Approved Food is all about saving money and reducing waste. Never has it been safer, easier and cheaper to remain inside your own home and shop online.
Venture into the high street and they will control your mind, or at least attempt to.
An average household spends a quarter of its income on grocery shopping. In the middle of a triple dip recession we are all trying to cut back.
Approved Food can save you up to 70% on non-perishable items, but away from www.approvedfood.co.uk on the high streets and retail parks of the nation there is a battle going on for your money that begins in the dark recesses of your own head.
From shop layout, product placement and ambient lighting to the colour of the carpets there is very little high street stores and supermarkets do that hasn’t been carefully engineered, researched and consumer tested.
The sights, your impatience, the smells, your empty stomach, the sounds, your kids tugging at your heart strings and the taste of the try before you buy cheese all combines to betray the only sense you should trust – your common sense.
Every move you make is carefully calculated to maximise the pressure on you to spend. Supermarkets obviously want to make money. British shoppers spent more than £90 billion pounds in supermarkets last year, the equivalent of £1,500 for every single person.
It’s not surprising therefore that the big stores can afford to spend huge sums on consultants and psychologists to influence a customer’s thinking. By understanding the psychological games stores play to lure us all in, we are less likely to lose and leave the checkout with items we didn’t plan to buy and probably didn’t need. We’ve all done it.
Most of us want to nip in, get what we want and return home as quickly as possible. The shoppers aim is to ensnare you inside and encourage you to buy what you need and much more besides.
Stores intentionally move items away from where you are used to finding them as it means you are forced to search and pass other items and offers before finally locating them.
Department stores and others use different coloured carpets to guide you around their shop past the items they most want you to see. Subconsciously people follow the path and when others are going that way the rest of us follow.
Items like bread, milk and eggs are spread around the aisles at the rear of the shop to encourage us to walk through the whole supermarket to find them, picking up other things as we go.
Let’s take a walk around a regular store.
Our brain reacts to smells, visuals and impulses as we wheel the trolley around…
Welcome to the pleasure dome
As you enter the foyer, known in the trade as the ‘decompression zone’, you are immediately encouraged to shop. Friendly staff greet you, the adverts promoting bargains fill the walls, promotional displays block your path and your wallet has already started to loosen.
The decompression zones in clothing or electrical stores are not much different. They house outfit ideas, the latest surround sound home cinema display on special offer.
You are being sucked in and it’s beginning to feel good.
Front Row
Brightly coloured fresh fruit and vegetables, looking more juicy, healthy and appetising in the natural light at the front of the store are usually the first products to catch your eye.
Booze is initially tucked out of sight as first impressions scream healthy. Go on come in and lead the life you know you should says the voice inside your head.
Then the bakery intentionally emits the smell of fresh bread into your nostrils. Cakes follow, then donuts, oh my word!
Your nose tells your brain that your taste buds need feeding. Then you turn a corner and pass the hot chicken and pizza stand. You are going to have to buy some donuts now.
Have you ever thought why these more unhealthy convenience foods come directly after the fruit and vegetables? You have a trolley boasting salad and greenery. It’s the mental pay-off. You know you’ve got more of your five-a-day than you can shake a celery stick at. Just a couple of the stodgier items that follow won’t do you any harm now eh?
Middle Earth
Cans, boxes and cartons fill the central aisles. You have to pass them to reach the staple dairy products, but leave them alone – you can save on what you need from here on www.approvedfood.co.uk.
Dried fruits and nuts appear amidst pricier junk foods. Then you want some meat to cook for dinner? You’ll undoubtedly have to pass cold meats, faster food and nibbles to find it.
In clothing and shoe stores the middle aisles stock their full-priced items. You will have to walk through them to reach the sale items at the rear of the shop. There will be a smattering of great deals and special offers throughout to encourage you to pick them up as you progress.
Check it out
Checkout stands are at the front of the store to force customers to navigate passed all the aisles. If you’ve fallen prey to all of the deals as you’ve circumnavigated the shop you may find your quick trip to buy some bread and milk has ended in two of three bags of expensive items you didn’t really need.
How many of you have bought sweets or magazines for yourselves or your children because they look good and you are passing time as the till beeps at the front of the queue ahead.
These impulse buys are usually only around £1 or £2. It might be a copy of popular magazine which offers you the chance to check out celebrity gossip before adding it to your pile. In other stores the impulse may be to buy batteries, novelty items or lip balm. At clothes or shoe shops there will be rails of cheaper items lining the queue to the till.
Add a few cheaper items in at the last minute and think later whether you really needed them or could afford them.
The line to the till will never be ridiculously long. Ever heard of “buyers’ remorse”? The man queuing with three video games that he can’t really afford cannot be given too much time in line to think his purchase through. Some stores now scan items in the queue before the till to encourage people to keep their choices.
Finally…
Dr James Intrilligator, Senior Lecturer of Consumer Psychologyat Bangor University, says: “It’s no coincidence that supermarkets don’t provide shoppers with clear maps of the store layout, that the names of aisles are often ambiguous or that they keep moving things around. It’s not to improve displays or make shopping more efficient – it’s to keep you lost, confused and receptive to their advertising of premium brands and aspirational products. Shoppers need to think of supermarkets as places where you will be advertised to, they’re not just for our convenience.”
In part two we will look at why supermarkets tell you to BOGOFF and why the offers are not always as good as you think.
We will then look at how high street stores treat men and women differently.
