Something has gone wrong with one of my local c-stores.

Every day I pass this shop, which is run by a major retail chain. (You can all relax, I’m not going to be naming or shaming anyone. Yet.)

In many ways it is – no, was – a good example of a modern convenience operation: most of the basic food stuffs, great confectionery selection, pretty good BWS fixture, even a coffee machine to give commuters like myself their early-morning fix.

To be honest, I took the place for granted until things started to go a bit pear-shaped.

First it was a free-standing display unit (FSDU) of DVDs cluttering up the till area. Why? How many people get the urge to watch Erin Brockovich after nipping in for a pint of milk?

Next was another FSDU, this time packed with pocket-money toys. OK, I understand the commercial reasons for this one, but the shop isn’t huge and here was another obstacle that needed negotiating.

Then came the horror. The clip strips.

Clip strips are brilliant – they allows beef jerky to be sold from the booze aisle, or a toy car from the cereals fixture. But let’s show a little restraint.

Suddenly there seemed to be a clip strip hanging off every fixture – glue sticks next to the soup, peanuts by the coffee, and hand sanitizer by the bananas (or so it seemed). I now make sure I get in and out of the place quickly, for fear of getting merchandised myself.

But the final straw – the one that prompted this rant - came in the past few weeks.

As in so many c-stores, the aisles in this shop are already narrow. So what does some bright spark do? They flog free-standing displays for three very similar products (all low-abv citrus-flavoured lagers) that are all sited in front of the fairly small beer display. In the middle of the already narrow aisle.

Now, I’m not a small fella (and thanks to the food samples that arrive daily at Grocer Towers, not getting any smaller) but I’m not exactly Giant Haystacks either – and yet I struggle to negotiate the shop now. What was once a convenient, easy-to-navigate c-store is now more akin to the assault course on The Krypton Factor (or Total Wipeout, for younger readers).

So come on retailers, we realise every square inch of a shop needs to pay its way but there has to come a time when you say no.

In the case of this shop, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was losing sales as a result of the merchandising chaos. This is one situation where less really could be more.

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