Design for Ease of Shopping

A regional grocery store brand was interested in exploring customers’ needs for an easy shopping experience and identifying opportunities for improving in-store offerings. A primary goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of store signage, product placement, and messaging in directing customers to key products of interest quickly and efficiently.

APPROACH

W5 conducted extensive online and in-store qualitative research to establish grocery shopping behaviors, preferences, and define ease of shopping. Online discussions with mobile scavenger hunt activities explored shoppers’ perspectives on store navigation, ease, and difficulty. In-store shop-alongs with primary and competitor store shoppers examined the grocery environment with attention to store-provided messaging, signage, and product placement. W5 ethnographers observed participants’ natural shopping and navigation behaviors, testing the effectiveness of the client’s current in-store offerings and identifying strategic opportunities to help shoppers more easily find products, information, and services they seek.

RESULTS

The research identified key details about the grocery store retail environment and opportunities for improvement to maintain a competitive edge. W5 determined how shoppers engaged with the client’s unique product labeling system and made recommendations to enhance clarity and foster awareness. The research also exposed how routine shopping behaviors shape interactions with in-aisle/overhead signage, shelf signage (e.g., price and sales tags), and product placement on shelfs, endcaps, and displays. W5 made recommendations to optimize positioning of signage and group products in a more intuitive and natural manner.