Sometimes the suggestions computer programs make can be wild!

In today’s story, one former big box retail store employee explains how the store would decide which items to display on end caps and in prominent places throughout the store.

The employee found one of these suggestions particularly outrageous.

Let’s read the whole story.

If It’s on the Planogram, Put it Up!

I spent several years working at a big box retail store in a small Midwestern town in their cellular phones department.

On slow days in the afternoon before the main rush, I would help setup fixtures and displays throughout the sales floor.

A lot of the store planograms or diagrams to setup product, are computer generated based on previous years sales figures and foot traffic.

For instance, say your store sold a lot of sunscreen, sunflower seeds, and condoms during the annual state softball tournament (another story for another subreddit), the computer would create a planogram for an end cap or display to show such items hoping to generate more sales.

The planograms didn’t always make sense.

The computer would come up with wild combinations that apparently worked so well that when we brought up the bizarre nature of some of the planograms to our leadership, they’d just shrug and say “if it’s on the planogram, put it up!”

You see where I’m going with this?

This Pow Wow sounds impressive.

Now, let’s set the stage.

Our store neighbors a large fairground that houses one of the largest annual Pow Wows in the world where tens of thousands of folks from around the world come to participate.

This Pow Wow has some truly amazing shows and events from surrounding local and regional Indigenous tribes but, like any other major event, there are some bad apples.

They often ran out of a popular item.

One of the go-to highs in the area is huffing cans of compressed air and our store routinely sold out during this time and we sometimes got yelled at for having none on the shelves and would have to call other stores to see if they had any.

Unfortunately, huffing, drug use, and public drunkenness became synonymous with the Pow Wow by the non-indigenous locals rather than a great cultural exchange.

The dancing ceremonies in particular are quite impressive, beautiful and clearly take a lot of time and effort to put together.

This is what one of the outrageous planograms looked like.

So, the last year I worked at this store it was the week of the Pow Wow and I got asked to help setup a computer-generated stack base (floor pallet loaded with product).

The stack base consisted of disposable cameras, micro cassette tapes, and (I kid you not) cans of compressed air.

Apparently, those were our largest sellers the year before.

Gotta give the people what they want, right?

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This reader doesn’t see any problem with the items the planogram suggested.

This reader shares another planogram suggestion.

Another reader finds the word “planogram” triggering.

This person enjoyed the story.

The planogram was probably right.

But oh well. Too late now.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.