Subliminal Influence at the Supermarket: Part Three

This is the third article in a four-part series: read part one and part twofirst. In this third part, I examine the psychological techniques supermarkets use to get us to spend more money in their stores.

From the moment you enter a supermarket, you are surrounded on all sides by products, offers and colourful signage. Even before you enter, there are large, bright windows at the front and automatic doors designed to make entry as easy as possible. Low-value goods such as newspapers and flowers (which a manger told me were perceived to enhance the image of the store) are placed right inside the entrance in the ‘transition zone,’ for this is where customers entering the store begin to slow their pace and focus on shopping. Retail psychologist Paco Underhill claims that it takes a stretch of about ten feet before a customer becomes fully engaged and ready to shop. Some larger stores now place product displays outside the main entrance to try and shorten this transition zone, attempting to ensure that customers are fully switched on the moment they step through the door.

The less we have to think about what we are doing, the more suggestible our subconscious mind is.

The conclusions of previous research show that it is much easier to resist influence and persuasion in this way if you know how it is being carried out.Subliminal influence relies on the target being unaware that such stimuli exist, and knowing what to look out for means messages that would previously go straight to the subconscious (‘unnoticed’) are registered in the conscious awareness (‘noticed’). If one can train oneself to spot such things, thereby registering them in their conscious mind, they can be consciously avoided — or at least, we are able to make the decision as to whether or not we avoid them more easily.

One of the biggest challenges with this is that food shopping at the supermarket is a relatively low-involvement activity: doing the weekly shop does not require significant conscious brain activity. This means that most things a person sees, hears, feels and experiences goes straight to their subconscious. This is similar to the ‘cocktail party effect ,’ except that nothing registers as significant in a person’s conscious awareness. Research suggests that this is no coincidence, either; the less a person has to think about what they are doing, the more suggestible their subconscious mind is. Underhill posits that it is for this reason that supermarkets are laid out in a way which appears easy to navigate, arranged in aisles with helpful signage directing you to what you want to find.

The Secrets of Supermarket Strategy. Image © The Independent.

Shop quicker, buy less 

If you’ve ever found it hard to find the things you were looking for in a supermarket, you may have just thought that you weren’t looking hard enough.But it turns out this could be a deliberate ploy to get shoppers to buy more. Tim Magill, one of the designers of the Mall of America, admitted in an interview, “We want you to get lost.” American malls are a very different environment to a British supermarket, but in Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping , Paco Underhill agrees with Magill’s sentiment. He posits that the longer shoppers walk around a supermarket, the more exposed they are to other products, and the higher the likelihood is of them making extra unplanned purchases, or ‘impulse buys.’ Herb Meyers, CEO of former New York corporate identity firm Gerstman+Meyers claims that, “About 80% of consumer choices are made in store and 60% of those are impulse purchases.” For this reason, supermarkets aim to slow shoppers down and encourage them to spend as much time in there as possible.“Consumers don’t mind because they still perceive the store as being easy to navigate,” an insider told me.

The store changes its layout every six months with no purpose other than to confuse shoppers.

I spoke to this insider further about the techniques supermarkets employ. He told me, “Manufacturers negotiate deals directly with retailers to get special placement because they know this will encourage purchasing. People often buy the first brand of product they see.” This has the potential to mislead shoppers, as they may choose to spend more money on featured products believing that they are of a better quality or have a specific selling point, when in fact they are only featured because their manufacturers have paid for them to be so. Similarly, promotional offers and discounts are another way stores persuade people to buy particular products. “Most people believe, quite logically, that offers and promotions like 2-for-1 save us money, when in fact they just make us buy things we might not otherwise have bought — just because we believe we’re getting a good deal. Sometimes we don’t even get a getter deal. Most of the time this type of offer is applied to items close to expiry, so one of them goes to waste anyway.” Offers like this can have both positive and negative impacts for the shopper. On the positive side, the consumer is getting more product for their money than would otherwise be possible without the offer. On the other hand, the consumer is persuaded to buy more product than they actually need.

Essential items such as milk and bread, which shoppers return for regularly, are often placed at the back of supermarkets, I was told, and this is so that the consumer must pass through aisles of other non-essential items to reach them, increasing the chance of impulse buys. I spoke to an employee of one of the Big Four supermarkets to see if this was true, and he suggested that store layouts are often more influenced by logistics. “I’m not involved with the layout of the store, but I know that we place dairy items towards the back of the store as this is the area closest to where deliveries of stock arrive,” he told me. “It aids quick stock turnarounds, which is important as this kind of produce has a short shelf-life.” He did however admit that the store changes its layout every six months with no purpose other than to confuse shoppers; “As far as shoppers are concerned, it’s just a design refresh.”

Paying for convenience 

That being said, supermarkets are also designed to maximize sales from those in a hurry. Products a store are keen to sell more of, usually well-known brands and those with high profit margins, are placed in the middle of shelves in the consumer’s general line of vision, while cheaper products are placed lower down where people are less able to see them at a glance. The paper also mentions that special product displays at the end of aisles draw shoppers’ attention to certain products and ensure that there is no place they can look where they won’t see something they can buy. I found that items that are commonly bought together are often placed close to each other on shelves, as well as separately in their respective aisles.

I visited several supermarkets with entertainment sections that stocked DVDs.Every one of these stores had accompanying displays of chocolate and sweets (in addition to a dedicated confectionery aisle) but in two cases, the different items located closely together in the entertainment section were sold for higher prices than exactly the same items in a different part of the store. In effect, this shows that consumers will pay more for convenience, even if they aren’t aware of it.One website claimed that cheddar cheese can cost up to 30% more when displayed in the deli section versus the dairy section, but I did not find this when I checked for myself in the same stores.

One of the simplest and perhaps most well-known of all the techniques used to influence how much we buy is pricing. Items with prices ending in ‘99’ (such as £4.99) deliver higher unit sales volumes than a price just one penny higher (e.g. £5.00), says Tim Smith, managing principal at Wiglaf Pricing. “These prices tend to imply discounts, and it is for that same reason that high-end restaurants always use prices ending in zeroes.” This technique takes advantage of the speed at which the human mind works and the instinctive habits consumers fall into when shopping, he explains. “Busy consumers will try to make decisions based on value, and since we read from left to right, the most important numbers are always on the left. So you’re more likely to notice the first number when something is £4.99 and think it’s a much better deal than £5 because four is less than five. Your mind discards the rightmost digits to save mental energy and time.”

Atmospherics 

The term ‘atmospherics’ was coined by American academic Philip Kotler and initially defined by him as, “the effort to design buying environments to produce specific emotional effects in the buyer that enhance his purchase probability.” Kotler argues that, “The tangible product … is only a small part of the total consumption package … One of the most significant features of the total product is the place where it is bought … In some cases, the atmosphere of the place is more influential than the product itself in the purchase decision. In some cases, the atmosphere is the primary product.”

While one may not at first consider a supermarket as having ‘atmosphere,’ Kotler’s theory can be readily applied to many high street stores. Apple’s retail outlets are clean, bright and spacious, providing visitors with space to try out and feel the products on offer.An ex-Apple employee claimed that employees were encouraged to speak with new customerswithin two minutes of them entering the store.Jack Wills and Abercrombie and Fitch stores are renowned for their low lighting levels, loud music and strong scent which a staff member told me is supposed to create a homely feel.

Many of these factors also apply to the supermarket. Space is one of the most important: aisles are almost always wide enough to avoid what Paco Underhill calls the “butt-brush” effect:

“It seemed clear that shoppers don’t like being brushed or touched from behind.They’ll even move away from merchandise they’re interested in to avoid it.” 

Playing background music in supermarkets too is thought to improve the image of the store and make both employees and customers happier. One study found that managers also expressed the belief that it led consumers to purchase more.70% of customers in a survey of 560 also said they preferred shopping in stores that played background music, and 63% said they “probably purchased more” as a result. The majority of people attributed this to belief that stores with background music cared more about their customers.