Supermarkets are Mean Lean Selling Machines

Food Industry

Fri, Feb 8 2008

Ever wonder why you always buy more than you got on your shopping list? Supermarkets use psychology and marketing techniques to sell as much as possible. Their only goal is to make you buy things and when you've done that, they want you to buy more.

Social scientists have studied our shopping behavior. With the results of those studies supermarkets create specialized marketing strategies. An enormous effort goes into designing a supermarket. They consider all the different aspects, ranging from optimal product shelf space to deciding which background music makes you spend the most.

High traffic products in the back

The basic principle to which all supermarkets are designed is: "the more products you are exposed to, the more products you are likely to buy". To expose you to as much products as possible, supermarkets have a special layout which is very similar in many supermarkets around the world. Products that are very high traffic are always placed the furthest away from you. This would be either in the back, or at the side walls of the supermarket.

The more products you are exposed to, the more products you are likely to buy

One of those high traffic products is milk. When you need milk you usually have to go all the way to the back of the store. You have to pass several long aisles to get there, passing dozens of products. Every step you take is an increased chance of a sale for the supermarket. By the time you get to the milk you usually have some extra items in your cart which you didn’t need in the first place. It’s a pain!

Other high traffic products often to be found in the back and side walls are meat, fruits, vegetables and frozen foods.

Supermarket strategies

Impulse buy items: entrance and cashier

Another strategy often used by supermarkets is the strategic placement of "impulse buy items". Impulse-buy items get a front row tickets at the supermarket and generate the highest traffic of all. Usually at the cashier you find pick up items like dvd's, magazines, candy and other snacks.

At the entrance you usually find impulse-buy items of a different kind, such as flowers, fresh fruits and other nice looking products.

Other supermarket strategies

There are many more marketing tricks used by supermarkets. Every single product has been placed very carefully, with only one goal: to forget about your shopping list and to make you buy as much as possible!

Supermarkets use long aisles which force you to pass a lot of items and keep you moving.
Supermarkets fill shelves with the same item over and over again, to increase selling rate on specific products.
Supermarkets strategically play a very slow paced background tune, designed to make you “stick around”
Supermarkets will seduce you into buying items by spreading pleasant food smells.

If you want to leave the junk food on the shelves and just buy the healthy products, you better be aware of the marketing strategies supermarkets use! It makes surviving a trip to the supermarket a little bit easier!