Grocery stores, supermarkets and department stores

Grocery stores, supermarkets and department stores

Grocery stores, supermarkets and department stores are well designed to play psychological tricks based on your habits:

Healthy fresh food is put near the entrance of the store. The theory is that if you buy healthy food at the beginning of your shopping trip, you’ll be able to justify buying Oreo cookies placed at the end (additionally after passing by loads of delicious looking food you’ve likely already depleted your willpower by this point). This makes you spend more overall, and over time, you develop a habit of loading up your cart with a full range of goods.

Most people turn right after entering a store, so higher margin items are placed to the right.

People’s habits do suddenly change and most often after major life events. Even though your personal habits have changed, they change in a predictable way. For example, if you’re expecting a baby, you’re likely to suddenly start buying vitamins and unscented lotion.

Retailers track all your buying behavior through your credit cards and rewards cards. They can then detect your buying patterns and send you customized newsletters with deals unique to you to get you back into the store. For instance, if Target thinks you’re likely to be in your third trimester of pregnancy, it’ll send you discounts on diapers and baby clothes. This will get you into the store, and you’re likely to buy food and housewares along the way.

However, this can’t be done too, obviously. Because buying pregnancy items is new to you, it contradicts your previous habits and pointing it out is especially salient. It’d be creepy to get a coupon book full of baby formula coupons when you haven’t even announced that you’re pregnant.