Last updated on November 22nd, 2016
Going over you budget at your favourite store probably wasn’t an accident. Saving experts reveal how retailers use different tactics and tricks to get their customers to spend more. The following are 10 tips and tricks revealed:
1. Pre-Cut Produce
Watch out for pre-cut produce in order to save money; packaged produce can be double the price. To keep your produce costs down, aim for the whole fruits that are not prepared, do the work at home and prepare it for free.
2. Deli and Bakery Prepared Foods
Alongside with prepared and packaged fruits and veggies, pre-made meals are also available. Thus, many customers pay for the convenience. As tempting as it is to buy a prepared dinner at the grocery store, you’ll save a lot of money by purchasing the ingredients separately, and making it at home. Try meal prepping as well to save time.
3. Sale Items in Bins
Many goods that are on sale are filled into bins. The fullness of these bins creates a feeling of urgency to buy these sale items, as it acts like a treasure hunt shopping experience. To better spend your money, be wary of sale bins, and keep a list of what you actually need to buy – stick to it.
4. Bigger Carts and Bigger Bags
The bigger the shopping cart and bag, the easier it is to grab a bunch of things you don’t need. Next time, instead of taking a giant bag/cart, try going without them, you’ll be surprised in how much you save.
5. Maze Layouts of Stores
The longer a retailer can keep you in the store, the more money you’ll spend. Keep this in mind when shopping in stores with maze-like layouts, or even consider ordering items online.
6. Store Layout Changes
By constantly changing the layout of the store, customers tend to spend more time looking for the item they need, more time spent leads to more time to buy. To avoid this, ask the employees about what you are looking for specifically, by doing so, you will avoid searching throughout the whole store for the item, and buying things you don’t need.
7. Music to Control Your Mood
As weird as it sounds, retailers use music to set the mood of the store, and control the customers energy levels. Thus, many stores play energetic music to get you excited and your energy level up. One way out of this would be to plan your trip in advance, by this we mean with a list and a budget, be keen on sticking to it.
8. Compromise the Price
This tactic involves placing an expensive item next to a cheaper one. Thus, the customer is tempted to buy the more expensive one, but, seeing the less expensive one right next to it, and it being similar, the customer will go for that instead. Now the costumer is left feeling like they got a great deal. However, this was the stores intent, in reality all that happened is it caused the customer to buy this particular item which they were likely not planning on buying it in the first place. To avoid this, research the products before buying, read reviews and compare prices.
9. Bounce Back
This method gets shoppers to come back again. These things involve rewards and points that stores offer in order for you to “save”. To get one of these vouchers, you have to spend a certain amount within a certain time. This is an effective tactic because it complies the shopper to spend that amount of money in a short period of time, rather than shopping for what they need. As well, making the customer want to come back and purchase more because of the voucher. To avoid this, bare this strategy in mind to avoid falling for it, only spend what you intended.
10. Free Shipping
When a website has a deal of spending a certain amount in order to get free shipping, this is where many customers get caught up in the free shipping deal, and forget about what the are actually shopping for. Don’t fall for this. Sometimes it’s okay to pay the shipping fee, if it saves you from over splurging. Make sure you are set on the items you want when shopping online, to avoid adding unnecessary items to your cart to obtain free shipping.
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