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Check it out. If you come to the cashier with more items in tow than were originally on your list, you've done exactly what the supermarkets want you to do. Learning about supermarket strategies can help you become a conscious consumer and say no to that last-minute gum purchase.
that won't sell for a couple of weeks." he says. "And then as soon as we put it on special, put huge signs around it or put it on an end of an aisle it just starts flying off the shelves." Each end-cap display is a company-wide strategic decision, he says.
Once you finally do turn into an aisle, there is a natural tendency to look straight ahead. More thought processes are involved in bending down or reaching up for a product, says Robert Gordman, author of The Must-Have Consumer: Seven Steps to Winning the Customer You Haven't Got and president of the Gordman Group. a profit-development consulting group.
You may not realize that brands are also competing for your attention on the shelf space. The eye-level products are the premium space on a shelf. Gordman says that brands negotiate with supermarkets, sign a contract and pay slotting fees to have their product at a particular level on the shelf. He says the cost of a slotting fee depends on the number of branches the supermarket has as well as the size and type of product. For example, the slotting fee for cereal may cost more because it takes up more space on the shelf than a can of green beans. There's also a reason your favorite chips are no longer in the same spot they used to be. He says items are periodically shuffled around on the shelf, which forces consumers to discover new products.
So, location of products is partially determined by the brand's power. Next time you are browsing the aisles, make a conscious effort to scan the top and bottom levels to compare prices and products. "The key insight is that people
generally want what they want." Gordman says.
Megan Nguyen, Dodge City senior, says she doesn't shop with a list and isn't drawn to the sale items. "When I go to the store, I know what I want," she says. "I don't really care about the price." But Nguyen says there was a time when her lack of budgeting caused her to overspend on groceries. She was shopping at the Dillons Food Stores, 4701 W. Sixth St., with the intentions of spending only $15 to make sandwiches. She grabbed a basket, vegetables in the fresh produce section, and, after she was enticed by the smell of the bakery section, placed donuts and bread in her basket. Then she made her way through the store aisles and placed pop, cereal and chips in her basket. "I look at everything — that's why sometimes I actually forget what I need." Nguyen says. Her grocery trip ended up costing her $60.
Like Nguyen, some customers follow the natural path of the store layout, which can cause them to buy more as they browse.
Once you walk out of the aisles, you'll find the dairy section is near the back of the store. Supermarkets intentionally place milk near the back because it's a staple item, says Michael Williams, professor of marketing in Oklahoma City. He says supermarkets force you to walk past other items before you reach the milk, which increases your chances of impulse buying. "If we have it in the front, people are going to run into the door, pay for it and leave." Williams says. "They wouldn't have had a chance to walk into the store and they didn't intend to far apart
consumers to walk past other items, he says.
Supermarkets are organized in a manner that is convenient for consumers who don't do a lot of preplanning. "Our behavior as human organisms tends to be sort of like water." Williams says. "We tend to seek out the route with the least effort required." Items such as pasta sauce and egg noodles are next to one another, so you don't have to scour the store for each item. Although you might not have a grocery list handy, you can plan a meal based on the store layout.
Once you make your way to the check-out line, you will find the candy and magazine displays. These are the impulse items, which are cheap and low-risk money-makers for the store. You may pick up that pack of gum as you place your items on the conveyer belt and the cashier scans the prices.
Williams says the register not only tabulates the cost of your groceries, the register also collects current consumer data for the retailers and suppliers. "Frito Lays knows what sold in every Target and Wal-Mart grocery store real-time, this morning as of sales yesterday, afternoon and evening," he says.
Supermarkets also use the customer loyalty cards, such as the Dillons Plus Card, to keep you returning to their supermarket, Williams says. Card-holding members can receive discounts, special offers and coupons in the mail based on their purchases. The cards create an incentive to return to the same store and the mailed coupons allow for more personalized shopping. He says each time you swipe the card supermarkets use the data to track your buying habits from the
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amount of groceries to what brands you buy. Williams says collecting the data helps retailers and suppliers know whether they're losing profit, wasting inventory or overspending on operating costs. Williams says the net profit of most supermarkets is slim at about 1 to 2 percent. "Any time they can add a few pennies to their net profit it really helps their bottom line," he says.
The bottom line for supermarkets might be customer retention and profit, but understanding supermarket psychology as a consumer can save you money. "It all comes down to how much can we slow you down and get you to wander through different parts of the store." Williams says. "If they can introduce some interference to our mission that gets us to look at other products, the odds of us picking up something that we would have not purchased otherwise are much higher." JP
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