Josh Elledge - Chief Executive Angel
Grocery stores spend a lot of time and money trying to lure in shoppers, but sometimes they make mistakes that can cost them customers. Mona from Jackson, Mich. emailed me with one example of how stores can drive away sales.
“In my experience, most, if not all, grocery stores play loud vocal music selections which put me OUT of a buying mood,” wrote Mona.
After reading Mona's email, I did a little more digging to learn what else annoys shoppers about their in-store experience.
Biggest shopping pet peeves
We asked on the SavingsAngel Facebook page (facebook.com/savingsangel) about our fans' biggest pet peeves, and bagging rose to the top of the list. Among the problems cited were mixing frozen and dry foods, using excess plastic bags and ending up with crushed food as a result of poor bagging technique.
One fan noted that although she carefully arranges her groceries on the belt to keep like products together, her frozen food invariably ends up spread across multiple bags and packed with her dry goods. Another fan said she always ends up with “˜8 million plastic bags' to carry out of the store.
Maryalene, our Social Media Angel, also shared, “I cringe at how some workers toss my food in a jumble into the bags.” Maybe you can relate; it seems to be a common theme when talking about bagging.
Meanwhile, All You magazine recently asked their readers about what bothers them at the grocery store and found poorly bagged groceries came in at number 11 on their list of shopper annoyances. Other pet peeves that made the list include a bevy of complaints about store layout, cashier behavior and the checkout process.
The following are the top ten shopper pet peeves according to All You:
- Rude customers
- Poor inventory/out of stock sale items
- Long lines/few open registers
- Poor shopping cart etiquette
- Rude employees
- Poor checkout line etiquette
- Poor store organization
- Coupons/sales that don't ring up right
- Chatty shoppers blocking aisles
- People shopping aimlessly
Are you someone else's pet peeve?
While many shopping pet peeves are related to issues that are controlled by the store, the biggest pet peeve according to the All You poll was not related to the store at all. The biggest pet peeve of shoppers is actually other shoppers. Does that surprise you? It surprised me.
Another poll on food website The Kitchn came to a similar conclusion. Its poll of readers found the number one grocery pet peeve was other shoppers who block aisles. Number two on the list was parents ignoring their misbehaving children.
Back on our SavingsAngel Facebook page, we heard plenty about rude customers and how other shoppers can quickly sour a trip to the grocery store. Our fans told us they have witnessed customers on their cell phones in the checkout lane, shoppers stopping in the middle of aisles without regard to others and kids running wild.
Some aspects of our shopping experiences are out of our control, but we can certainly all do our best to be kind and courteous in the store and make grocery shopping a little more pleasant for everyone.
What are your biggest grocery store pet peeves? Leave us a comment below or on our Facebook page.
