We may expect retailers to brighten their stores and pipe in happy music to make shopping a more pleasant experience, but there's a lot more to a trip to a department store or grocery than you might expect. How do you keep the corporate psychologists from snagging more of your money than you wanted to spend?
1. How serious is the science of marketing?
-- Stores spend millions of dollars on research and implementing the recommendations of psychologists who specialize in marketing. It's for a reason, and the reason is because it works.
-- Everything from the colors we see, the temperature of the store, and as many senses as they can control are geared to getting you to spend more money.
-- It goes beyond the layout of the store and the old wisdom of putting the milk in the back so you have to cross through every other department to find the convenience items.
2. Most folks know that the candy bars and weekly magazines are at the checkout because you're stalled there and more likely to buy them. What other tricks get played on shoppers?
-- High end grocery stores are known to change the type of flooring used in different departments, like bumpy tiles that make you slow down near the higher-priced products.
-- The longer you spend in an aisle, the more likely you are to buy something from it, so some stores create logjam areas in spaces where they want to move products.
-- Even the height at which some items are placed is gauged to influence how you buy. Bargain brands are typically placed in less convenient levels than higher-priced items.
3. There's nothing wrong with stores trying to make the most money they can, but how do we defend our checkbooks?
-- Shop with a list, know what you have to spend that trip and on what, and think very hard before you deviate from it.
-- If you're used to paying with a debit or credit card, pull cash instead and commit to spending under that cash amount for the whole shopping trip. That forces some limits to what you spend.
-- If you tend to shop at stores that offer both a retail side and a grocery side, try shopping with two carts and keep the purchases separate.