I watched a video and read a few articles about supermarkets, and what they do to get us customers to spend as much money as possible when we visit. Everything you see in a supermarket, and how it’s laid out, is all planned.
The scary part is, you don’t even know that they’re controlling you with their psychological puppet strings as soon as you walk through the doors. Even if you do know their tricks, it’s hard to escape from them.
If you don’t, let me give you a quick lesson.
Keep in mind that their goal is to keep you in the store for as long as possible. The longer you’re in the store, the more items you see. The more items you see, the greater the chance you’ll buy more items.
It starts as soon as you pick up a shopping cart and enter through the one-way sliding doors. Yes, they purposely make exiting the place an inconvenience if you decide to leave early. They force you to walk through their store to get to the exit.
Second, notice how the first thing you always see are fruits and other colorful foods.
What’s the reason for this?
To put you in a good mood. And when you’re in a good mood, you’re more likely to buy more.
Now let’s talk about dairy products, one of the most common items on people’s shopping list, and that they’re always placed at the very end of the store simply because they want you to stay in the store longer. As you take a long route to the dairy section, you’ll be looking at other products, which means more chances for you to buy.
But it doesn’t end there.
Product placements. Notice how the most expensive items are placed at eye-level, and the cheaper ones are placed at the very bottom of the shelf.
After spending 30 minutes or so walking around playing hide and seek with the grocery items, your brain starts to suffer from fatigue, meaning you’re more likely to start buying impulsively.
So when you get to the checkout line, you pick up a pack of chewing gum because why not. Now you’re starting to question if you want to buy certain items. You want to put them back, but the aisle is too narrow and there are already three people behind you. It’s way too inconvenient for you to go back. So you end up buying them anyway.
Now it’s a bit more clear why people bring a shopping list. There’s more to it than to just making sure they don’t forget to buy something.
Perhaps some of this information will be useful for your marketing. If it doesn’t, it’ll certainly help you prepare for your next trip to the supermarket.
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