Sadistic Stores

One of my pet peeves:
Grocery stores always rearrange their entire stock just when you have finally figured out where everything is.

Now, I could understand rearranging stock if it made things easier to find items or it made the aisles easier to negotiate with a buggy with a sticky wheel. I fully understand the concept of putting sugary junk food at the eye level of a toddler, light toilet paper on the top shelf and heavy laundry detergent on the bottom.

But what is the advantage of moving the pet food next to the baby supplies instead of it's previous location beside the paper towels? Will I buy more soup if it's next to the soft drinks rather than the cookies?

I imagine they think that I'll buy more because I had to slow down and look at every item carefully as I search for cat food. Guess again. I actually buy less because I can't find what I'm looking for, become frustrated, and leave to go to another store that hasn't changed rearranged their stock.

If they want to use the shock and awe approach to get me to buy more, why don't they just design all grocery stores like a maze. We would all get lost in the maze...trapped for hours with skilled marketing and hunger gnawing at our willpower.

After all, it works for IKEA.