With a possible recession looming over our heads, it is important to stretch our money as far as possible for buying the things we need such as food to stay afloat. For this purpose, it helps to be better prepared to understand supermarket strategy to avoid impulse buying instead of falling into some of these clever marketing traps we all are susceptible too.
If you intend to protect the money that you allot for food, then it is necessary to write a list of what foods you need before entering the supermarket. This way temptation won’t enter the picture. You’ll be able to pick up only what you may need instead of grabbing an item to later find that you have the same food product or products in your refrigerator or in the pantry.
To further narrow that list, you could also plan your meals first for the week. You may think it’s a waste of time, but it can keep your grocery bill on track while saving additional time later when you need ideas of what to cook for dinner since those meals are already planned out.
For those occasions that you only need one item such as a gallon of milk, it is to your advantage to avoid taking a shopping cart. You’re much better off by heading directly to the item and heading to the checkout counter. Otherwise, you are putting your wallet at risk because you may pass displays with delicious looking cakes, pies, cookies or whatever food vices that you have as well as end cap items to load up in the cart.
The displays before you pay for your food is like navigating through a dangerous mine field. You have candy bars and packages of cookies, a rack of magazines, books to coolers with sodas, juices to ice cream just waiting to lure a hungry shopper in while standing in line. This can cost you unneeded extra cash and add weight to your figure.
Food sampling at the supermarket ceased through the pandemic, but it is coming back. Getting customers to taste food products is another supermarket strategy in play that you want to avoid if you hope to save more money. After all, we often just find that sample tasty and add the product that is usually at the same table with the demonstrator into our shopping cart.
Another supermarket strategy is placing the new, and more expensive items up front on the shelves with the sometimes lower priced ones in the back. They also like to put the higher priced brands within easy reach and reserve the bottom shelves or the last shelf for the generic brands. Think of the cereal aisle in your own grocery store as an example.
Try not to overfill your shopping cart to full capacity. The reason is that you should watch the checkout process carefully that you are paying the right price, especially if purchasing a sale item that may have not been entered into the scanner yet, for accuracy. After you arrive home, then do yourself another favor by examining your receipt. Sometimes, there are mistakes or even a missed food item. Call the manager, save the register tape and correct it the next time that you’re in the supermarket.
Being aware of the marketing strategy that a supermarket uses to entice customers into many more purchases can help you better avoid them in the future. You also may want to read my earlier post with more on supermarket tricks to stay alert too.
