I have to hand it to them. Grocery stores are the masters of consumer psychology. How else can you explain walking into the grocery store for one item and coming out with a basket full of stuff?

In some ways they remind me of carnival pitchmen who’ve refined their sales pitches to perfection. In the process we spend more than we need to or would like to.

Let’s take a look at the subtle grocery store manipulation that drains hard earned money from our pocketbooks.

The Limited Quantities Trick

How many times have you ever heard a cashier say,

“No ma’am, you’re over limit on those mangos – there’s a limit of 3 per person you know.”

Do you really think that the store cares how many items each customer purchases? Of course not. Their only concern is making sure they sell as much as possible.

Here’s a simple fact – In the direct marketing world the two easiest ways to influence a person to make a purchase are (1) limit the time an offer is available or (2) limit the quantities of product available for purchase.

Don’t believe me. Just take a look at the Home Shopping Network or any typical late night infomercial to see what I mean.

It seems supermarkets have adapted these time tested marketing ideas for use on the grocery store floor.

Placing a limit sign on the side of a product automatically guarantees that more customers will buy. I mean if the quantities are limited it must be a great deal – right! Not only will more customers purchase but I’m quite sure each will make sure they get their limit.

So with a simple limit sign the grocery store has both increased the number of people interested in the sale and also guaranteed that those who do buy will buy more – probably the limit allowed by the sale.

Now don’t get me wrong. Sometimes these “limit sales” turn out to be great deals. I’ve run into a few great limit sales recently. I’m simply saying that you should always check out such a sale before reflexively placing items in your cart.

Check the regular price to see if you really are getting a deal. Sometimes you’re only saving pennies. Make sure to check the expiration date of the product or the condition of the items if they are perishables. A limit sale is a quick way for a supermarket to get rid of items past their prime.

Finally, if it is a legit sale be careful of going over the limit because the scanner may charge you full price for any extra items.

The Limited Time (4 Day Sale) Trick

This limited time sales trick is another adaptation from the direct marketing world. Typically supermarket sales run for a week. Sometimes, however, stores feature “special” 3 day or 4 day sales – the typical limited time offer trick. I believe they want to secretly give you the impression that the deals at these sales are especially good.

One night I was in the store to get some milk and noticed that a “special” 4 day sale was going on. I better make sure I check out all the deals as I won’t be back before the sale ends, I thought. Yes, I have to admit that there were a few great bargains – what I like to call “super sales” when you can get an item at 50% off or more.

But the truth be told, the normal week long sales also had many of these same super sales! Yet the difference is that because it was time limited – 4 days long only instead of the normal week long sale, I felt compelled to stay and shop.

The Sucker Sale

This is perhaps the most interesting of grocery store tricks I’ve come across. Supermarkets understand this simple fact. Everyone loves a sale. Don’t you? I have to admit my heart races just a little bit faster when I see the red sales sticker and the promise of a great deal.

Yet, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the process of putting a “sales” item in my basket only to notice how much I was really saving. Ten cents off a $3.29 box of cookies, twenty cents of a $2.99 carton of orange juice! Not quite a deal after all.

These “sucker sales”, as I like to call them, are particularly effective since they are interspersed amongst real bargains – items that are on sale for 30%, 40%, even 50% off their regular price. We’re so conditioned by the savings we get with the true sales that we blindly act as if all sales are deals.

Next time you’re about to throw a sale item in your cart take a second to figure out how much you’re really saving. You may be about to become the next victim of a “sucker sale”.

Do you have any grocery store tricks you’ve come across? We’d like to hear from you. Share your experiences with others by leaving a comment below.

I’m always amazed at how food companies alter the packaging and appearance of their products to entice us to make a purchase.

A recent example of this occurred with my regular orange juice purchase. A few months ago while browsing my local grocery store I came across a special promotional case featuring a new variety of Tropicana orange juice called Trop50. Trop50 offers 50% less sugar and 50% fewer calories than regular Tropicana orange juice. It sounded like a healthier alternative.

Since the Trop50 was on sale, I placed a few cartons into my shopping cart. It was not until I reached the regular orange juice section that I noticed the Trop50 cartons are taller and slightly more narrow than the regular cartons of orange juice.

I didn’t think too much of  it because the taller Trop50 carton makes it appear that you’re getting the same amount of juice as you would have if you purchased the regular Tropicana orange juice.

No big deal until you take a closer look and see, as indicated on the side of the carton,  that the taller, slightly skinnier carton of Trop50 orange juice actually contains only 59 ounces of juice compared to the 64 ounces of juice found in the regular Tropicana orange juice cartons. Worse yet, the non-sale price of the Trop50 was 20 cents higher than the price of the regular Tropicana orange juice.

So let’s get this straight: for the Trop50 orange juice with 50% less calories and 50% less sugar,  you pay 20 cents more and get 5 ounces less juice than the regular Tropicana orange juice!

Yet it seems that I’m not the only one that’s picked up on this food packaging slight of hand. A recent Consumer Reports publication has commented on the new Trop50 orange juice as well. They too noted the fact that the Trop50 carton contains 5 less ounces than the regular varieties of  Tropicana orange juice (although in their case the Trop50 and regular orange juice were priced the same.)

Consumer Reports goes on to report something that I failed to notice at first. The Trop50 is listed as a “orange juice beverage” containing only 41% orange juice, while the regular Tropicana orange juice is made from 100% juice.

I believe Consumer Reports sums it up best when they say”

“Instead of spending extra for a lower-cal juice beverage, cut those calories by mixing regular orange juice with water or seltzer.”

Key Lesson: Be careful with product packaging. New sizes and shapes can be misleading. That’s why its more important than ever to read the product information carefully to see how much food you’re actually getting.

Have you had an interesting experience with product packaging, presentation, or labeling? Share your experience. Leave a comment below.

In today’s tough economy many consumers are now shopping with a grocery list to help save money. They realize a list focuses their shopping behavior like a laser, helping them avoid ever present, but costly, impulse purchases.

Yet supermarkets realize that shoppers are increasingly entering their stores with a singular purpose in mind – to grab the items on their list and get out quickly. In effect, consumers have developed “tunnel vision” – traveling up and down supermarket aisles looking only for those groceries that are on their mental or physical shopping lists.

In response, grocery stores have placed “speed bumps” in their aisles -  items that physically or psychologically interrupt a consumer’s tunnel vision and steer them toward impulse purchases. These “speed bumps” have become so prevalent that grocery store aisles frequently resemble obstacle courses making navigation with a large shopping cart difficult.

Let’s take a look at a few of these “speed bumps.”

Over-Sized Signs.

How does a product attract the attention of a shopper who’s flying by to their intended purchase? – With a sign located right on the store shelf of course!

The bigger the better.  The problem – in order to break our “tunnel vision” these signs have grown larger and larger. If you’re not careful it can be quite easy to actually side swap some of the larger grocery store shelf signs.

And if you thought that was bad enough, how about these mega-sized ceiling signs located below.

Floor Advertisements.

What’s the best way to grab your attention? Place an advertisements where you’d least expect it. The supermarket floor has become the perfect spot and floor ads are popping up in supermarkets faster than weeds in a backyard garden.

Just be careful though. While you’re distracted looking at the floor you could get side-swapped or rear-ended by another shopper. It’s happened to me!

As with the shelf signs, floor ads are meant to distract us from our true shopping targets and steer us toward impulse purchases.

Stand Alone Product Displays.

Stand alone displays are perhaps the most annoying attempts to break shopper “tunnel vision” and get customers to notice products they might have otherwise sped right past.   Its hard not to notice a display that juts right into your shopping path. Navigating large shopping carts with two or more people in the aisle becomes a little more challenging.

But perhaps more annoying, however, is how these displays lure you into thinking an item is on sale. Frequently the stand alone product display will have a large printed sign attached to it. Naturally, many assume this means the product is on sale when in fact it isn’t.

Take the display pictured below, for instance. One could easily assume that the Quaker Oats bars featured in the display are on sale. If you travel two aisles over, however, you’ll find the exact same bars located on the store shelf for the exact same price.

Warehouse Displays.

The next “speed bump” is what I term the warehouse display in which a grocery store stacks items still in their shipping boxes on the store floor. This is similar to how many items are displays in a warehouse store like Sam’s Club. Like the stand alone display these are hard to miss – which I surmise is the intended purpose. I’ve nearly accidentally rammed my grocery cart into more than a few of them.

I secretly wonder if the store is trying to achieve what I call  a “Costco effect”, trying to get you to equate the low warehouse store prices with the featured product. As with stand alone displays you have to be extra careful when you see a large printed price sign on the item and not naturally assume its on sale.

More and more shoppers understand how costly impulse buys can become. As a result, they frequently shop with a mental or physical shopping list.

Knowing this, grocery stores look to disrupt our tunnel vision for just a moment with “speed bumps.”  They intend to grab our attention for just a second. In this split second they tempt us to make that impulse purchase – to deviate from our mental or physical shopping list.

The best advice – stick to your guns and your shopping list. Ignore the large shelf signs and navigate right around those stand alone product displays. Your wallet will love you for it.

Update: This article was included in the recent Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by the ManvsDebt personal finance blog.

Ever wonder why you’re seeing a proliferation of strange pricing at your local supermarket – 3 for $5, 4 for $7, 5 for $5.50, buy 2 get 1 free?

Much of it is related to our mental processing ability and the time of day. 

Let me explain.

We all have our hours of peak mental performance.  For some of us those peak hours of mental performance occur bright and early in the morning. For others peak mental ability occurs during the mid-morning or early in the afternoon.

Each and every one of us enjoys peak mental performance at some point during the day. 

Yet as the day progresses our mental sharpness begins to wane and by the end of the day many of us are not only physically exhausted but mentally exhausted as well. 

Most people shop for groceries in the evening well after their peak mental prime for the day.

Much like the television viewer who is more susceptible to infomercials late at night, as shoppers, we’re much more susceptible to supermarket persuasion in the evening when most grocery shopping is done. 

Grocery stores take full advantage of this fact. It is the very reason supermarket prices often resemble 5th grade math tests – 3 for $7, buy 3 get 2 free, 75 cents off when you buy 3, 4 for $9. 

Your grocery store intentionally makes it difficult for you to determine the price of an individual item, thus making it more difficult to determine if you are getting a deal or not. 

The later in the day you shop, the less likely you’ll feel mentally up to dividing 3 into 7 to figure out the individual cost of an item. At this point its just easier to pick up 3 and pay the $7.

In essence, supermarkets are counting on the fact that once you’re past your mental peak for the day you’ll be less inclined to want to perform math feats during your evening grocery trip. 

So what’s the best way to fight back? Its easy. Just bring a small cheap calculator with you when you shop. Simply slip it into your purse and never be a sucker for supermarket pricing tricks again.

I’ve been writing about how supermarkets are masters of using consumer psychology to get us to buy more than we need to. They frequently use our own assumptions against us.

Take the bulk size version of many products. We assume that we save more when we buy larger sized packages. Yet, grocery stores sometimes use this assumption against us by purposefully pricing a bulk size package more expensively than the smaller size package.

Your typical supermarket is full of these subtle tricks. Yet a few days ago I came across a new “trick” that just took the cake.

I was walking past the frozen food section when I noticed my favorite sinful indulgence on sale – Dove Frozen Ice Cream Miniatures. These heavenly creations contain flavored bite sized pieces of ice cream covered in decadent Dove chocolate.

I’ve forced myself to buy these only when they’re absolutely on sale. So you can imagine my delight as I noticed the numerous red price tags announcing the $3.99 sales price. I picked up my favorite variety –  and went on with my shopping.

A funny thing happened though at the cash register. I generally try to make a mental estimate of how much my purchases will add up to. This time the actual grocery tally and my mental tally didn’t match. It didn’t take long to figure out that the problem was with my Dove bar purchase. Indeed it rang up for the regular price of $5.99 instead of the $3.99 sale price.

In a hurry and not wanting to make a fuss I left the Dove bars behind and exited the store. Yet, on a repeat visit to another store in this national supermarket chain the same thing happened.

This time feeling a little perturbed I went back to the frozen food section. Looking a bit closer I noticed that despite all the red sales tags over most of the Dove bar varieties there was actually no sale sales tag below the particular variety that I had picked up. (There was a sales tag right above my item but it is for the product above the sales tag – see picture bottom right)

Suspecting a new supermarket “trick” I took all 3 varieties of Dove bars shown below to the cashier to have her check the prices. As I had thought two of the three varieties rang up for $3.99, the third (my Dove bar variety of choice) rang up for $5.99!

Quizzically I asked the cashier why a different price for essentially the same product. Her blank expression made me realize that she had no idea as she tried to come up with a plausible explanation.

Here is my theory. Certain grocery store chains have realized that if we see several variations of a particular product on sale that we assume all the variations of that particular product are on sale. This is  especially true when we see the variety we want surrounded by a sea of red sales stickers.

Assuming the variety we pick up is on sale we simply toss it into our shopping cart.  I’m guessing that the supermarket is betting  we won’t even notice that we’ve paid full price for an item that we actually thought was on sale, walking out of the store none the wiser.

Yet this wasn’t the first time that this type of “trick” stung me at this particular supermarket chain. Another instance occurred when I was shopping for a brand of microwave popcorn on sale.

It seems that all the variations of the microwave popcorn (kettle corn, light butter, heavy butter, etc) were on sale except for one. With all the red sales stickers it was extremely easy to  pick up the one variety of microwave popcorn that was not on sale.

The lesson – you have to be on guard when grocery shopping. Supermarkets are becoming sneakier in their attempts to separate us from our money. Check and double check that the actual item you’re picking up is actually on sale.

Grocery stores have become masters of consumer psychology and use their knowledge about our purchasing behavior to get us to buy more than we need. Supermarkets frequently take our assumptions and use these very same assumptions against us. 

Cases in point:

We assume you save more when you buy in bulk.  Yet, in some cases, supermarkets purposefully price a bulk size package more expensively than the smaller size package. 

We assume products with large handwritten signs attached to them are on sale. Grocery stores purposefully place these handwritten signs on items which are, in fact, not on sale. In some cases, these products are the ones the store is actively trying to get rid of. 

We assume that the products on sale at end-aisles or end-caps are great bargains.  Supermarkets use this to their advantage. Products displayed at the end of an aisle (end-caps) are frequently higher priced versions or brands of a similar product that can be found much cheaper in the middle of the store aisle. 

For this reason, be careful when you’re in the store and see a “limit sale” – a sale in which you’re only allowed to buy a limited quantity of the item on sale. Our natural tendency is to think because we are limited in the number of items we can buy at this “special” price that this must be a great deal. In some cases it is. 

In other instances, however, the supermarket again uses our assumptions against us. In our rush to scoop up our allotment we may fail to notice whether or not we’re actually getting a significant discount. Alternatively, the item may be one the store is trying to clear from its inventory because of a rapidly approaching expiration date. The product in the limit sale may even be a more expensive brand that the store is having trouble selling. 

So what should you do the next time you see an item on sale but with a limit to the amount you’re allowed to buy?

First and foremost don’t automatically assume that you’re getting a great deal. You may or may not be. Check the sale price against the regular price. Is the discount significant? Is this an expensive brand? Can you find a much cheaper brand in the supermarket aisle and save even more money? Finally, don’t forget to check the expiration date of the product. 

“Limit sales” can provide great bargains but you must be careful before quickly grabbing your allowed allotment.

The other night I was in my local grocery store looking to buy some milk and other essentials. As I flew down the cereal aisle to get to the diary section, I stopped in my tracks noticing this strange looking price on a box of Kelloggs cereal.

I don’t know why I stopped to look but the price was just bugging me – $3.01 As I stood in the middle of the aisle I kept asking myself why $3.01? Wouldn’t $2.99 be more appropriate, or even $3? What’s with that extra penny?

Then it hit me. There was no particular reason for the extra penny in the $3.01 price. The store set the price at $3.01 to deliberately to cause me to do what I had done. To make me to stop in my tracks. Let me explain.

Every single space in your supermarket is designed to get you to buy. Grocery stores have mastered consumer psychology to get us to purchase items we never intended to. In fact, studies indicate that between 40-60% of all of our store purchase are impulse buys.

Grocery stores understand that we go into the store with a specific list, whether mental or physical, of the things we want to buy. We develop a sort of tunnel vision with our sights set on obtaining what we need.

Supermarkets look for every chance to break this tunnel vision. They want you to pay attention to something you didn’t have your mind on when you entered the store. They purposefully set out to distract you, to make you lose focus. Have you ever gone into a store for a few items and come out with a cart full of items? Then you know exactly how powerful this distraction can be.

Supermarkets have devised an impressive arsenal of ways to snap us out of our tunnel vision – to get us to pay attention to something we wouldn’t have thought of when we walked in.

The most common are sales items with phrases like “sale”, “bargain”, “special”. Yet, we can become immune even to these sales signs and stickers. Next tactic – small sales flags which stick out ever so slightly from the store shelf hoping to break your tunnel vision. If a consumer is immune to these sales tags, why not try plastering a product advertisement right on the supermarket floor. Shopper tunnel vision still not shattered, stores have stand alone displays in their arsenal. These small product containing displays jut out ever so slightly into our walking path causing us to take notice.

Now supermarkets seem to have added another tool into their arsenal. The price itself!

We are awash with prices ending in even numbers, or in 5’s, 7’s and 9’s. Think $1.99, $3.95, $ 4.95, 2 for $4, 3 for $10, $2.99, 3.49, $4.97, $5.95, or $2.00

Then along comes a price like $3.01. It just doesn’t fit into the normal pattern. It doesn’t want to seem to play along with the others. Like the girl with the punk hairdo and nose ring at the opera it begs to be noticed. And noticed it is. This is exactly what your supermarket wants you to do. They have interrupted your tunnel vision. They have temporarily taken your mind off of what you intended to buy.

So in the future it seems that we can expect more atypical prices. More $2.17, $4.01, $1.16, and $1.53s. Next time don’t try to figure out why they are priced that way. Take it for what it is, another in a long line of supermarket distractions designed to get you to buy more than you intended.

If you haven’t used a Redbox video kiosk at your local supermarket recently then you’re missing out on one of the best entertainment deals around. These red kiosks allow you to rent new release videos for only $1, yes really $1.

The kiosks are simple to use. Just swipe your credit card and select a movie which is vended in a plastic protective sleeve. Return the video to any Redbox kiosk in the country the next day and your card is charged $1 plus tax. Want to keep the video an extra day. No problem. When you decide to return it, Redbox charges you $1 for each day that you’ve kept the video.

Redbox is such a deal that I’ve become an addict as have thousands of others. But despite this great service there’s a hidden cost that many of us aren’t even aware of.

You see when you rent a video, you have to return it.  Sounds obvious – but what rented videos do, in effect, is force us to make a repeat trip to the supermarket.  Personal finance experts say the key to savings at the grocery store is limiting the amount of trips you make.

This is because each and every time you enter a store you’re likely to make an impulse purchase.  In fact, studies reveal that between 40% to 50% of our purchases at a supermarket are impulse buys!

The toughest job for the supermarket is to actually get you into the store.  This is one of the reasons that they commonly advertise “loss leaders”. These are extremely cheap products that are often sold at a loss to the store. Loss leaders lure you into the store where you’ll purchase additional merchandise.

When you rent a $1 video out of a Redbox machine you have committed yourself to a return visit.  In essence, cheap videos act like a loss leader to lure you back to the supermarket, where you’re inclined to make impulse purchases.

Yet it isn’t just Redbox video rental kiosks that act as supermarket lures. A variety of non-grocery services are used by grocery stores to get you inside their doors.

Coinstar change machines that convert our change into dollar bills and gift cards are one example. Many supermarkets feature huge floral departments that rival florist shops.  Grocery stores commonly offer propane exchange centers, dry cleaning services, photo developing, postage stamps, and even US postal service mail drop boxes.

Each and every one of these services is designed for one thing – to lure you into the supermarket where you’ll buy additional groceries, many of which you had no intention of purchasing.

So should you abstain from your $1 video rentals, your propane tank exchanges, or your convenient photo developing? Absolutely not. Just remain cognizant of the fact that your grocery store is expecting you to make impulse purchases when you use these services. Simply refuse and keep more money in your pocketbook.

We all love the thrill of getting a great deal. A sense of pride overwhelms us when we get 50% off a purchase. Yet, grocery stores have learned how to play this love for the deal against us.

They have conditioned us to expect a great bargain whenever we pick up an item that has a bright red sale sign in front of it. But as we’ll see this habit can be dangerous to our wallet.

Let’s take a look at a basket of goods that an average shopper might purchase:
shredded cheese, cookies, waffles, orange juice, syrup, cereal, ravioli, trash bags, and spaghetti.

All of these items were recently on sale at a suburban Chicago supermarket. Now if we take a closer look we see that we did indeed get a great deal on some of our products.

We saved between 44% – 50% on each of these items. Truly great deals. But lets take a look at some of the other sale items in our basket.

The savings now don’t look so great. Only 10% – 11% savings. The savings on the rest of the goods in our basket were even worse.

On these items we saved a measly 5% and quite frankly a 5% savings is hardly worth the effort.

The lesson …. Before you instinctively pick up a sale item, compare the sale price with the original price to see if you’re truly getting a great deal. If you can’t save at least 30%, put the “sale” item right back on the shelf.

Anatomy of a Sales Trap – Example 2

In our previous Anatomy of a Sales Trap we discussed several methods stores use to increase impulse purchases. Today we analyze another supermarket sales trap – the stand-alone display. Lets take a quick look at how such a stand-alone display works.

The product – Quaker Oats Chewy Protein Bars.

In Store Speed Bump

Ever wonder why there are no clocks in grocery stores? Supermarkets know this simple fact – the more time you spend in a grocery store, the more you’ll buy. (Clocks remind you of how much time you’ve actually spent in the store).

Supermarkets have devised many more ways to get you to slow down, including placing strategic “speed bumps” in their aisles in the form of stand- alone displays. They realize customers often have “tunnel vision”, going up and down aisles looking only for those items on their lists.

Stand alone displays are attempts to break this tunnel vision and get customers to notice products they might have otherwise sped right past.  Its hard not to notice this Quaker Oats display that juts out ever so slightly into your walking path.

Playing on Your Senses

Grocery stores love to play on your senses.  Its well known that shoppers buy more when they’re hungry.  The bright colors of the display draw you in. The product is placed in easy reach. Marketers have learned that you are much more likely to buy a product if you touch it. Notice the large picture of chewy protein bar on the stand-alone display. The product close-up plays on your appetite. If you’re hungry or in the mood for a quick snack, this product may be just the thing you need.

Imposter Sales Signs

The large price sign on the bottom of the display clearly states the price of $3.45.  So large is the sign and so boldly displayed is the price, that you automatically assume that the item is on sale.

Now here’s the trap ….

Grocery stores have learned from studying years of consumer data that your average shopper simply assumes that products with large price signs are actually on sale. But upon closer inspection, nowhere on the stand-alone display does it state that this item is on sale.

In fact, if you travel two aisles over you’ll find the same exact product on the store shelf for the same exact price of – $3.45 !!

Lesson - Be very weary of stand-alone displays.  These displays often promote items you’d never have thought of buying in the first place.  Consider that the manufacturer has to actually pay supermarkets extra money to place these displays in their stores. This cost of course is passed on to you in the form of a higher price.   Be especially careful as these stand-alone displays often give the impression that an item is on sale when its actually not!