My local supermarket decided to organize certain health/pharmacy items into a separate section on one end of the store. It has a totally different design, different floors, different lighting, and a different color scheme.

Now when I go to the supermarket, I chronically forget to pick up things like shampoo, toothpaste, and over-the-counter medicines, because they’re all stored in that end that I don’t typically walk through. It’s like on some level, my brain considers it a different store. Unless I wrote a list to remind myself that I need something from that section, I’m probably not going to wander into there.

I bet some C-suite thought they were really clever to make a special little “pharmacy area” on the end. Yet, by sequestering those items away from the main store, it makes me a lot less likely to buy them. “Out of sight, out of mind” is so real.