You run a supermarket, and your niche is helping residents in the community live better lives.

First, you need the right timing (business qualifications, cost issues), the right location (a prime spot where customers don’t have to detour to find you), and then win people over (convince more people to spend at your place).

How do you win people over? Take a milk delivery service, for example: if a customer orders milk at their store, they deliver fresh milk straight to the customer’s doorstep. This fresh milk has no shelf life — you drink it the same day. These customers order via comments and schedule delivery times. Step by step, they collect everyone’s contact info, learn how many people live in each household, their age groups, and so on. They even know who’s running low on cigarettes or when a family’s shampoo will run out, so they can estimate when the next purchase is due. That way, they avoid blind ordering and don’t pile up dead stock. Because you understand your customers and their purchasing habits, you can forecast exactly what to stock. You order with precision — no overstock that goes unsold, no understock that leaves customers empty-handed.

And what about product placement in a supermarket?

Open the freezer door: the front row is always the coldest. If you dig toward the back, you might accidentally grab something warm. Customers have no patience. Especially in summer, if the first bottle they feel isn’t cold enough, they’ll likely just give up. Their first reaction is “this place doesn’t even have cold drinks.” Not every single customer lacks patience, but if even 50% do, then long-term you’re losing half the revenue from that category.

You can’t expect customers to rummage around in the freezer themselves, to adjust things, or to go out of their way — if you count on that, you’ve already lost potential sales.

These days, lots of people are glued to their phones; one hand is always holding it. The moment they realize they need both hands to pick something up, they walk away and simply don’t buy it.

Items get smaller and lighter the higher they are on the shelf; larger and heavier the lower down they sit.

So anything with a handle — whether it’s oil, water, or a large soda bottle — always goes on the floor, never on shelves, not even on the bottom row of a shelf. The goal is that a customer can bend down, grab it with one hand, and walk away. One hand is all it takes. No digging, no searching.

For stacked cartons in-store — like cases of mineral water, beer, or soda — if there’s a stack of ten boxes on the floor, one is always opened. When a fresh shipment arrives, say ten cases of water, each case holding 24 bottles, they slice open one case right there. Why? To make it easy for customers to grab what they want. If something’s out of stock in the fridge, or if a customer wants a常温 version, convenience matters. The plastic wrapping can be tight, hard to tear open. A customer might glance at it, assume it’s a hassle, and walk away. Opening one case of each product tells them: “You can buy a whole case, or you can just grab a single常温 bottle — just reach in and take it.”

Go buy a toothbrush, a washbasin, or a dish-cleaning cloth — where do they put them? At the very back of the store. They know you have to buy them; if you don’t buy today, you’ll have nowhere else to go late at night. So they place them far inside, forcing you to walk a few extra steps. What goes near the entrance? Cigarettes, beer, cola, chocolate, gum — right by the checkout. Whenever you buy any household item and head to pay, you get tempted by those addictive products at least once.

A lot of things look simple, but execution lives in the details. Every little detail determines success or failure. Not everyone can think the way that puts customers first.

If you want to encourage spending, you must lower the barrier for consumers. The lower the friction, the quicker they’ll pull out their wallet.