Aono Market had once been an ordinary mid-sized supermarket chain in Japan, but by 2025 it had become a case study in retail innovation. The company’s CEO, Aono Haruka, liked to joke that her stores were “a living museum of three different ideologies,” because each branch had adopted a completely different product-display philosophy.
- The Speed-First Store
The first branch, located in Kanagawa, had embraced extreme efficiency.
Products were displayed directly on the metal carts and pallets they arrived in—frozen dumplings beside lettuce, chilled tea beside canned tomatoes. The idea originally came from U.S. “cross-docking” practices and European discount stores like Aldi and Lidl, which minimize shelf-stocking labor.
By 2025, Aono Market’s version used AI-assisted pallet routing: truck shipments were pre-sorted so the store layout matched the unloading order. The store had cut labor hours by 37%, and customers—especially busy commuters—loved the direct, no-nonsense atmosphere.
“Everything’s where it lands,” the manager said. “But that’s exactly why it works. No illusions.”
- The Temperature-Perfect Store
The second branch, in Osaka, looked like an engineer’s dream. Products weren’t grouped by whether they were fish, vegetables, or drinks—they were grouped by phase.
Liquids in one temperature-optimized corridor. Solids in another. Semi-solids—yogurt, tofu, natto, custard, dressings—lined up in their own zone like honored guests.
This approach drew on cold-chain logistics research and energy-efficiency studies from 2023–2024, showing that temperature-zoned layouts can cut refrigeration energy by up to 12% and reduce food waste due to spoilage.
Customers needed some time to get used to finding miso next to jams (“they’re both semi-solid,” the staff would patiently explain), but the store soon became popular with health-conscious shoppers and food-tech students who appreciated the efficiency.
- The Recipe-Engine Store
The third branch, in Tokyo’s Setagaya ward, took a completely different approach.
Here, everything was arranged by use cases—by meals, not materials. Next to thinly sliced pork, there was flour. Next to flour, there were sauces, ready-cut vegetables, and QR codes that revealed 15-minute recipe videos. This store used a real-time dynamic pricing engine: if pork belly hit a lower wholesale price and the store discounted it, the system automatically nudged up demand-linked items like teriyaki sauce or okonomiyaki flour through small promotions.
Sales soared: recipe-linked cross-merchandising increased basket size by 23%.
“People don’t shop for ingredients,” the lead data scientist said. “They shop for what they plan to cook. So we built the store around that.”
The Soybean Incident
But then came the day of the Soybean Incident.
A new part-time worker in the Kanagawa branch mistakenly placed six full dolly carts of dried soybeans at the store entrance—front and center. Towering stacks of beige bags greeted every customer like an agricultural monument.
Every shopper walked past them without slowing down.
Unless there was a national emergency or a cooking trend on TikTok, there was no natural reason for anyone to buy two kilograms of plain soybeans on a Tuesday evening.
The products sat untouched.
Haruka visited the store, glanced at the soybean mountain, and sighed. “This,” she said, “is why context matters.”
Even the most efficient store layout would fail if the product didn’t align with customer behavior, cultural timing, or an existing demand signal. Supermarkets were ecosystems, influenced by habits, narratives, and expectations.
A Unified Lesson
After the soybean fiasco, Aono Market incorporated a new rule across all stores:
No product should appear without a story to support its presence.
The Osaka store added micro-signage showing temperature science and health benefits.
The Tokyo store added recipe suggestions for soybean-based karaage, instant miso, and soybean smoothies.
The Kanagawa store—despite its minimalist philosophy—added a single line of text:
“These soybeans are here for a reason.”
Sales finally moved.
The soybean mountain disappeared within a week.
Aono smiled as she reviewed the numbers that night.
In the end, the display methods were different, but the lesson was universal:
Products don’t sell because they exist. They sell because customers understand why they should care.
All names of people and organizations appearing in this story are pseudonyms
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