Lesson 3 – How companies persuade you to buy
This is the third lesson in the Smart Consumer Skills Guide for Brilliant Kids series. In the last lesson we talked about how to turn the tables on companies who like to make money from you. In this lesson we will talk about how companies persuade you to buy.
If you can understand this, you will able to recognise this and know how to stop it from controlling your thoughts, impulses and emotions - this is what they appeal to in order to make you buy. Companies do not really sell anymore; instead what they do is “pre-sell” i.e. to put you in the comfortable state of mind to make the buying decision easier by making it look like your own decision.
How do they do this? The large companies always show a perceived problem or issue, or a desire that is not being fulfilled, then show you how good the solution to this will make you feel - the solution being their product. Once they have got this message across to you by advertising in the papers, magazines, on television and radio, the rest is about strategically placing the products to get the maximum number of eyeballs on their products.
This just reinforces the pre-sell message - the feel good and must have factor, and you buy. Just think about your journey to the supermarket and what you see when you are there. Companies have spent millions on researching and finding the most optimal placing of products on the shelves.
Here are some pointers for you to look out for on your next visit:
- The store layout and lighting - is laid out in a particular way that you need to follow a pathway around the store. This ensures maximum eyeballing time. The lighting is bright and fresh.
- The store usually starts with the groceries to match a consumer expectation of what the store should be doing. The smell of fresh fruits and the variety of colours is usually has a very positive effect on you.
- The staple products such as bread, milk, butter, cheese, eggs etc, tend to be found either sprinkled around the store or more commonly, at the furthest end of the store, so that you need to pass many other tempting goodies to complete your shopping. Again, this ensures maximum eyeballing time for products.
- If the store has a food area or bakery - delicious mouth watering food smells regularly waft through the store, tempting you to buy more food!
- Eye-level isn’t the best level. The most profitable stock is placed at eye level (or at children’s eye level if it’s targeted at them). Profitable goods for stores tend not to be the best deals for shoppers, so the adage ‘look high and low for something’ really does apply here.
- Not all sales are ‘super!’ While grapes and other attractive products may be placed near the front of a store to entice you in with a genuine bargain - the same signage and displays will be used elsewhere to promote deals, yet these mightn’t be competitive. Bright colours and the word ‘discount or sale’ make us feel good, yet the reduction may be pennies, and other equivalent products which are hidden on the shelf are a better bargain. Here is where term “spend to save” comes from! How can you be saving if you are spending?
- Notice that the sweets and magazines are always by the till. These are impulse buys, so putting them near the till gives the store one last attempt to grab our cash: by appealing to kids so they can nag their parents to buy.
On your next visit to a supermarket or any other store - look at the store from these eyes - from what you can smell, see and hear - everything is geared towards making you spend. Even in an electrical store - the glamorous items are at the back - the TVs and DVDs, the computer games at the front.
You need to keep asking yourself “Do I really need this? Or am I just being tempted to buy something”.
Look at the world in these eyes and you will start to recognise the clever and subtle marketing strategies that companies use. These strategies have been honed to perfection over many years of practice and research.
In our next lesson we will talk about how to overcome these temptations, and in doing so, being a smart consumer.
