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Retailers have had centuries to perfect the best way to sell their wares. Many also have teams of marketing and sales experts that sift through data to get confirmation in real time on how best to sell their goods to potential customers. I created this list so that you’ll be able to identify some of these marketing tricks that supermarkets use to get you to spend more.
Armed with this knowledge, you’ll have a fighting chance of keeping you’re spending in check and hard-earned cash where you have it budgeted.
Table of Contents
Psychological Pricing
Charm Pricing
Believe it or not, most retailers are intentional with how they set their cents pricing. You’ve probably seen or heard of “charm pricing”. Essentially, this is changing the left hand most digit to 1 number lower by reducing the price by 1 cent (i.e. $199.99 versus $200.00).
Buy One Get One Free or Buy a Number of Items for a Bulk Price
You’ve probably seen the BOGO or 3 for $10.00 deals at your local supermarket. Supermarkets advertise this way to trick you into buying the full amount to be eligible for the promotion. Review the price tags; most of the time you can get less than the advertised quantity for the same unit price.
Price Anchoring
Price anchoring is the tactic of placing premium or higher priced items next to lower priced items to create perceived value. The lower priced item may not actually be a value because the higher priced item’s price may be artificially inflated to make the the lower priced item more attractive.
Goldilocks Pricing
This is the marketing tactic of placing similar products in groups of 3 with three different price points – low, medium, and high. Supermarkets do this to make the medium-priced products seem like a better value than the higher priced item and better quality than the lower price item.
Drop the Dollar Sign
Research shows that menus without dollar signs (i.e. Salmon – 12 or Salmon – Twelve) get you to spend more than menus with dollar signs (i.e. Salmon – $12).
Per-Customer Limits
Having a per-customer limit (i.e. “Limit 5 Per Customer”, or “Limit 3 Per Customer Per Day”) creates the illusion of scarcity. Do you really need 3 or 5 of most items?
They Carefully Choose the Store Ambience
Colors
Stores choose different colors to invoke different feelings. An example would be a yellow color that’s designed to get your attentions or purple that invokes soothing and calming effect.
Small Business Trends has a great blog post on the psychology of colors in marketing here.
Sound
Supermarkets tend to lean more toward slower and more nostalgic songs because they’re calming. This encourages lingering, which leads to a higher potential for more sales. Faster music tends to speed up the heart beat and encourage the opposite effect which works great for retailers like restaurants.
Taste
Supermarkets and grocery stores give out free samples of food to engage your appetite. This causes you to shop hungrier and potentially buy food you don’t need.
Also, if you like the sample, there’s probably a good chance that you’ll buy that product. Did you know that on average when a consumer tries a new brand, they’ll end up using it for 18 months?
Smell
Most supermarkets put their bakeries close to the entrance and in a place that encourages you to visit it first before doing the rest of your shopping. The smell of baked goods and certain spices (specifically cinnamon) whets your appetite and peaks your desire to buy which is a double whammy if you’re visiting a grocery store or supermarket.
Product Placement
Sale or Seasonal Products Near Entrances
Having sale items, heavily reduced items, and/or seasonal items at the front of the supermarket or grocery stores draws people into the store. For seasonal items, it gets you thinking about the upcoming holiday or season and promotes more buying of items that are related.
Staples at the Back of the Store
Having you eggs, milk, bread, cheese, etc. at the back of the store requires most customers to traverse the longest path through the store. The more items you have to pass, the more chances the supermarket has to market their wares.
Counterclockwise Store Flow
Studies have shown that Americans prefer to shop counterclockwise, so most grocery stores and supermarkets in the US accommodate this. They put the bakery and produce on the front right of the store to draw you in, the meat along the back of the store, and the staples along the back left to encourage you to walk the entire store having to pass every aisle along the way.
Oddly enough, British, Australian, and Japanese shoppers prefer to shop clockwise. The theory is that the way we shop is linked to which side of the road we drive on.
Long Lines
Some stores limit the number of cashiers to create longer lines. Conveniently enough, this is also where they place the biggest impulse buy items like gum, candy, magazines, etc. The longer you have to wait in line, the longer you have to resist the impulse to buy one of these items.
Brand Name Items at Eye Level
Brand named items are often placed at eye level because this is where most people first look and because brand names are more familiar. If something is more familiar to us, it typically means we trust it more than the alternative. Brand names are typically the higher priced item, so it is in a supermarket or grocery store’s best interest to put the higher priced item at the location it’s most likely to be bought.
Other Marketing and Sales Tricks Retailers Use
Larger Shopping Carts
Larger shopping carts encourage you to buy more because, well, you can place more items in the shopping cart. We’re unconsciously programmed to buy and store more food for times of scarcity. If you’re not careful, a larger shopping cart will allow you to do just that, buy more food than you intended.
They Make You Nostalgic
They show pictures of families, pets, childhood experiences, etc. and smells that remind of us good times (think pies, cakes, cinnamon rolls, etc.) to make you nostalgic. Research shows that nostalgia makes people more likely to pay more for purchases.
Loyalty Cards
Loyalty cards are a double-edged sword. They can be great for being eligible for deals that you otherwise wouldn’t, which helps you save money. On the other side, stores use them to track you’re buying behavior and send you personalized deals and coupons that will encourage you to buy more.
Personalized Advertisements
In addition to loyalty cards, if you shop online, sites can track your viewing and shopping habits and personalize their advertisements to your personal tastes. Were you on the fence about a purchase? If so, be prepared to be tempted again and again to persuade you to make a decision in the retailer’s favor.
Conclusion
This isn’t a comprehensive list of every marketing technique that supermarkets employ to liberate your wallet of your hard-earned cash. However, it should arm you with the knowledge of some of the most common tricks that supermarkets use to get you to spend more and give you a fighting chance at the grocery store.
Have you ever fallen for some of these tricks? Do you have any other tricks that retailers use to get you to spend more?