1. The awakening of appetite
The senses are the most active allies of marketers. How many times have you told the world: "don't go to the stores hungry!", because the more you want to eat, the more unnecessary you will buy. But even if you're not hungry, supermarkets have a number of ways to whet your appetite.
For example, the smell of fresh baking has proven itself well: it tempts the buyer to spend a larger amount. The correct lighting works well: the products in the window look bright, juicy and exciting in a festive way.
But one of the most powerful ways to trigger salivation and the accompanying urge to buy something to chew on is through free tasting samples. First, they smell, beckon and you want to buy them. Secondly, if you get a free meal, you start to feel obligated to thank the store. If you didn't get this sausage at the tasting, you wouldn't even remember it. And now you have it in your basket. And, of course, in the receipt.
2. Hypnosis with music
If you hear cheerful music in the supermarket, turn on your attention to the maximum. Melodies are launched at a fast pace where it is important to increase the number of sales. Research using Background Music to Affect the Behavior of Supermarket Shoppers, conducted by the American marketing Association, proves that energetic music provokes customers to make spontaneous purchases.
Unconsciously adjusting to the driving pace, we put more expensive goods in the cart, and even in larger quantities.
On the other hand, slow music is also a trick. Stores specifically select songs with a rhythm that is much slower than the average heart rate. This makes people stay longer at the shelves, spend more time on the sales floor and, as a result, buy more. And more by almost 30% — so, in particular, says the American marketing consultant and author of the book "brain removal! How marketers manipulate our minds and make us buy what they want" Martin Lindstrom.
To protect yourself from this influence of music, go shopping with headphones.
3. Color design
People are "drawn" into stores whose walls and entrance are painted in warm colors from the outside: red, orange, yellow. But inside, the color situation is changing: cold shades in the interior — blue and green — make customers spend more. CNN, referring to the study how color affects your spending, published in the journal Business Review, claims that in stores decorated in blue-green shades, customers leave 15% more money than in those whose walls and shelves are painted in warm colors.
4. Discount cards and loyalty programs
Do you think that discount cards are created for your savings? Admittedly, this is partly true. But not all of it. The store saves much more on loyalty card holders for a variety of reasons.
A discount card links you to a specific supermarket
Choosing between two completely identical stores, you will probably go to the one where you have a loyalty program.
The map is tracking you
In other words, it gives the store information about your purchasing habits. What price category of meat do you prefer? How often do you buy dog food? Do you like chocolate or sour-milk desserts?
Thanks to the map, the supermarket knows everything about your expenses and gets the opportunity to influence them.
If you have ever received individual offers like "Buy chocolate for 300 rubles and get a 15% discount", you understand what we are talking about. Of course, the offer seems profitable. But it is primarily beneficial to the store that has promoted you to buy more sweets than you are used to.
The card provokes you to spend more
Many supermarkets earn points for every ruble spent in their network. Later, these points can be converted into money by paying the accumulated amount at the checkout. Profitable? On the one hand, Yes. On the other hand, you do not notice how the store forces you to spend more in order to accumulate more cherished accruals.
5. bait products
"Buy 10 pieces for just 100 rubles!" is a good old marketing ploy. Many people fall for this offer, eventually buying more products than they need.
There are also more subtle manipulations. The store offers a popular product at a really good price. For example, meat in the barbecue season or a large pack of diapers of a well-known brand. This is bait.
A profitable product is actively advertised to get customers to look at a particular supermarket. But if you went to the sales floor for meat or diapers, why not buy something else? It is on these related purchases that the store makes a cash register.
The profit that he loses on the bait is paid for by the extra money that customers leave in the supermarket.
6. Complementary products
You go to the store for a pack of your child's favorite crackers. And next to it, on the same shelf, you find children's chocolate and marshmallows. "Oh, as in the subject!» — you think and throw all three items in the basket. This is how these combinations work.
Some combos are obvious, such as shampoo and conditioner. Some are more subtle, such as disposable plastic plates and beautiful paper napkins. It seems to us that we decided to buy napkins on our own. In fact, your supposedly spontaneous purchase was predicted in advance.
If your hand is reaching for a product that you didn't plan to buy a second ago, just ask yourself: "Do I really need this?"
Leinbach Reile, author of Retail 101 and co-founder of the American conference of independent retailers
7. The packaging in which the products are perishable
Fresh bread is often sold in a paper bag. Beautiful? Fact. But it is not practical: bread in such a package will quickly dry up, and you will have to go to the store again. This is also one of the marketing tricks. Therefore, after returning from the supermarket, try to Repack your purchases so that they remain fresh for as long as possible.
8. Products with additional value
Supermarkets play with prices, raising to the eye level those products that you particularly want to sell, and lowering almost to the floor level unprofitable for the store cheap goods. The "magic nine" effect is widespread, when a product with a price of 199 rubles seems to customers to be a more profitable purchase than a product for 200 rubles.
Products that explain to customers why they should be taken are well distributed. For example, a product may be marked with the icon "Grown in our area, which means that it will bring profit to our farmers". According to researchsales of Local Foods Reaches $12 Billion, customers are willing to pay up to 25% more for such products.
Another option is products with recipes for dishes that can be prepared from them. They seem more practical to customers, and therefore their sales level is higher.
9. Reusable branded eco-bags
Reusable eco — friendly bags instead of bags-a brilliant marketing ploy! First, they are branded: retail chains place their logos on them, turning customers into walking ads. Second, they force customers to trust the supermarket: "Wow, he cares about the environment!» And third, they increase the amount of the average check.
Harvard business school has published research on how Bringing Your Own Shopping Bags Leads to Treating Yourself, and the Environment, proving that shoppers with branded eco-Bags spend more. Imbued with concern for nature, they first prefer more expensive natural and organic products, and then, already at the checkout, stock up on unhealthy products — as a reward for their own virtue.
10. Stand at the box office
At the checkout, marketers place expensive and not always necessary items: chocolates, jelly candies in bright packages, ice cream, wet wipes, hand sanitizing gels, condoms, and so on. The calculation is based on the fact that you are tired of making decisions in the trading floor, relax at the checkout and buy yourself (or a child who is no less tired than you) a reward. And it works.
Small items on the counters at the cash register tapes can be considered the store's concern for the customer: so you might have forgotten that you need wet wipes, but here they are! But if you went back to the trading floor, you would find similar napkins at a price one and a half times lower. It is inconvenient to return, so you buy goods at an inflated price, once again becoming a supplier of the "Golden fleece" for stores.
