Supermarkets tricks

Have you ever thought about the ways that we are persuaded to spend more money? I would like to show you some of the supermarkets tricks which are hard to spot but which bring about that we buy more than we need. 

Let’s start from the shops’ structure. Every part of the supermarket, from entry to checkout, is designed to make us spend more money and to buy more food than we actually wanted to buy. Have you ever noticed that food product that we use every day, are placed at the very end of the supermarket? Shops tend to hide dairy products on the back wall so that we have to go through the whole store to get to them. That provides more opportunity to spot something we like but we weren't planning on buying. That’s why customers who want  to go to the store only for bread, come away with full shopping trolley.

What’s also important is an arrangement of products. The items that supermaket really wants us to buy are at our eye level. Obviously, they are the most expensive. Cheaper choices are typically on bottom shelves so we have to bend down to pick them up (which is too complicated for some people…).

And what about music that we can hear during shopping? Supermarkets play on our senses of sound. Studies have shown that slow music makes people take their time and spend more money. Loud music makes them move through the store quickly without affecting sales. And classical music leads people to buy more expensive merchandise. I read recently that some of the supermarkets change their music depending on the time of day, such as Frank Sinatra on Monday mornings when older shoppers are more likely to be around, and then switch to modern music on Friday nights to attract the younger shoppers. Can you imagine? I would never guess..

And how about you? Do you know any other ways used by supermarkets to persuade people to spend more money? Or maybe, do you have some advices of how to avoid these tricks?