Originally published on August 10, 2009.
There’s a certain science to retail. There’s a book called Why We Buy by the fabulously named Paco Underhill that goes into much of this science. Things like the “butt brush factor”. Or where to place shopping baskets. Or that most people turn right when they enter a store. A lot of it doesn’t apply to a shop like mine, which is so tiny that if you turn right, and you’ll hit a wall. But it’s still a great read.
But I don’t think it addresses one of the great mysteries of my wine shop…possibly any wine shop. The mystery is below, but first, a bit of minutia on how my shop is stocked.
The bottles are lined up on the shelves, standing up, one behind the other, like in the picture below. Yes, I can hear the wine geeks shuddering – “But isn’t bad for bottles to stand upright?” In the middle- to long-term, yes, but these bottles sell quickly. They’re not upright long enough for the corks to dry out…and half of them are screw caps anyway. And those that don’t move so quickly, we only keep one on the shelf and every week replace it with one that’s been on its side. So stop shuddering…I take very good care of my wine!
Now, on to the mystery…
A wine can sell like hotcakes, literally fly off the shelves. But when there’s one bottle left, with no mates behind it, it suddenly just sits there. And sits. And sits. And sits. It sits there until one of three things happen:
- I buy more and restock
- I fill up the space behind it with neighboring bottles
- I move it to the “going… going… gone” section at the front of the store. Sometimes bottles on this shelf get a $1 price reduction, along with the all-important big, red slash.
Now it’s no great surprise why a single bottle on the bargain shelf moves. People like bargains. And they really like big, red slashes.
But what I don’t understand is why a single bottle in the general shelf population won’t sell. Or perhaps oddly, why it does sell if you just put non-matching bottles behind it. Why are customers so wary of a little empty space?