Customers think eggs keep moving location - been in the same place for 15 years

Brava!

I forgot to put the other jarred olives locations.
Sainsbury's: Canned, tinned and packaged foods / olives & antipasti.
Waitrose: Jarred goods, pickles & olives.
Asda: World food / Italian & Mediterranean food / Olives & antipasti.

Which would you put first though?! The correct answer could get most yokes in a right scramble.

Having a look online at the categories.
Ocado has eggs in the fresh & chilled section "dairy and eggs", while jar olives turn up as "cooking ingredients" and chilled olives in "cooked meats, deli and dips".
Sainsbury's named the whole chilled section "Dairy, eggs and chilled", which bizarrely has "dairy & eggs", "cooked meats, olives & dips".
Waitrose chilled section starts strong with "milk, butter & eggs", then again puts olives in "cooked meats, deli & dips".
Asda has milk in the chilled category "milk, butter, cream & eggs" but olives are in their own "deli 3 for £6.98" section, a section that disappeared in some menus.

None of them seem to count olives as a fruit. Looks like Sainsbury's has more awareness of lost shoppers, but it's interesting that the online and store categories don't match well. Given that most of us do a bit of both with shopping, that's going to create confusion.

The reason I shop in Lidl (apart from being the closest, in walking distance) is they don’t change things about. However they have started this week doing cheaper prices for two packs which I’m not impressed with, I liked their fair pricing even if you only wanted one pack approach, I don’t need 12 burgers!

Well then the original error happened 15 years ago. There's still time to put this right, send them back to the top of the milk aisle!

No, not Morrisons but yes that's what I meant. Loose eggs, loose oranges, loose apples, loose potatoes. Pick your own. I didn't know it would be a concept people weren't familiar with.

Some people have no idea that they are actually in a different shop.

My Dad doesn’t know the difference between most supermarkets.

Yep. They're in trays and you choose your own. How eggs used to be sold.

I think it’s the muted colours and boring presentation. You don’t struggle to see packs of biscuits as they’re gaudy colours. Ive found them tricky to find. Stick a big cardboard egg or chicken above them please.

To be fair I think some of the merchandising moves are to increase sales.
Its such a lot of needless moves even when there aren't new lines that it seems like some of it is to increase products being seen by slightly changing location rather than customers just sticking to their same products in the same location and not looking at other things.

Every time I find a pizza I like in Tesco they stop selling it a couple of months later. It's happened at least 3 times now and it drives me nuts.

I work in a supermarket and eggs are in the home baking aisle, I’m rarely asked for them!
However preserves were moved in October 2022 when we had a refit, customers ask me regularly why we’ve moved the jam when last week it was in a different location. They never believe you either when you tell them it’s been this layout for almost 3 years!

I think they mean Morrisons. They have big crates of eggs and you can choose your own and fill up cartons of 6 with however many you like.

Of course it matters, it’s annoying hearing the same unfounded complaint every day.

Do you work in retail?

Loose eggs?

The problem is that supermarkets keep eggs out of the fridge to prevent condensation causing bacteria, but once home consumers keep them in the fridge to extend shelf life. So in people's heads eggs belong in the fridge, but they'll never be put in the fridge. I can only think of where to find them in one supermarket, and there it's in baking, but we mostly use them in omelettes so it's a bad fit. The best solution would be to actually move them to be near the fridge, but not in the fridge. Top of the aisle facing down to milk would be best, but I've never seen them stored there in any supermarket.

It’s the Mand-EGG-a Effect.

I’ll get my coat.

I used to work for a supermarket and had this all the time and it was always about eggs despite them never moving from the home baking aisle.

I think it was partly because we would get shippers of a certain brand and they would be placed near the chilled food, but obviously would run out or the promotion would end and there would be a shipper of mint sauce in their place at Christmas or disposable barbecues in summer!

Ex Tesco worker. They did move in our store but also the isles changed often and that would cause havoc to isles that stayed the same. Confusion all around.

No, they’re rarely there in my experience. Either home baking aisle, end of aisle (I’m looking at you M&S), some random cardboard stand (co-op) or any other random place.

I don’t care where supermarkets keep eggs (in our three locals one have them next to the stuffing and gravy, one next to the jam and one next to the pasta?) as long as they’re not on the end of the aisle AKA The Dead Zone. Supermarkets shouldn’t be allowed to keep any essentials of life there, it’s too cramped and hard to find. Our big Sainsbury’s did a rearrange and put all the sanitary stuff on the end of an aisle next to the checkouts which meant a) couldn’t “bloody” find it b) when you did you had to peruse and pick your pads in front of/amongst a horde of queueing customers. That changed back verrrrry quickly 😂