner. Then again, I guess if you're going to target for milk you're probably doing it wrong...

jdmichal 10y ago
Your last sentence is more relevant than it seems on first glance. If the majority of Target shoppers are looking for the seasonal section and not milk, then it's actually pretty equivalent.
Spooky23 10y ago
I always find this interesting, as Target is pretty smart about merchandising. My guess here is that they know that they usually (at least around my hometown) are not top of mind for grocery. Milk is probably a trigger.
nuclear_eclipse 10y ago
Definitely down to personal preference, but the milk at our Target is generally in better condition, tastes better, and lasts longer than the milk from Safeway. And the shopping experience in general is much nicer than Safeway.
- dawnerd 10y ago
  Oh totally. What's weird is their organic milks expiration dates are really far out compared to other brands. Kind of insane actually.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    It's not weird, there's a good reason for it. As I mentioned in a previous comment, its because the milks with a longer shelf life are UHT pasteurized, which uses higher temperatures for a shorter period of time than traditional pasteurization. They are typically labeled "ultra pasteurized." This extends the shelf life of milk. Additionally, any time you see milk that is shelf stable (doesn't require refrigeration until opened) its been UHT pasteurized and packed in special aseptic packaging. And, yes, I've noticed that, for some reason, organic milk tends to be UHT pasteurized more often than non-organic milk.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  Safeway is pretty much the bottom-of-the-barrel grocery store in my area, so while I'd agree with that comparison of Safeway to Target, it's less true of Target than just about any competing conventional grocery store.
bluGill 10y ago
Seasonal stuff needs to be in an area of the store they can close off for a few weeks everytime the season changes while they redecorate. During those times they want the seasonable stuff to be out of the way so the construction efforts do not get in the way of customers. I don't know if this is their logic, but it makes sense.

ozaark 10y ago

The amount of consumer studies done on grocer layouts is enormous. The direction of foot traffic has been decided from rtl despite our common ltr reading format because it's more profitable to do so, the checkout line with small items marked higher than in other parts of the same store for the same reason, and so much more. If your sentiment were true, most heavily weighted expendables would all be located in the back simply because of labor. Labor is cheap when you can increase revenue from every potential customer with basic layout adjustments.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Kadin 10y ago
> most heavily weighted expendables would all be located in the back simply because of labor They are. At least in almost every grocery store I've been in. The milk coolers are almost invariably against the back wall, accessible from the stockroom (which itself has the loading dock), as is the butcher / meat department. Both of those departments are probably getting daily deliveries, and it's of stuff that needs to be kept cold, has a short shelf life, and in the case of milk specifically, it needs to be stocked from the back of the shelves so that the oldest items get bought first (i.e. it's FIFO not FILO). It's a real pain to do this if you can't get to the back of the cooler. Bread, however, is generally in its own aisle because it's not stocked by the store. Vendors (the bakeries) send their own delivery/logistics people in to stock it, so the stores don't really care about how easy it is, and those vendors also pull expired or near-expired items back off. Produce, despite being expendable and delicate, tends to be towards the front because it's very high-margin for the store and also requires a lot of continual employee attention (and it generally has dedicated employees who just do that). It's admittedly been a long time since I worked in a grocery store, but back in the day in the pecking order of grocery-store floor workers, the produce guys were sort of at the top of the heap. (Although maybe that was because they could hook you up with the "damaged" fruit...)
- ozaark 10y ago
  The store is inevitably surrounded by 4 walls. Often more than one of those walls leads towards the front as part of the "cold chain". If it were more profitable for the store to stock milk in the front they would - I agree. But the reasoning isn't delivery layout when they manufacture their own layout. Either way, I thought this was an interesting take on it http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/07/23/334076398/episode-555-why-is-the-milk-in-the-back-of-the-store http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/07/23/334076398/episo...

ams6110 10y ago

My supermarket has a stock of the higher priced name brand milk at the front of the store, near the checkouts. I assume that's to grab both people who forgot to get milk and don't want to lose their place in line, and people who are there only for milk and want to get in and out. The less expensive store-brand-label milk is at the back of the store where the big walk-in coolers are.

LordDragonfang 10y ago
Contrary to what you would think as a consumer, grocery chains almost always want you to buy their brand (the less expensive one) because the margins on store-brand items are much better. That's why the stores bother selling them in the first place (and why margin-hungry companies like CVS will have every popular placed side-by-side with a store brand)
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  Name brands pay for premium shelf/fridge space.
  - Kadin 10y ago
    And that is probably the reason for the milk up front. The name-brand milk producer is paying big bucks for space in that cooler near the checkout, enough to offset the supermarket's probable loss in sales of their own store-brand milk in its normal location in back.

Spooky23 10y ago

The cold chain thing is plausible, but I doubt it. Supermarkets have varying strategies for stuff, including cold items. The supermarkets around me put ice cream in either a center aisle or the second to last aisle, in the front of the store. The "smarter" store from a data standpoint has pint ice cream in an end cap next to the florist to nab women. Milk is always back corner. If they can figure out how to maintain the cold chain for ice cream, I'm sure milk would be easier to move around.

xapata 10y ago
> pint ice cream in an end cap next to the florist to nab women My wife never buys me flowers :-( But I am a sucker for a pint of ice cream :-)
dragonwriter 10y ago
They almost certainly move vastly higher volumes of milk than ice cream, making logistics a bigger concern. It not that it's impossible to maintain the cold chain with other placements, it's that there is a cost (including that imposed by floor traffic) in doing so. Putting it someplace where a large volume walk-in cooler can be directly loaded from a truck and the display stocked from that without employee floor traffic across the store reduces the costs (labor, losses, and otherwise) of selling milk.