As a consumer, it is really easy to get sucked in by all of the traps and marketing ploys that grocery stores use to get you to buy more. Everyone needs to eat, so they naturally have to shop at grocery stores. Stores are very much aware of this and use it to their greatest advantage and as a way to get you to buy more. By being a well informed shopper, you can avoid being tricked by these strategies into spending more money or buying more than you may need.
Here is a look at some of the ways that grocery stores get you to buy more.
*Meal deals or combination sales –
Many stores will attempt to get a customer to buy several items by offering coupons that give you free items if you buy something else. For example, by buying a $3.00 pound of ground beef, the special may offer a free bottle of pasta sauce, a package of pasta and a package of salad. The idea is to get you to see that there is an an entire meal to be had here…The lure of free items may make you buy more than you would have otherwise. If you can get free things for buying one type of ground beef, you may even choose that instead of the type you had intended to buy – which was undoubtedly cheaper anyway.
*Price declines –
It is almost impossible to walk through the isles of any grocery store and not find a shelf where at least something is “marked down.” Items that have the “new lower price,” will be indicated with a large, brightly colored tag. Most people don’t bother to look closer to find out what the original price of the item was. If you did, you’d probably realize that the original price was only a penny or two more. Nonetheless, you’ll be taken by the flashy illusion of a sale, and you will buy more than one of these things, thinking you’re getting a great deal. Sometimes, these signs really conceal price increases.
*Advertising or promoting larger sizes –
We naturally think that when we scan the shelf to see the price of something in a grocery store, that the larger size is going to be cheaper. Sometimes it is, but more often than not, if people were to look at a smaller size package or jar of something, they’ll discover that by buying two smaller jars, they’ll get more of the item than they would had they bought the larger size, and the two smaller jars would have cost less.
*The infamous impulse items –
Grocery stores have a strategic way to place items, and when they want to promote these items, they put them in places where people will pick them up impulsively. If you walk around the entire store, you may find that you’re picking these things up all over the store, adding a lot more money to your already high grocery bill.
Every week, grocery stores come up with different ways to get customers to buy more and spend more money. They may coupon discounts that only apply when you buy two or more of the item, or they may have a coupon that offers a discount when you buy a combination of things. Signs touting price declines often disguise the fact that there isn’t any price decline, but rather a price increase. By giving customers coupons at the checkout that offer discounts or free merchandise, this is yet another way to get the consumer to buy more.