I’ve blogged here and here about good and bad implementations of wipes in grocery stores.
I found another one in Coupeville, WA, the other day.
Despite the rather industrial graphics, there’s a few improvements. It’s very clearly for cleaning the cart, not your hands (as Safeway suggested).. It’s right next to the carts, so when you take a cart, you use it (rather than located near the exit, at Safeway). And should the Red Apple employees fail to maintain the display, there’s at least an encouraging reminder to the customer that they should ask to have it replenished.
This is no iPhone, it’s not a radical innovation, but it’s a definite response to a need, and tracking how it is and isn’t being dealt with is enlightening. First, one has to understand the need. Then one has to develop a solution. Then the solution must be implemented. Properly. Effectively. And throw in iteration, for fun. The fact that something as simple as this fails around solution/implementation at a major chain like Safeway tells you something about the organizational barriers to even the most mild of innovations.
Tags: cart, coupeville, germs, grocery, innovation, management, process, red apple, retail, safeway, sanitation, store, wipe
iPhone product and AT&T service mess-up. Good service ecology example of poor integration of front of house experience and back of house systems, cool product promise and dreadful service delivery. Germs are in the details From Steve Portigal’s excellent and observant All this Chittah Chattah blog – this is an insightful look at simple but useful innovation ideas and how well they’re implemented. This wonderful example – hand wipes for shopping carts and the contagious
Pingback by buena vista 02.09.10 @ 8:27 amIs there a garbage can nearby for the used wipes?
Or are the children sitting in the cart supposed to recycle them – by eating them?
Comment by Colin McKay 07.31.07 @ 8:22 amColin – I traded off the full-context photo for the detail shot of the poster. I can’t remember if there was a garbage can. I’d just throw it into the top basket on the stack, myself. Or, as you suggest, eat it.
Comment by Steve Portigal 07.31.07 @ 8:25 amIt’s sort of like the tissue paper that they make available near the meat displays – once I’ve contaminated the paper, where would you like me to put it? In the bakery aisle?
Wow, I sound crotchety.
Comment by Colin McKay 07.31.07 @ 8:28 amI’m loving:
The photos that explain what you do with wipes (‘how to wipe’), like ‘dur’ – and how many aisles of wipes are there in-store?
The snappy names (part caplitalised) SaniCart, NicePak (expecially NicePak)
The red starburst and angled brush stroke-like type.
And that it kills ‘household’ germs – what about those in the Safeway? Are they equally weak?
But most of all I love the super-sized tub. We just get teeny weeny pocket-sized tub-ettes here in the UK.
Steve – you’re a star for bringing me this…
Comment by Alex 07.31.07 @ 1:37 pmAlex – that’s an excellent deconstruction, and your pleasure is contagious!
Comment by Steve Portigal 07.31.07 @ 1:55 pm