Grocery store: I take an item or 2, remaining items way back & no longer visible .. do I move ..
Last edited Mon Jan 3, 2022, 05:53 AM - Edit history (2)
Let's say I grab one or two of the same item from a low shelf, and there are still ones remaining, but they are far back and one would have to bend way over or get on the floor to see them. So, I think about others and move up one or two of the back items near the front of the shelf so it/they are easily visible (edit: and reachable).
(There are times when it's hard to find a certain item in a very busy shelf full of similar items, so even sometimes when all items are front and visible, it still can take a long time to find what I'm looking for. With the item I'm looking for being way back in the back of some narrow hole, on a lower shelf, well, I'm sure I've missed seeing something I had spent several minutes looking for that was there.)
But I keep wondering am I really doing others a favor? Do the grocery store shelf stockers clue off the empty spots (if I had not moved items forward) to know to put more items on the shelf or something? So I might be screwing up their system?
I assume computers keep track of what's been purchased and what's been put on the shelf... but ... is the system that good? It could be foiled by shoplifters for example. Edit: or idiots taking an item but then later putting it back on some shelf 3 aisles away.
I have been wondering about this almost every time that this situation arises. Thanks
Edited to change "every time I go to the grocery store" to "almost every time that this situation arises "
= new reply since forum marked as read
and I'm glad I haven't been causing mayhem.
My mother used to say, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" 
for example 
And there's one item (small recycled trash bags) that are always so far back on the top shelf that I have to climb to get them - and someone taller than me always seems to stop and offer to reach them for me. 
it's strange how I see grocery store workers all the time but never when I need an item out of reach
sometimes the item is so far out of my reach I am convinced they don't WANT me to have it 
It's always that one thing and it always seems like someone tall is passing by and gets it for me. I must look pretty funny preparing to climb up. And of course I've done the same thing for shorter people! 
As for masks, I don't wear glasses, but the masks I use have a metal strip on the nose part which can be adjusted to make it fit more snugly. They're KN95s or N95s which I've gotten at my local gas station since the beginning, believe it or not. Those were the first masks I saw, so I've continued to get them there. The station is run by a nice couple from India and the guy has now gotten other masks in, has suggested I might like the "prettier" ones, but I've stuck with the same ones and gave them to friends and my brother when masks were hard to come by in the beginning. 
It always puts a smile on my face and more than glad to do it. I always turn around and the person that I'm always short on the day before pay day. 
I just wish you shopped where I do!
I hassle tall people at the store quite regularly because it's something I really want and I am usually in a hurry. They're always nice about it!
I'm 72. 
I can remember my friend climbing up to get cat litter for me! But where I go now, it's on the bottom shelf, I wish you could go where I do, they're always offering to help me - or to carry my bags out to my car. I know it's a PIA, but you need to ask someone who works there to help you - they'd rather do that than to have it fall on your head! 
I appreciate the hell out of you for doing it! I'm short and I'm old, and there have been plenty of times I've looked for a store employee (unsuccessfully) to help me reach something I wanted. So, good on you! 
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.
