Like any other business, grocery stores are always trying to get their customers to spend more money. The truth is that the entire design of every grocery store you enter has been created in such a way to attempt to get you to part with as much money as possible while you are in there. It is literally a science where hundreds of hours of experiments have been conducted to see how doing certain things can get the customer to spend more money while shopping. Here are a few of the ways that grocery stores get you to spend more money:
Shopping Carts
Sometimes they employ rather tricky methods to get you to spend more, such as offering gigantic shopping carts. There are plenty of people who need to buy an entire cart full of groceries for their family, but there are also a lot of people who feel the irrational need to fill an empty cart. Some grocery stores will replace their carts every few years in order to have bigger carts, hoping that their customers will fill every available space. When you’re at the store, make sure you’re only buying what you need and not buying extra items just because there’s space in your cart.
Checkout Counter Items
Almost every store you’ve been in probably has had some type of item near the checkout counter. These items are placed there with the expectation that customers will make a last minute impulse purchase. After all, how many times have you randomly decided to buy that $1.99 chocolate bar or a pack of gum after staring at it in the checkout line?
Placement of Common Items
A lot of people run into the grocery store for common items such as milk, eggs, and bread. Have you ever noticed that those seem to be all the way at the back of the store? This is the grocery store’s way of trying to tempt you into buying additional food. If you pass by all the fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, and baked goods, you might be more willing to pile things into your cart or basket.
Grouping Items
Have you ever noticed that the chips and salsa or dip seem to be in the same aisle? Or that the soda might be placed with other snack foods? Or that there might be strategically placed dressings near the fresh produce or bagged salad? Grocery stores like to place similar items in the same aisles in the hope that you’ll buy dip to go with your chips instead of only buying the chips.
Eye Level Items
Grocery stores tend to place the most expensive items at eye level. If you’re running in for a quick jar of pasta sauce, chances are you’re going to pick the one closest to you rather than taking the time to get one at the very top or very bottom of the shelf. Manufacturers pay a lot of money to have their items placed at eye level, so it makes sense that the supermarket would try and place their most expensive items there.buy cialis your local grocery store only to find that everything’s been rearranged? Maybe the milk and eggs are where the bread used to be or the pasta section is now the cookies and candy section. Grocery stores hope that by rearranging their aisles, you’ll wander through them and notice items you wouldn’t normally buy.
Free Samples and Freshly Baked Items
Most people like free samples, but grocery stores hope that by offering free samples, you’ll be tempted to buy the product. The product they’re offering is usually expensive and very rarely a good idea, however. Additionally, stores will sometimes place their bakery or premade food section at strategic locations throughout the store in the hopes that the delicious smells will entice you into buying more food than you truly need.
More Services
Does your grocery store have a bank or a pharmacy? Maybe it’s just added a movie rental box or a small book kiosk. Stores will sometimes add additional services so that you spend more time in their grocery store. If you spend more time in the grocery store doing your banking or picking up pharmacy prescriptions, they’ll hope that you’ll also spend more time spending money on groceries and other items.
(Photo courtesy of qmnonic
