Dianne Pajo
Owning a grocery store is a tough endeavor. As with any business, everything you do must be measured and scrutinized through the eyes of the customer. How are the customers’ buying habits influenced by your shopping carts? How does your logo increase certain spending habits? Even the location of candy in a grocery store can impact what a customer buys in your store. This is especially true regarding where you place your baskets, which is just as strategically important. Read on for our analysis on the top three places to display shopping baskets in your store.
At the Entrance
The first thing you need to do is influence customer behavior upon entry to your store. Placing baskets by the door is a great way to do this, as picking up a basket and using it puts them in “consumer mode”. Having shopping baskets available by the entrance can be especially useful for your store because, if you have your branding on your baskets—which you should—you’ll subtly imprint your brand in your customers’ minds, which is a serious benefit.
Next To the Frozen Foods
The configuration of your store will tremendously influence where you put your baskets. You want to put your baskets on either end of the frozen food aisle because, for many customers, that’s their last or first stop. Often, the deli and meat aisles are in alignment with the frozen foods aisle, so they can also benefit from having shopping baskets on either end. Meats and other sides are often bigger and require an extra basket. You can bet a large T-Bone steak will take up a significant amount of space in your basket! Because of this, many stores will have multiple baskets by the deli and frozen foods sections, so you should embrace this trend.
At the Exits
Generally, you should always place baskets at exit and entry points. You’ll want to have them at the entrance so that they have a means of carrying everything they need to buy, and at the exit so they can easily return the baskets as they leave.
The reason for this is twofold: first, having a stack of baskets at the exit indicates where customers need to put them as they’re leaving and encourages them to stack the baskets neatly in the designated location. This is far better than expending the manpower to have employees pick up a bunch of baskets because customers are leaving them everywhere, especially when your employees have more important tasks to do. Second, though having baskets at the exits may be an underrated place to display shopping baskets at your store, doing so allows customers to use another basket or get a cart to buy more if they find they need to turn back.
