"Layout" of Merah Putih Kopdes Criticised by Netizens for Not Following Planogram, What Is It?

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com — The Merah Putih Kopdes (Koperasi Desa/Kelurahan Merah Putih) programme is again the subject of public discussion. This time the focus is on the arrangement of products inside stores, with some netizens saying it does not conform to the standards of modern retail layout. The discussions began after President Prabowo Subianto inaugurated the operation of 1,061 Kopdes Merah Putih units on 16 May 2026. Photos and videos of conditions in the stores circulating on social media have triggered criticisms of shelf arrangements.

On Threads and X, several social media users argued that the product layouts inside the cooperatives appear spaced out, not uniform, and have yet to apply fundamental planogram principles.

In modern retail, a planogram is a visual guide used to arrange product layouts on shelves. The academic paper titled Embedded Vision Sensor Network for Planogram Maintenance in Retail Environments by Mario Martinel, Alessandro Zanella, Andrea Vaquero, and Carlo Micheloni, published in 2015, describes planograms as detailed visual maps showing the position of products in retail stores. The study published in the journal Sensors explains that a planogram is used to determine the position of products on shelves to boost sales and improve the shopping experience.

Planograms are not simply about arranging goods by category or colour. The system takes several factors into account. Meanwhile, the 2025 paper A Customer Behavior-Driven Clustering Method in the Planogram Design Domain by Po-Hao Chen and colleagues describes planograms as a method of arranging product layouts to increase space efficiency and enhance the customer experience while shopping. Complementary products are typically placed in proximity to encourage cross-selling; for example, coffee placed near biscuits or sauces placed in the pasta section.

Citing the 2020 paper Food Purchasing Behaviour at Automatic Vending Machines: The Role of Planograms and Shopping Time by Luca Marinelli, Fabio Fiano, Gian Luca Gregori, and Lucia Michela Daniel, planograms play a crucial role in influencing consumer purchasing behaviour, including in vending machines.

Product layout is deemed to influence purchasing decisions and the time customers spend choosing a product.