Do you ever wonder why things are so hard to find in the Supermarket? The longer you walk around, the more likely you are to make extra unplanned purchases. Visual layout tricks and scientifically tested muzak are incredibly successful at extracting more money from your wallet
The new supermarkets are scientifically designed to guide your every impulse. Eye-level metrics, changing floor layouts and as many as 30,000 products to choose from - influence the unwary shopper in every major store. If you come out of the shop with more than what was on your shopping list -- that was the plan.
Learn more about secret manipulation techniques in the Retail Industry in the ground breaking consumer guide: We Know What You Want
If you've ever spent half an hour looking for three products at a supermarket, dont blame yourself. Thats just the scientific store plan doing its job. Supermarkets are designed more to distract you than to assist you. Sauces may be in three different aisles. Cordial is never near the soft drink, and those big mountains of impulse items at the end of each aisle will catch your attention every time. Just when you think you are finding your way around the store, managers will change the layout. Some stores actually switch the layout every six months to intentionally confuse shoppers.
One olfactory marketing specialist proved the commercial value of smell with an experiment in a Montreal-area shopping centre. Jean-Charles Chebat, from the University of Montreal's HEC management school, pumped discreet traces of a sweet citrus fragrance (a combination of lemon, orange, grapefruit and tangerine) into the mall's air for a week. "The shoppers didn't even know the scent was there because the airborne dose was so tiny," Chebat explains. Merchants, however, certainly smelled a difference: Purchases that week were up by $55 to $90 per customer, even though the experiment was conducted during a traditionally slow business period and the stores had been instructed to offer no special sales or promotions.
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"About 80 percent of consumer choices are made in store and 60 percent of those are impulse purchases. Herb Meyers, CEO Gerstman + Meyers, New York
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Resource: The dark side of your supermarket
A free downloadable e-book takes you on a trip to the dark side of your local supermarket. It features a deconstruction of manipulating
influences of music and visuals through to product placement techniques and package design. There is an extensive examination of the environmental and economic impact of store products and insight into additives and genetic modification. Find out how to conduct your own live tour of a local supermarket and turn it into a learning experience. Download
You will find more on this topic and other emerging manipulation techniques in Chapter One - The Retail Zone:
• Who controls the sale?
• Is your doctor really objective?
• How to avoid credit traps
• Subliminal Programming
• Showroom Mindgames
• Muzak Mysteries
"...filled with engaging graphics and provocative but easy-to-follow guidelines for maintaining autonomy in a world made of marketing." Douglas Rushkoff
Do you ever wonder why things are so hard to find in the Supermarket? The longer you walk around, the more likely you are to make extra unplanned purchases. Visual layout tricks and scientifically tested muzak are incredibly successful at extracting more money from your wallet
"...filled with engaging graphics and provocative but easy-to-follow guidelines for maintaining autonomy in a world made of marketing."