Comments on: Psychological Supermarket Tricks That Make Us Spend

By: Charlie@PaylessForFood.com

Charlie@PaylessForFood.com — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:00:05 +0000

Mary

That’s a pretty sneaky. I guess I’ll have to start checking the product sizes more carefully from now on.

By: Mary

Mary — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:13:16 +0000

Be careful of food displays. Recently, Fry’s (in Arizona) had a display of Chees-Its right inside the door, and coincidentally had Chees-Its in their sale ad. We picked up 2 boxes from the display, only to discover when we checked out that the display contained larger sized packages than those in the sale ad.

Deceptive marketing if you ask me.

By: Charlie-PayLessForFood.com

Charlie-PayLessForFood.com — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:35:15 +0000

Haverwench,

Thanks for stopping by. I don’t necessarily disagree with you. As I pointed out in the article often these “limit sales” are a good deal. My point is that you should always check out such a sale before reflexively placing items in your cart.

By: haverwench

haverwench — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:19:37 +0000

I don’t think it’s true that the only reason stores limit quantities of sale items is to make people think they’re a good deal. When we buy a sale item and quantities are limited, it usually *is* a good deal–so good that it’s almost certainly a loss leader for the store. They are selling that item at a loss as a way to get people in the door in the hope that they will go on to do the rest of their weekly shopping at the same time. However, since they are losing money on every sale of that item, they don’t want someone coming in and filling up a whole cart with it–so they put a limit on how much each customer can buy. It isn’t psychology, it’s economics.

By: Charlie-PayLessForFood

Charlie-PayLessForFood — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:28:15 +0000

@ Steve – Don’t you love those phrases like “We’ve Slashed Prices” – Yeah they slashed them a whole 5 cents or in your case not at all. Wonder how they get away with this.

@ Debi – Wow that’s a new low. I’ll have to watch out for it the next time I shop. Thanks for the info.

By: Debi

Debi — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 03:18:08 +0000

I purchased two bags of tortilla chips at Wal-mart some time ago that had the “2 for $…” price gimmick. You know 2 bags for a special “low” price.
They were priced at 2 bags for $3.00. In actuality one bag was cheaper than $1.50 around $1.25-$1.30. (Can;t remember the exact price.) So you buy 2 bags thinking that is a great deal, when in reality they get you to not only buy 2 bags, but more than 2 bags would actually cost. Gotcha again!!!!

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:57:35 +0000

I expecially admire the “super-sucker sale”!
I see these wallet leaches at Albertson’s and subsids like Acme. You see these shelf tags in bright — usually red with yellow — graphics with “We’ve Slashed Prices” type phrases. But on closer inspection, or if you know your prices, you realize that the price is the same as it was last week, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, and will probably be the same in weeks to come, ignoring price changes due to wholesaler’s increases.

By: Carnival of Pecuniary Delights #26 - The Race to the World Series Edition | StupidCents

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:15:45 +0000

[...] Charlie from Pay Less For Food presents Psychological Supermarket Tricks That Make Us Spend. [...]

By: Lonzo

Lonzo — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 22:07:19 +0000

I hate it when grocery stores put only certain varieties on sale. For example, the regular and blueberry bagels will be on sale but the raisin bagels will not. Frustrating.

By: Charlie@PayLessForFood.com

Charlie@PayLessForFood.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:24:39 +0000

Dee.

Good point. I know exactly what you mean! I’ve noticed that Walgreens does this a lot as well.

It also happens frequently with handwritten signs that they’ll place on certain items to make it look like a clearance item. When you check the regular price its the same as the handwritten price.