The Basket Tells All: Why Aisle-Level Thinking Is Starting to Break Down

By Michael Rathburn, Special Contributor for Store Layout/Merchandising

Editor’s Note: We’re always looking for insights and individuals that can deliver them to our readers. Michael Rathburn is a category management professional with more than 15 years of experience working with retailers and manufacturers through Advantage Solutions and Acosta. His insights into Instacart purchasing provides a unique perspective on digital grocery baskets and shopper behaviors. 

Aisle-level data remains the industry standard because it is structured, comparable, and easy to interpret. It tracks movement, growth, and share within defined categories.

However, it does not capture how products are actually purchased together. Basket-level analysis provides a clearer view of customer decision-making by identifying product combinations that reflect specific use cases or occasions.

For example, increased sales of tortilla chips alone indicate category strength. When paired with gains in guacamole and ready-to-drink cocktails – alongside declines in adjacent meal solutions like frozen pizza – the data points to a broader shift in at-home consumption. 

Most promotions continue to be executed solely at the category level, typically focused on individual items or brands. This reflects an assumption that purchase decisions are made through intra-category comparison.

Basket-level data suggests otherwise. Shoppers are assembling combinations of products to meet a specific need, not optimizing for price within a single category. If you’ve ever seen a pizza crust end-cap with add-ons like pepperoni, pizza sauce, parmesan cheese and more you know exactly what I’m talking about. 

As a result, promotions that fail to align with these combinations often underperform, regardless of discount depth.

In contrast, retailers testing basket-aligned promotions – such as meal bundles or occasion-based groupings – are seeing stronger unit movement and higher total spend per trip. This falls in the face of the value trend that most retailers are seeing. 

It adds an interesting wrinkle that promotional effectiveness might be driven more by contextual relevance than by price alone. 

What’s Actually Driving Baskets Right Now

When we look at consumer behavior this way, a few patterns start to stand out. Our basket data consistently clusters around repeatable use cases, including quick meal solutions, better-for-you snacking, small indulgences, and low-effort social occasions. 

These missions cut across multiple categories and departments.

Affordable Indulgence: People are still finding ways to treat themselves. It’s just smaller and more intentional.

Better-for-You, Without the Complexity: Less about strict rules, more about simple choices — protein, fresh, functional.

Dinner That Solves Itself: This is still wide open. Anything that removes friction wins.

Low-Key Social Occasions: Smaller gatherings, but still meaningful. And they tend to drive bigger trips.

Most retail analysis is still framed around category performance. A more effective approach centers on shopper intent – specifically, the problem the customer is trying to solve during a given trip.

Store Execution Is Beginning to Evolve

Traditional store layouts remain optimized for operational efficiency, with clearly defined category boundaries. While effective for replenishment and navigation, this structure does not always support rapid, mission-based shopping.

Retailers are beginning to test cross-category merchandising designed around specific use cases. These include small-format displays built around occasions such as meal solutions, quick lunches, or at-home gatherings.

Early results indicate that these displays can increase basket size and drive incremental purchases compared to single-category features. This type of approach is already standard in many e-commerce environments, where recommendation engines routinely group complementary items. 

Mirroring these merchandising strategies takes advantage of established digital behaviors.

Implications for Vendor Strategy

As retailers place greater emphasis on basket-level insights, vendor discussions are beginning to shift toward product adjacencies, complementary demand, and joint merchandising opportunities.

This creates a framework for collaboration that extends beyond traditional competition for shelf space.

Vendor engagement which remains largely focused on shelf placement, pricing, and promotional cadence will limit their ability to capture cross-category demand. Growth opportunities are increasingly defined by product combinations.

Retailers that prioritize basket-level understanding will be better positioned to capture shifting demand, increase basket size, and align more closely with how customers actually shop.

It’s important to note that category structures will remain a foundational component of retail operations. However, they are no longer sufficient as the singular lens for understanding shopper behavior, or growing modern demand.