This is just a rant to let off steam.

Today I went shopping in Hang Dong for a few items. I had carefully planned the route and noted on previous visits where items of interest to me were to be found or kept and I expected the trip to take approx. 30 mins. It turned out to be nearly 2 hours because nothing was in the same place it had been one week ago. Nor were the moves logical and I had to search the whole shop to find what I wanted/needed. In one shop a staff member even told me that the item was not stocked. I found it only by chance while searching for something else. Why do they do this ? Surely it is in shops interest to have customesr come in and leave swiftly, it gets more in in the long run.

End of rant.

So that you look at more stuff in the store

I feel your pain. The local bookstore where I live always moves things around every few months, so I can never find the section I'm looking for.

Doesn't bother me when they rearrange the layout. I've always been methodical and always travel down every aisle in sequence. I don't even attempt at remembering the layout, except the obvious things like where the refrigerated or frozen products are.

This means you see everything you intended purchasing because you covered the entire shop in an orderly fashion and didn't run around zig-zagging everywhere and wasting time like a rat in a maze. Doing the latter means you find the soy sauce you don't want ten times but never find the HP sauce that you were actually looking for.

It also means you find the odd item that you'd forgotten you needed, or find some necessary item at a discount that's worth purchasing, while obviously avoiding the trap of wanton consumerism and buying <deleted>e you don't need.

The bonus is that you know exactly how long a visit will take. It also removes the necessity to go for only "a few items" because you're previous methodical visit and purchases removes the necessity to do so.