Supermarket strategies that make us buy more

As soon as you set foot in a store or supermarket, everything stops being casual. The constant stimuli that surround you are often strategically designed to create in you the need to buy things. That’s why, many times, we go to the market just to buy basic products and, without realizing it, we end up with a cart full of products. Want to know why this happens?

At the awesome.club we will reveal marketing strategies and tricks adopted by some establishments. Knowing them, you will be able to shop more consciously.

THE distribution of each of the products is not the result of chance, but a well-studied marketing strategy:

Supermarkets put viewing height what they want us to buy. About 52% of the top selling items are at this level and 26% are at hand height. It is also very common to place products sold for children at the bottom of the shelves. They will make you go through the entire establishment until you reach the basic products of the purchase. In this way, you will probably succumb and take the so-called “unreasonable items”, which are those that you do not intend to buy. Some carefully chosen products (such as chewing gum, candy and razor blades) are in the so-called check-stand area, next to the checkout line. A lot of people end up buying on impulse just when they’re in line.

In a supermarket, there is usually no silence. Although sometimes we don’t realize it, there are always melodies in the background while we’re in the room. Depending on the type of music, the volume and its rhythm generate certain buying behaviors in us.

The melody we hear will depend on the store’s target audience and sales strategies. if we hear slow music, it is proven that it takes us longer to make the purchase. When is it fast and it sounds at a higher volume than normal, so what they want is for you to buy a lot of stuff in a few minutes.

Large companies use color psychology to capture your buyers:

The red and the yellow: because they are two bright colors and because of their contrast mode, they are the first things we look at. They are colors used to place the offers and other advertisements with which they want to draw our attention. Red enhances fast consumption.
The green color is used, above all, to emphasize that a product is natural, fresh and healthy.
the blue color, although it can be used for some fresh products (such as in the fish market), it is most often used for items related to cleaning and personal hygiene.
The black, the gold and the silver enhance elegance and luxury, which is why they are used in perfumery and gourmet products.

The temperature is usually between 20ºC and 22ºC, perfect for you to feel comfortable while shopping and not be in any hurry to finish filling your cart with all the products you don’t need.

The sense of smell is also very important in the purchase decision. In the supermarket, the smell of food, fresh bread or fresh fruit leads us to buy these products. This strategy is also used in the perfumery area.

Depending on the area, the lighting will be one way or another. The butchery has pink lights to make the meat more appetizing; the fish market makes its products look fresher thanks to bright lamps; and fruits and vegetables improve their appearance with the help of orange-toned highlights.

What supermarket managers look for with lighting is to increase the attractiveness of some products, so that they invade your eyes and you put them in the cart.

There are many marketing techniques that create needs and lead us to think that we save on the purchase.

Time-limited offers: provoke a compulsive buying reaction.
Discounts on the second unit: they are usually made so that instead of taking one unit, as we had planned, we take two.
3 for 2: the same as the previous case, but buying three products. Here, the free unit is what drives us to buy items we don’t need, or at least not in that quantity.
Prices ending in nines: this 99 cent tactic makes products look cheaper than they really are. In our subconscious, a product that costs, for example, 12.99 reais is understood as costing 12 reais, not 13. The head tends to play against.
Free samples or tastings: they often make us fall into the trap and we end up buying the product we tasted.

After reading this post, you must have noticed the number of stimuli and strategies that influence your purchase decision. Now that you’re ready to recognize them, don’t get carried away by them and try to go to the supermarket aware of what you really need.

And did you know these strategies? Do you know of different ones that lead you to buy certain products? Tell us in the comments!