3 Sales Techniques You Won’t Believe You Still Fall For
Avid shoppers all have their own tips and tricks to find the best sales and save the most money. These may range from knowing the best seasons to buy certain things and avoiding the impulse rack. However, retailers know them just as well and are always finding subtle ways to get you to open your wallet and shell out money for things you don’t want. Here are a few tips and tricks shoppers can keep in mind the next time you’re out scoping the best deals.
It’s all in the Layout
Supermarket chains are definitely guilty of overdoing the impulse rack. They have impulse aisles these days. A savvy shopper though can usually see right through that and so to fight back, they’ve devised another ingenious method of getting you to spend more. It’s all in the layout of their stores. Studies have shown that putting fresh items near food tricks us into thinking the food we see is fresher and better quality. So, when you enter a supermarket, often the first thing you’ll see is two-fold: fresh plants and hot lunch items. The hot lunches are something you might skip over in favor of making your own fresh food, but when you take in the freshness of the flowers or produce in front of you, you’re much more inclined to grab a quick ready-meal from the deli counter.
If Everything’s on Sale, Nothing’s on Sale
Big department stores like Sears and Kmart are pretty much known for having their wares on sale indefinitely. In Canada, Winners pretty much prides itself on having those designer items at big box prices. It’s been a popular practice to mark up items unreasonably and then slash them back down to their original price under the guise of being on sale. It’s important to note that when they say 50% off, they don’t really ever tell you what the original price was. It tricks us into thinking we really are getting a big deal when in actuality, we’re paying closer to the actual full price. WalMart produces this effect by changing the ends of their prices to weird numbers that we aren’t used to seeing. It looks like it must be undercutting something and we figure it’s a deal – even if the savings really are only three cents.
Buy One Get One Even if You Didn’t Need Two
Junior stores are notorious for this and are constantly putting on promotions of buy one get one, or 3 for $10, or buy two get the third half off! They have a lot of iterations of the deal, but it all boils down to the same thing. If you buy more than one item, you’ll save money! It’s really just a ramped up version of the coupon, where if you offer somebody a way to save money, they’ll buy something they probably didn’t need in the first place. Clothing stores though, go all out and almost make you feel like a sucker if you don’t leave with at least one extra item. Consider the savings! Well, just remember that one is always cheaper than two.
There will always be spins on the impulse rack at the cashier, meant to make you beef up your basket before checking out, but even if you’re wise to that, there are other ways to get you to impulse buy at the checkout. It takes a little vigilance and a little bit of thought, but if you keep an eye on those retailers, you’re bound to keep your money intact.
