One Comment

  1. By Dave Askins
    November 27, 2009 at 12:24 pm | permalink

    Re: “claim it’s easier to stock new items on bare shelves.”

    That’s true. It eliminates the need to “rotate stock,” which can be the most time consuming aspect of stocking, in some cases requiring more time than pricing each item individually. It’s somewhat dependent on the nature of the item to be stocked — getting a label to stick to a frozen orange juice covered with frost (or getting an ink stamp not to smudge on the same) requires not just skill, but also time. [These words come easily to me, because I offered them often in response to the question from the grocery manager: "Dave, why are you so &^%$ slow stocking the frozen food section?]

    That has to be balanced against the fact that frozen orange juice does not require the kind of vigilant rotation of stock of, say, produce items. But then again, there’s no door to hold open in the produce section.