You know that tantalizing smell of freshly baking bread and lightly seasoned rotisserie chicken that you smell as you walk by the deli area of your local grocery market?
It is not a coincidence that these smells are strongest during prime shopping hours. These smells activate your salivary glands, and this makes you less discerning and more likely to buy more groceries than necessary.
Giving you more space to fill
When people buy a house with space, they tend to fill it. Food marketers felt the same was true with shopping carts and tested the theory by doubling the cart size. What they found was that providing double the cart space led customers to buying 19 percent more products than before.
Bright colors make you want to buy more
The fruit and vegetable section is located in the front of the grocery store because marketers know bright colors make people happy. When you are in a good mood, you are more likely to overspend.
“The produce department is at the front of the store because its bright colors put you in a good mood and inspire you to buy more. That’s why I recommend that you start shopping in the middle of the store, with its bland boxes and cans,” says Phil Lempert, grocery industry expert and editor of supermarketguru.com.
They invite you to linger so you buy more
Stores usually play music with a rhythm that’s slower than an average heartbeat to encourage consumers to slow down and linger. The longer you the linger, the more likely you will purchase as much as 29 percent more than you would otherwise.
“Customers would tell me as they went through the checkout, ‘I just stopped in to get eggs,’ and they would have $250 worth of stuff,” Jason Swett, former bagger and cashier at a grocery store in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Sales announcements can be deceptive
It is frequently found that stores will run a sale of 50 percent off the cost of items like ten-ounce lunch meat and put the advertising sign up for display between those and the larger sizes. Many shoppers accidentally grab the larger package and pay full price without realizing it.
Bulk items are made to look like a good deal
Buying things in bulk such as mutli-packs of peppers may be placed to draw attention and appear to be a good deal. However, peppers are often more affordable when purchased individually, just like avocados. So more is not always a better buy.
Ten for $10 is very successful
When stores run the ten-for-$10 sales promotions, it always leads to large volumes of sales. The trick is that sometimes the items included might otherwise cost less than a $1 each. However, because they are in the special promotion, people buy them and pay more for them.
“When a store does it, volume takes off, even if the promotion raises the price of something. We’ll take an 89-cent can of tuna and mark it for “ten for $10,” and instead of buying six cans for 89 cents, people will buy ten for $10,” says Jeff Weidauer, vice president of marketing and strategy for Vestcom International Inc.
-The Alternative Daily
Sources:
http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/fast-food-tricks
http://www.inspirationgreen.com/secrets-of-food-marketing.html
http://www.rd.com/slideshows/supermarket-tricks
https://www.thealternativedaily.com/big-soda-ramps-marketing-black-latino-kids
https://www.thealternativedaily.com/stop-big-corps-marketing-children
