Are you tricked into buying things you didn't want?
Ever walked into a shop and bought things you didn’t even go in to buy? And in the process spend much more than you intended to in the first place?
It might be due to some things the shop owners use to trick your mind into wanting things they want to sell to you. Let’s talk about some interesting ones today.
Placing cheap items near checkout: Small things like chocolates, candies, chewing gums, socks, etc. are purposely placed near the checkout counters. You’ve taken a lot of decisions about buying all the things you wanted during the visit and you’re more likely to just take these small things and put them into your cart at the end or while you’re standing in the lines since these are “cheap” things.
Offering large-sized shopping carts: In recent years, it has been noted that shopping cart sizes have become “super-sized” so that you’re tricked into feeling you haven’t purchased enough stuff.
Placing expensive items at eye level (and the ones with low-profit margins on the upper or lower levels): Obviously, shop owners want people to buy the items with the biggest profit margins in all types of goods. Placing these items at easy-to-see and reach places is a logical solution to that.
Keeping necessities at the back end of the store: Things like meat, milk, cheeses, etc. which people need to buy for sustenance or other needs are kept strategically at the back so that you have to cross all the other sections of the store before getting to them, which may make you buy some other things on your way.
Prices not rounded-off: You might have seen prices for things like shirts or t-shirts at Rs. 599 or Rs. 999. Why not just put Rs. 600 and Rs. 1000 on these? It is intentional. Humans tend to think “nine-ending” numbers are associated with discounted prices or better deals. Plus, the “left-digit effect” also comes into play: we pay attention to the number on the left of the 9s, so the number 599 might seem close to 500 rather than 600 if you don’t pay close attention.
Sale prices are actually lowered from marked-up prices: You might have suspected this sometimes. What stores sometimes (or maybe always, who knows) do is that the sale prices that are put up after striking off the “previous” prices are reduced not from the original prices but artificially marked-up ones.
Countdown timers for deals: This is typically geared to activate the FOMO inside us. We all know sale after sale is introduced every few weeks, if not days at most stores, but still when we’re ordering things we fall into the trap of ordering something now to avail the discounts, instead of later when we might have to pay a bit more, even if we have no use for the product until later.
Now if you’ve read some of my previous relevant articles, you’d know that I don’t condone penny-pinching at all. I’m in favour of spending money on things you like, provided you’re not decimating your bank account to do so. But spending on things you didn’t need or want before somebody put them in front of you hardly seems good for you.
So stay aware, and if you want to read more from me, you can go here. And do let me know if you want a specific topic covered. Subscribe for free to receive more posts like this every day!