Most shops want their customers to stay for as long as possible, so why not shift all those isles around to create a nifty convoluted maze? Bemused customers would assemble in the centre of the maze and refer to key products for vital orientation purposes "Turn left at the sardines, then second left at unsalted butter, ignore the lard and take the third right when you see the yellow pack fly-paper" might be a typical conversation. Those who get totally lost and call for help would be rescued by being scooped up using an arial grab, in a giant version of that rip-off kiosk game where you get to lift up stuff and carry it about, before dropping it.
-- xenzag, Sep 30 2005

I think Wal-Mart first pioneered this idea a while back.
-- zigness, Oct 01 2005


Ikea, too.
-- bristolz, Oct 01 2005


In the early 80's some of the lower priced "no frills" types supermarkets arranged the aisles in a zig-zag maze pattern so that the customers would only have to go through the entire store only once. By arranging the store in this "one pass" configuration customers would follow the arrows on the floor so they knew which direction to go in.
-- Jscotty, Oct 02 2005


Have one map in the middle, and show the whole maze... It'd be hard to remember the directions, though...
-- nahte123, Oct 02 2005



random, halfbakery