Go into any major store (eg chain supermarket) and ask an employee “Where’s the cocoa?” and they’ll be able to tell you immediately. My experience at Woolworths & Coles in Australia is that every employee knows where just about every one of the thousands of items can be found. Very often they’ll be able to elaborate with something like “Aisle 12, about half way down on the right, bottom shelf”.
Yes, I know any of us could achieve that skill without much effort, but I can’t see supermarket staff studying memory techniques per se.
I’ve noticed that this skill isn’t restricted to long-term staff – relatively new, part-time, junior shop assistants can usually provide the necessary directions also.
So does anyone know how the stores teach their staff product locations? I’m guessing there is a standard method used across the retail sector.
There are usually signs above each aisle that list the types of produce that aisle contains. I wouldn’t be surprised if the staff have to memorize them, plus they would relatively quickly pick them up as they move produce to shelves or just walk around.
In my experience there appears to be more to it than that.
In the supermarket I visit every Friday there are 15 very long aisles, plus large bakery, deli, fruit & veg sections. I think about 6 shelves on each side of each aisle, plus back and side walls, and of course thousands of product items.
The signs over the aisles usually list about 4-6 product categories. But familiarity with the aisles signs doesn’t explain how the part-time schoolgirl whose been there a fortnight can tell me that baking powder is in aisle 8, right-hand side, far end, next to the packets of cooking chocolate.
Maybe this doesn’t happen everywhere, but seriously, that’s the sort of detailed response you’ll get from almost every employee in that store.
Don’t ask me why it never occurred to me before, but it wasn’t until last Friday that I thought about this. I’m usually in such a rush to get in and out that I don’t stop to think about much at all. But since my interest in mnemonics I’ve decided to take a closer look at the supermarket for use as a large Memory Palace.
I have thought about using supermarkets as memory palaces, but discarded them quickly since the repetitive imagery. I don’t even know how many aisles there are. Somewhere between 10-15. But I guess becoming familiar with what produce is where, and I already know a lot, but systematically trying to remember it, you could get a ton of loci. Each variety of product you remember could be used as a peg or a loci. I think the last time I asked where a product was was around a year ago. Did you recently move?
I’m not interested in using a supermarket as a Memory Palace to remember the items in the store, but for other memorisation projects. It’s a big area with potentially lots of loci in a single room, and there are a number of exits, which can lead to other stores, car park and surrounding environment. I’m very familiar with the interior layout of the supermarket and also with its surroundings.
I don’t want to use my home for an important long-term repository, and there are not a lot of large places that I’m very familiar with.
I’m very attracted to the idea of a virtual Memory Palace built in my own mind, but I honestly don’t have the confidence to try that for anything important just yet.
No, I’ve been using the same supermarket almost every Friday for over a year, and I know where everything I buy can be found, and a lot of other stuff besides. Just through repetition – I’ve never tried to memorise the locations. But occasionally I need to find something out of the ordinary that I’m not familiar with - usually when asked to buy something for someone else.
I’m definitely going to look for an opportunity to question a staff member about their training.
That is what I meant, using it for other projects. Its just, to use it, you would have to know where everything is for it to be most effective. I almost never use places that I visit often like my house. I see no harm in doing it, it does not really help or harm my memory, I just don’t. Have you seen my post on artificial memory palaces? I explain that I can get 50-200 loci from watching a 10-20 minute video on youtube. People playing a game where they hide as objects, its perfect. Confined within a location, easily can attach other palaces. https://artofmemory.com/forums/video-game-memory-palaces-4436.html
For me, they work perfectly. I would even say they’re as good or better than normal palaces, because they specifically focus on objects, are confined, and are not overwhelming to memorize, like other games would be.
I feel a supermarket would be similar, albeit larger. Each produce item that you know where it goes could be used as a loci. Good luck
I worked in two stores in the past – a small health food store and a large supermarket. I don’t remember any training for product locations, but employees quickly learn the aisle numbers, because they get asked those questions constantly. At smaller stores, everyone helps with “facing” (pulling the products at the back of the shelf to the front) and restocking.
One thing they asked us to memorize were the PLU codes for produce and bulk items.
I once did a promotional thing for Sainsbury’s where I taught employees how to remember where everything is. They all knew where everything was already, but had never heard of memory techniques.
The method of loci works so well, because our brain is especially well equipped for memorizing spacial information.
Putting boxes in the right place in the right aisle does exactly that.
I think this is why the staff knows where all the products are so well.
That is also why some people use their favorite grocery store as a memory palace.
Try it. Think of in which aisle you find the milk and you that specific spot as a peg.
It’s just repetitive association, with aisle numbers and module counts as pegs, linking each module together. The shelf layouts are all synchronised with items that go together so natural associations form. The rest is simply rote and muscle memory.
It pretty much happens unconsciously with grocery fill teams as they are assigned the same sections regularly. Until they know the entire store backwards.
I still remember the location of thousands of products from when I used to work in a supermarket as a teenager.
I think there’s a few things that helped:
handling stuff with your hands. Actually stocking the shelves, you learn it a lot quicker. The texture of the boxes. The weight of liquids. Dropping and smashing biscuits etc
