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On their map, Andronico’s bills itself as a community market and it appears to be a mid-sized grocery store. The unavoidable organizing principal for a grocery store of any size is special storage needs. Items that share certain storage requirements are naturally grouped. Items that need to be refrigerated are grouped together based on how cold they need to be kept. Dairy is in one area, while frozen foods are in another. For the most part, anything that is chilled is along the outer edges of the store. Presumably this is because that is where the equipment must be physically located. Items that need staff resources, such as the meat, seafood or the deli counter are clustered around the edges as well. Storage of items such as cleaning supplies or cold medicine are segregated from other food items, as they are potentially toxic.

The next principle is based on packaging. Items of similar dimensions that physically fit best together are place in the same area. Olive oil, vinegar and condiments are all packed in small bottles and therefor share an aisle. Bulk food and produce are not packaged, making them need to be located together despite having different storage needs. Toilette paper and Paper towels are bulky, but can be easily crushed and so can’t be stacked like other items. They are also found next to each other.

While the first two principles are based on the needs of physical objects, more than just space is considered in organizing Andronico’s. For instance, Pasta and Pasta sauce share no special storage needs and are packaged in different containers. Yet they are put together on aisle 11 because they are often used at the same time. They share a common answer to the question of “when would you want to use them?”. The same goes for baking supplies and flour and sugar; you use them when baking. Likewise chips, cookies, crackers, and jerky all share an aisle because they are all consumed between meals, as snacks.

Amazon claims to have the “Earths biggest selection” and certainly lists items that span over many different product types on their site directory. They sell groceries, like Andronico’s, but also purely digital items, like mp3’s of music and digital versions of books. The site directory has departments and categories, which roughly translate to the aisles and shelves of a physical store.

Their organizing system isn’t influenced by spatial storage requirements, but items are still loosely grouped by their physical (or lack of physical) attributes. For instance digital departments fill the first seven spots, while large bulky items such as sports equipment and car parts fill the last two. Books and magazines share a department, while the physical versions of digital media items, such as cd’s, dvd’s and video game disks share another.

Because Amazon does n0t need to put physical items into aisles, they cross list many resources. Musical instruments are listed under “Movies, Music & Games” and “Electronics & Computers”. MP3’s have their own department but are also listed under “Movies, Music & Games”. Cross listing allows Amazon to organize items by where you would use them, while still accounting for different people having different location associations. For instance, some people will associate video games with media consumption, like buying movies, but others associate video games with the electronics they are played on. Amazon puts video games under both departments.

Digitally, the “where is it used” grouping principal is even stronger. There are group of items or services that are for use on the Kindle and groups that are for use on the phone. However, these are also cross listed with their physical equivalents, so Kindle books reappear under Books and Instant video under Movies.

Andronico’s and Amazon sell many of the same items but organize them in a different way. Amazon groups by where an item is used and Andronico’s placement (when it isn’t constrained by physical storage) revolves around when an item is used. This difference is shown by the location of pet food in both stores. In Andronico’s organizational system the pet food is surrounded by other products used when completing chores. These tasks include doing laundry, cleaning the house and correspondence. Other household items (“Housewares”) are four aisles away. Meanwhile on Amazon’s directory pet food appears with other items that are used in the broader home area, such as appliances, garden supplies and furniture. 

With both systems there are clearly emphasized, by both their size and location, to grab the customer’s attention. For Amazon this is their digital services offerings. These departments take up the first seven of 16 spots in the directory and are broken down into more detail. Kindle’s department alone has 16 categories. Compare this to the oddly succinct Book department, which is split into only 6 categories, one of which is just a re-listing of Kindle books. Andronico’s wine and spirits department is located in the middle of the store and twice as wide as the other aisles. It’s size and location makes it impossible to miss. 

Further abstracting the “when” principle of Andronico’s and “where” principle of Amazon, both systems are two different ways of organizing by end uses. Both stores choose to organize around what a customer is going to do with their purchase, such as bake a cake or do their taxes, rather then organize around the actual properties of the item, such as flour vs cake pan or software vs laptop. Organizing by end uses makes browsing through items simpler, as there are better-defined starting locations. It also enables finding an item when looking to accomplish a specific goal but without a certain tool or ingredients in mind.