Subtle Sabotage in Supermarkets - parents beware!

Good grief! I shared a moment of ridiculousness from my Saturday morning chores, little realising that the placement of kitty treats would tap deeply into the RiotACT psyche.

I’m so glad I never posted my snaps of the Steve Irwin kiddie ride that appeared in the Hyperdome shortly after the environmental warrior’s untimely death.

I still have them somewhere . . . Too soon?

Mr Evil said :

Call the Terrorism Hotline – it’s obviously an extremist plot to turn all our children into pussies.

Hahahahahaahahahahahahahahhaahahhaha

that has made my somewhat hungover day

Maybe the Kittens shop there ….

*chuckle*

Call the Terrorism Hotline – it’s obviously an extremist plot to turn all our children into pussies.

Agree with many here, honest mistake by the stacker. Mother feeds baby aforementioned food let alone pick it up and place in trolley not likely.
If food eventually gets to baby then surely no major dramas. Hell my young fella ate a few handfulls of compost straight out of our own heap at around 18 months and was never the worse for it. Probably made him better for it with all the intestinal flora and their relationship to allergies etc.

Sooner or later the baby will eat from the cat bowl anyway, and will not only survive but probably even enjoy the experience.

; )

bd84 said :

No doubt poptop whipped out the camera to take a pic of the cat food on the shelf to load online then went about their shopping without thinking about removing the product or telling a staff member about it. Which would probably be worse than accidently putting the product there in the first place.

Who wouldn’t have laughed, whipped out their camera and done the same? 😀 Not that I want to be anywhere NEAR the baby food isle. *runs*

A sense of humour wouldn’t do some of you any harm either.

crap, i think i’ve just fed my cat organic mini rice cakes…my bad.

Clown Killer said :

I doubt that it’s a mistake. Retailers have known for a while that us consumers are creatures o habit and that after a few visits we quickly get used to the layout of the store. To combat this they will move produce around – its why stuff like the sweet and savoury biscuits change ends of the isle – you go to get BBQ shapes and find yourself looking at iced vo-vo’s, you weren’t planning on buying iced vo-vo’s but now that they’re staring at you from the shelf where BBQ shapes used to be, why not? The same applies for sticking products in unexpected contexts – you go to but baby food, but hey – look at that interesting pet treat.

The most outlandish version of this marketing I have come across was at Big W last Christmas. They had a huge toy catalogue delivered to letter boxes across Canberra, but when you went to the store there was no toy section as such – it had been dismantled and instead the toys were distributed throughout the store in small cells – so if you wanted to get a particular item from the catalogue, chances are you’d be exposed to about half the other merchandise in the place.

Yes and it’s all a consipiracy theory by the secret government organisations too..

Anyone with half a brain would realise that some probably 16 year old kid stacking the shelves at midnight has probably not paid enough attention and seen green similar coloured packaging and dumped it on the shelf with the other green products. If a mother was stupid enough to not pay attention to what she was buying and then feeding her child then the child would be better off in the care of someone else.

No doubt poptop whipped out the camera to take a pic of the cat food on the shelf to load online then went about their shopping without thinking about removing the product or telling a staff member about it. Which would probably be worse than accidently putting the product there in the first place.

As for the conspiracy theory, the layout in most supermarket chains are generic and you will find the same goods in a similar site in the store, depending on the size of the store of course. Place on the shelf is also determined by the popularity of the product and how much the supplier will pay to keep it there. As for Big W, it was probably the safest way to display the goods instead of having 400 crazy mothers with prams in the same 100m2 of the store..

Common sense is a great thing to have hey.

It’s right though- it’s the green isle right?

Clown Killer said :

The most outlandish version of this marketing I have come across was at Big W last Christmas. They had a huge toy catalogue delivered to letter boxes across Canberra, but when you went to the store there was no toy section as such – it had been dismantled and instead the toys were distributed throughout the store in small cells – so if you wanted to get a particular item from the catalogue, chances are you’d be exposed to about half the other merchandise in the place.

uhg, gopd i hate this so got hamned much. they did it at kmart and target earlier this year when both where haveing the toy sales. its so annoying trying to find anything when its all spread across the store.

I doubt that it’s a mistake. Retailers have known for a while that us consumers are creatures o habit and that after a few visits we quickly get used to the layout of the store. To combat this they will move produce around – its why stuff like the sweet and savoury biscuits change ends of the isle – you go to get BBQ shapes and find yourself looking at iced vo-vo’s, you weren’t planning on buying iced vo-vo’s but now that they’re staring at you from the shelf where BBQ shapes used to be, why not? The same applies for sticking products in unexpected contexts – you go to but baby food, but hey – look at that interesting pet treat.

The most outlandish version of this marketing I have come across was at Big W last Christmas. They had a huge toy catalogue delivered to letter boxes across Canberra, but when you went to the store there was no toy section as such – it had been dismantled and instead the toys were distributed throughout the store in small cells – so if you wanted to get a particular item from the catalogue, chances are you’d be exposed to about half the other merchandise in the place.

And if parents are feeding their kids what looks very like snack food, it’s no wonder you see all those balloon-faced kids around the place with tits and beer guts. Processed, over-flavoured sugary fatty snack food, full of chemicals. YUCK.

I think if your mother is too dumb to realise that isn’t baby food, then you are in a lot of trouble already.

Lok, as a former shelf-packer, I can tell you exactly how this probably happened.

The guy who was packing the roll-cages probably put the ‘temptations’ packet in the wrong roll-cage at 3am in the morning. The guy who was packing the shelves and had class in five hours (probably gonna miss the whole ‘sleep’ thing tonight) probably packed it where something like that in a baby-food variation should logically go – probably to get it out of the way fast to avoid further harassment from the nightfill manager who wants to go home.

It’s a mistake, mitcore. They happen in every workplace, at varying degrees of danger. This particular one could possibly cause problems for a mother with sh-tbrain syndrome who doesn’t read the packets of food she’s feeding her baby. I mean, cd slips are sold in the same area as blank cd’s. Has anyone here jammed a cd slip into a cd drive? If so, you’re a moron.

All you have to do to correct this mistake is report it to staff, staff will put it in the right section and no more problems.

shelf stocking is a boring and annoying job, it’s no wonder they make mistakes. Some however are just plain stupid. All they need to do is check the tag on the shelf with the first item.

mitcore said :

cat food in a baby isle is wrong

Not if it contains real cats!

thats horrible, the stores need to take more responsiblity with what they do with food
cat food in a baby isle is wrong