Why do they have a Hot Deli or Bakery in the store?
Why do they have portable carboard displays in the isles?
Why do they have what appears to be promotional items on the isle end caps, but the price is the same as the regular shelf price?
How do they lead you through the entire store?
Why do they have 15 checkout isles, but only 4 cashiers?
Why do they give you a store discount card?
Take a college marketing class, and if you learn nothing else, you will quickly learn how the grocery stores lead you like a blind sheep from the moment you enter the store.
How they lead you:
As you enter the store you first enter the produce section, Potatoes on one end and Salad greens on the opposite end because everybody buys those items and in doing so you will walk past all the high markup items in between, Fruit, its oranges on one end and bananas or apples on the opposite end, again leading you past the kiwi fruit, star fruit, strawberries and other high markup items.
Move on to the dairy case and its often milk on one end and eggs on the other, but to buy both you have to walk past all the butter, cheeses, cottage cheese, yogurts, whipped cream and high markup snack packs like lunchables.
Continuing on to the meat department and its chicken on one end, hamburger on the bottom shelf in the middle and pork chops on the opposite end, once again, because most ppl will buy all of those, and in the process of locating them you have to go past all the high end roasts & steaks.
Start down the breakfast food isle and you will quickly see, all the old staples, oatmeal, puffed wheat, puffed rice, wheaties, bran flakes and corn flakes are on the bottom shelf towards the end. Down the middle of the isle the high sugar, full of prizes childrens cereal is on the lower shelf (eye level to the kids) while the trendy health wise, heart wise high markup adult cereals are on the top shelf for maximum eye appeal to adults.
Now move over to the canned goods isle and generally they will have a huge section for spices and specialty foods. Did you ever notice that this is where they often place those huge cardboard temporary displays in the isles? Why, is the items on the display a bargain? NO, if fact, the store would appreciate if you don't even touch whats on that display. That display is there to create a bottle neck in the isle, so while you are standing their patiently waiting on someone to move their cart so you can get through, you are looking at the super high markup items on the shelves. You know what I am talking about, all those items that you generally wouldn't give a glance, sardines, smoked oysters, canned specialty mushrooms, special party olives, canned pearl onions and a myriad of other items you probably don't buy more than once a year. But as you stand their patiently waiting you unconsciously slip one or two of those in the cart.
What about those huge displays on the end caps of the isles? Check the price, sometimes it genuinely is a bargain, because their wholesalers gave the store a special deal, but more often than not, you will find the merchandise on that display is at their normal shelf price. So why the special display you ask? Because they have a huge stock of that item in their warehouse and it is getting close to the sell by date, so they put it out their to move the inventory.
Now ask yourself, why do they have the bakery or the hot deli? The answer here is not what you would think. If the truth were told, more often than not it costs the store more to make bread in that mini bakery than what they can recover from the sales price, but, and here is the kicker, while that bread is baking they have fans that waft that aroma out into the store and when you smell it, your gastric juices go into overdrive, your now hungry so you buy more. Believe it or not, some stores actually have an automated scent dispenser, generally near the meat department that dispenses the scent of a roast or ham baking, or perhaps a steak on the grille. They puff a tiny bit of the scent every 30 seconds or so. You actually never notice it, but you can rest assured your nose did, and while your pondering whether you can afford chicken quarters or hamburger all the sudden your buying a steak or roast, and never knowing why.
So you finally got your order and you head to the checkout, and you search for which isle is open. Ever wonder why they have 15 checkout isles, but only 4 cashiers?
Once again, its all psych. As you enter the store and see 15 check outs, the illusion is you can get in an out fast so you may even pay a bit higher prices to shop at that store, but, The stores have done extensive market research projects and they have determined that you will enter a line if you are no more than third in line, but more often than not, if their are three ppl in the lines you will turn around and browse the store a bit more, till the lines are more to your liking and they figure you will spend an average of $2 for every minute you spend in the store.
When the manager starts seeing a 4th in the line, he/she knows that the customers have browsed enough and they are now ready to go so he/she will dispatch another cashier to open another line because if you have to wait for 3ppl ahead of you, odds are, you might not return to this store.
And what about those store discount cards? In most cases those cards trigger the register to give you the "published coupon price" whether you have the coupons or not, and that is good deal for you, BUT, there is no free lunch in this world. When you got that card you gave them your name and address, so now the computer can track your purchases and they can automatically generate mailing lists, which they can sell to the different manufacturers. Now we are talking a lot of money here because most manufacturers or producers are accustomed to paying $1 per name and address if you can submit a list of 500 or 1,000 customers who use that companies products, and that is how you get some of those junk mail flyers in your snail mail box or email box.
bulldinkie
Chi
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