Our local supermarkets have started making a habit of putting the same item into several different locations under 'themes'. One ingredient I buy occasionally for a favourite dish, for instance, is fish sauce. It can be found under the expensive 'speciality ingredients', near the thai curry pastes and in 'world foods' which provides bands from other countries. Quite often the same item, with the same ingredients, can be hugely different prces in each location. I tend to buy the huge fish sauce for around a pound rather than the tiny 'speciality ingredient' bottle for around 3! Have you noticed the same in your own supermarkets?
I just read about Target doing something similar. They were putting bags of Doritos tortilla chips in the refrigerator case. People were mystified, because Doritos are supposed to be shelf stable. If you do a google search, you can find many posts and pictures of Doritos in the coolers at Target. It turns out that the Doritos were placed next to the shredded cheese and both were part of a recipe that Target was trying to upsell. I don't think they intended to start an online buzz about their stores, but in the end, they got a lot of people blogging and posting about their product placement.
I have definitely noticed this! Sometimes it IS a nice reminder of another product that I might want to get, but it's pretty much always worth it to go look for it in a real aisle instead of in the "convenient" place. It's kind of like how they have always have salsa in front of some of the chips on the chip aisle. Sure, it's convenient, but you can get better deals on the main salsa aisle.
I don't necessarily mind the same ingredients being in multiple spots in the store - it makes sense really, and in some cases, it can save you time from having to go clear across the store to another aisle to get that ingredient. For example, they keep bottles of Old Bay and other seasonings near the fresh fish, which saves me the trouble of having to head on over to the spice aisle to get it. What I *don't* like is when they put certain items in the weirdest spots and not where you would expect them to be. I was trying to find this specific type of mexcian salsa/sauce the other day, so I went over to the aisle where all the mexican ingredients are and it was nowhere to be found. It turns out, they put it at the very front of the store along with several other items that were on special. I almost didn't get them because of that.
