Grocery store: I take an item or 2, remaining items way back & no longer visible .. do I move ..

[Sherman A1]

13. Having done 4+ decades in the grocery biz I'll chime in with a couple thoughts

The good 👍.

1). Yes, you are doing the clerks and the next customer a favor by fronting the product.

2). Stores do track sales through the register for reorder so it will automatically do so when it hits a designated number of sales.

The less good

3). You are doing clerks work (similar to using a self checkout) and by doing so lessening the need for a paid employee to do so, in essence cutting their hours. That argument is valid but can be offset by the potential for increased sales (and hours are generated by either product movement or dollar sales, systems vary) by the next customer who picks up the fronted (or faced) items. So I can see it both ways.

4). Some chains are using robots that go down the aisle looking for holes in the shelf stock level to generate ordering information or pull lists from the store back-stock and a faced shelf may defeat that system.

So that’s semi knowledgeable my two cents on your practice for what it’s worth.