Commissary to close for reset

  • Published
  • Defense Commissary Agency
SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  The Sheppard commissary will close at 5p.m. March 21 to "reset" the store to create a better shopping experience for customers.

The store will be closed through March 23, the Defense Commissary Agency announced.

"We hate to inconvenience our customers with the closure, but this is something we'll all appreciate when it's done," said store director Donna Romolton.

The reset is part of an agency-wide program that systematically changes how products are displayed on shelving throughout a commissary in order to better serve customer shopping patterns. The goal is to give commissaries worldwide a more customer-friendly product flow and a layout that is as consistent as possible from location to location, Steve Arland, chief of DeCA's store reset and planogram team, said.

"Although we have to take into consideration that no two commissaries are constructed exactly alike, a customer-friendly product flow means dog food will be next to pet supplies instead of the charcoal, peanut butter is best found next to the jam, and you shouldn't have to cruise three different aisles to find all your cleaning products," he said."It's a simple matter of making the commissary layout more sensible by 'resetting' the store."

DeCA is intent on making the commissary shopping experience faster and easier - making the commissary the place to shop every day, not just on pay day. One of the priorities is to help busy, active-duty shoppers make a quick run through their commissary and get home more quickly.

"The whole idea, in a nutshell, is to get convenience into the shopping experience," Mr. Arland said, adding that consistency is also part of the reset equation. "Why shouldn't you be able to go to different commissaries and find basically the same layout?"

Although closing the store might be an inconvenience to shoppers, Mr. Arland said, but customers typically like the new layout as seen by sales increases after other stores have reset.

To make changes easier for customers to follow, stores have aisle layout maps available as well as generic item locators on their Web pages. Store Web pages are under the locations link at www.commissaries.com along with store hours, contact information, store news and special customer service features.