Infographic: Grocery Store Spending Traps

[LWPD]

Marketing tactics are a part of any business, including the places where people buy their food. From the premium of eye level placement, to gaming portion sizes, this infographic looks at some of the most common techniques used by supermarkets to get customers to spend extra money. Use these counter measures to save time and money.

Courtesy of DailySavings.AllYou.com
Infographic: Grocery Store Spending Traps

"Looking for ways to save money on groceries? Start by knowing when grocery stores are tricking you into spending more money than you intended, and adjust your shopping strategy accordingly. "

[pikemojo]

This is interesting but I can definitely get cheaper sliced deli meat prepackaged rather than going up to the deli counter. The quality isn't the same but if you are going only off of price I can do much better in prepackaged meat.

Some are also pretty silly comparing the level of work in creating a pasta sauce using tomatoes, red wine, veggies and herbs when I can buy a generic jar of sauce for $2.

Other than that it is very interesting. Funny thing is I would think that nobody could possibly round $9.99 down to $9 instead of up to $10 but my wife does exactly that with every purchase.

[LWPD]

Jun 2, 2012 22:17:01 GMT -5 pikemojo said:

Funny thing is I would think that nobody could possibly round $9.99 down to $9 instead of up to $10 but my wife does exactly that with every purchase.

Even the most savvy of shoppers can fall for psychological pricing. Studies show that people who shop are often in a hurry, so they quickly process costs from left to right, and then estimate while ignoring the impact of the cents. So for marketing purposes, pricing the max just under a dollar (.99) works as well as any pricing just below it.

Another common trick is the use of price points, where the 'cost' of an item will remain the same for long periods of time, but the content of the product (ie. serving amount, quality of ingredients) will be adjusted to create more gross profit. It's an easy trick to pull off, because a can, bag or box will appear identical in its previous size, but have 'less' or something 'different' inside, which can't be discerned until after the purchase is already made. With people being creatures of habit, even then it can pass through without detection. When a price point is finally changed, its often marked up to the next psychological threshold ($x.99).