How Are Grocery Stores Organized? (+ How You Can Optimize Your Layout)

As a grocery store owner, you know that store layout plays a crucial role in directing customer flow and driving sales. But what exactly goes into designing a store that maximizes shoppers' exposure to products and gets them filling carts? 

Hint: It's more complex than simply tossing produce in one area and snacks in another.

This post explores:

• Grocery store organization best practices
• The impact of a good (or bad) grocery store layout
• Key considerations for great store organization
• Specific types of grocery store layouts to try
• How your POS can help with layout decisions

Let’s get started.

How Are Grocery Stores Organized? 

Let’s first answer the central question of this post: How are grocery stores organized? It may not surprise you to hear there’s no one right answer, but let’s start with some general best practices that most stores follow:

• Produce sections are typically placed at one edge of the store, and are visible as soon as you enter. This helps create a sense of freshness the minute someone walks in.
• Refrigerators with dairy, eggs, and other fresh foods are generally placed around the perimeter or towards the back of the store. Having fridges on the edges of the store encourages customers to browse the aisles on their way to buying staples like milk and eggs.
• Dry and packaged goods are usually in aisles in the center of the store and arranged by type of food (e.g. snacks, soft drinks) or cuisine (e.g. Japanese, Italian, etc.).
• Bakery, deli, and meat counters are typically located around the edges of the store near the produce or dairy sections.
• Checkout is almost always at the front of the store and surrounded by grab-and-go items that encourage last-minute impulse buys.

While the overall layout won’t vary drastically from store to store, the specific organization within different aisles and departments will vary based on your customers and your niche (e.g. a small corner shop will be laid out very differently than an international market).

Why a Well-Planned Grocery Store Layout Matters

We’ve all been to a grocery store and know roughly how they’re laid out, so is it really worth it to spend time trying to make it better? 

In short, yes. The impact of effective store layouts is well documented. Updating your grocery store design can help in various ways, including:

• Boosting sales: Improving your grocery store layout can encourage customers to make purchases they didn’t expect by putting popular products in their path.
• Making better first impressions: A customer’s impression of your store is highly dependent on how it looks and how easy it is to navigate. It also provides an opportunity to showcase fun signage and unique products.
• Reducing spoilage: Thinking about the organization of your fresh food departments (e.g. meat counter, produce) can help you rightsize displays and put soon-to-expire perishable goods in front of customers to reduce food waste.  
• Improving the customer experience: A great layout makes your store easier to navigate so customers can find exactly what they’re looking for (and be surprised with unique offerings), making for a better shopping experience.

Don’t expect to see the effect of any layout changes overnight. Instead, prioritize any problem areas in the store and make incremental changes. Then, use the reporting and analytics tools on your point of sale (POS) system to monitor the results. 

This way, you’ll get an objective view of what’s working (and what isn’t).

Important Considerations for Grocery Store Organization

If you’re looking for advice on grocery store layout, you’re probably either thinking of opening a new store (congratulations!) or noticing that something in your existing grocery store layout isn’t working or just doesn’t “feel” right. 

So, first things first: Don’t make any big organizational decisions on a whim. Have a specific goal in mind, whether it’s boosting sales in a specific department, reducing spoilage, improving customer reviews, or modernizing the store. This will help you focus on the most important changes.

When planning your layout, you should:

• Highlight bestsellers: A small grocery store should put its best foot forward, making its most popular products highly visible using colorful endcap displays and strategic shelf placement. In other words, don’t make bestsellers hard to find!  
• Start small: Before moving entire departments around, focus on making smaller changes within each section, like rearranging items on shelves, changing where you place standing displays, or updating your signage. 
• Focus on your niche: People go to small grocery stores for unique products they can’t find in big chains. When organizing your store, don’t try to imitate a big competitor — focus on what makes your store special to help differentiate your brand.
• Remember signage: A perfectly planned layout can still be confusing if people don’t know what they’re looking at. Create eye-catching signage with big text for aisle markers, department signs, and sales stickers.
• Don’t sacrifice function for looks: Having a huge produce or meat display might look great, but it will lead to waste if it displays more than your customers can buy. Make sure to use displays that look nice but are the right size for your customers and sales volumes.

Remember: Even a few minor changes can have a major impact on how customers perceive your store.

Specific Types of Grocery Store Layouts

Now that you know what to keep in mind when organizing your grocery store, let’s look at a few specific types of layouts.

1. Grid Layout 

Image source: Smartsheet

Best for: Traditional grocery stores or international markets with large numbers of dry goods

The grid layout is by far the most common layout for grocery stores. This classic format allows for flexible movement horizontally and vertically across categories, encouraging customers to move freely throughout departments. 

However, the sprawling, undifferentiated aisles can seem endless without consistent sightlines, making it a challenge for customers to find the right departments in a hurry. The shelving and aisles also help you get the most items into your space.

This makes large and visible signage a must to get the most out of this layout. You should also use shelf dividers to make stocking and store navigation easier.

You can optimize your grid layout using POS data, too. Identify critical items and highlight them on aisle signs or endcaps to reduce frustration and make it easier for customers to find what they need. 

Related Read: Grocery Store Inventory: 5 Tips for Success

2. Diagonal Layout

Image source: Smartsheet

Best for: Grocery stores located in a narrow or smaller space

The diagonal layout is almost identical to the grid layout, except the shelf aisles are arranged diagonally (either from a center point or the edge of the store). Diagonal shelves limit your space for other departments, meaning you’ll need to be more conscious of optimizing your inventory selection. 

Periodically review your sales reports (e.g. every quarter) to spot slow-moving inventory, so you can discount them or phase them out. 

You’ll also likely want to push aisles further toward the back of the store to leave room for produce towards the front. Just be careful not to make aisles so narrow that multiple customers with carts can’t fit through. 

3. Free-Flow Layout 

Image source: Fit Small Business

Best for: Mini grocery stores, butcher shops, or delis

Another layout to consider is the free-flow layout. This layout ditches the traditional organization of aisles for an open floor plan that encourages exploration. With minimal fixtures interrupting sightlines, customers can easily explore all your offerings. 

One of the benefits of this layout is that it offers greater visibility for a wider range of products, but it really only works for smaller shops with a smaller stock. This makes it a good option for meat markets and delis, but it isn’t a great fit if you have thousands of unique items on your shelves.

This type of visibility and product exposure also encourages impulse purchases, boosting basket sizes and helping customers benefit from the convenience of finding an unplanned but beneficial item mid-shopping. However, the endless selection within a cluttered aesthetic can be overwhelming for customers. 

Related Read: Small Grocery Store Layout: 5 Mistakes That Cost You Sales

Use Your POS To Make Better Layout Decisions

While large corporate chains install sensors to monitor foot traffic and get heatmaps of their store, that level of tech is out of reach for most small businesses.

But that doesn’t mean you have to rely on intuition alone to make changes. The sales data on your POS system can give you similar insights into customer behavior. 

Here are some examples of how you can use your POS reports to make better layout decisions:

• Understand sales volume by time of day and department to see how different shoppers navigate your store at different points in time.
• Dive into shrink reports to see if certain displays are prone to food waste or if you need to improve sight lines because of theft.
• Use basket analysis to see if certain types of products are frequently bought together.
• Leverage inventory count integration to see which areas of the store get messiest so you can reorganize those aisles with additional dividers or other improvements.
• Use customer shopping history to curate front tables, endcaps, and cross‑merch bundles around the items in demand from your most loyal shoppers.

Using reports might challenge your assumptions, too. For example, you might think that your bakery department layout is a cause for low sales when it’s actually a stocking or staffing issue that’s at fault. 

Pair Excellent Grocery Store Organization With a Modernized Customer Experience

So, how are grocery stores organized? To put it simply, in the way that makes the most sense for your customers. Every store is different, but by following these best practices and monitoring the results, you can dial in a layout that works for your staff and customers.

But a well-organized store is only half the battle — customers also expect a modern grocery shopping experience, even at a small store. 

Luckily, the right technology helps. IT Retail is a powerful, cost-effective tool that helps grocery store owners be more efficient, save money, and improve the customer experience. With easy-to-use inventory features, built-in customer loyalty management, extensive reports, and other grocery-friendly features, IT Retail has everything small grocery store owners (like you!) need to succeed.

If you're ready to modernize your store, schedule a demo with IT Retail today.