Over the years, retailers have perfected their skills to fleece customers of their hard-earned money in a sweet manner. This they do to get people to purchase more goods than they planned to buy.
Thankfully, a good portion of those strategies they put in place to make you overspend is about to be exposed for you to be very careful of them. In this blog post, we’ll be sharing with you, 10 Tricks Retailers Use In Stores And Online To Make You Overspend.
- Cunning sales attendants
Ever wonder why stores have attendants that are extreme in their attitudes? They could either be too warm and patient or too harsh and snobby. It is a trick to get you to overspend after having an encounter with them. The average store will have pleasant attendants whose cheerfulness, attention, and willingness to help you make choices will drive your soft heart into shelling out just a little more money, so as not to hurt their dear souls.
On the other hand, luxury stores have trained one of the meanest attendants you will ever meet. Unless you are a regular customer, chances are you could be treated harshly, and in a way that suggests that the items you admired are beyond your reach. To prove them wrong, you’ll be forced to dig into your pocket or account to buy what you never budgeted for. Talk about the protection of one’s ego from unnecessary bruises.
- Deceptive pricing system
Many retail stores choose to set the prices of items they sell in decimal form. This purposeful tactic could get you to spend more while they lose nothing. By tagging an item $1.99 instead of $2, your mind would register that it is a more affordable deal than if it was $2. In another form, you are made to have the impression that you are buying an expensive article when it ends with .00, like $40.00, etc.
The most popular pricing trick is that of buying in bulk for less. For example, a necktie could sell for $2. To get you to buy more as a good deal, they could tag 5 of the neckties for $6.
- The free shipping trick
This trend online. Retailers are smart to the point of wanting to make your home a warehouse of goods. This they do by cajoling you to buy more items to get free shipping. On a visit to a store’s website, you could see flashing before you, for example, “Free shipping for goods over $35”.
You may not have planned to buy anything above $20, but since it looks fair to buy some more items to avoid paying for shipping, you would have to bow to their order.
- Regular updates in your mailbox
Retailers care a lot about their customer’s satisfaction and deem it right to give you regular updates on new arrivals, goods at discount prices, and goods on popular demand. They do so by sending you an email once you subscribe with your email address.
By checking and clicking on the miniature pictures of the items, you could be lured into building your online shopping cart with goods that ordinarily, you wouldn’t have purchased.
- Using good music to slow you down
The power of music in a retail store should never be underestimated. It is not for want of entertainment that they serenade the environment with good music. They are after your money! By having you shop while soothing music plays softly in the store, you are relaxed to take shopping slowly and easily. Your eyes sweetly dance off to admire and feel items that you may end up buying, which were not on your shopping list. By the time you step out of the store, you would have realized that you have been played. It’s too late, sorry.
- They appeal to your sense of sight
Red is bold and gives an impression that the item needs to be owned by you, or no one else. Pink is sexy and tugs at your romantic heart. Black is masculine, rich, and powerful. Yellow shows freshness, while green and purple bring calmness and relaxation. The role blue plays is to get you to trust the brand. The color choices retailers use in advertising goods or in decorating their stores go a long way to grabbing your overspending attention.
- They arrange goods in a way that will make you see them easily
While placing their pricier items, retailers keep them at an average eye level for customers to notice them easily. Because they are easy to spot, you could be tempted to lift any one of them up to check out. Since it has been established over time that people tend to purchase more of what they feel with their hands, you could buy that expensive item you laid your hand upon.
Also, stores keep everyday goods like milk, yogurt, and chocolates at the back. On your way to getting them, your eyes could dart to and fro to notice items that are not in your budget.
At the payment counter are arranged, chewing gums, magazines, can openers, shoe polishes, and other cheap items which you could grab on impulse while waiting for your turn to pay.
- The use of free samples to catch you
Many classic stores have corners where they offer free samples of products or foods to taste. By going over to see or taste, you could be lured into buying on the spot to make the attendant happy or to further satisfy your already aroused cravings.
- They keep shopping carts and baskets at the entrance
Many have fallen for this trick, time and again. Once you are comfortable with a load carrier, you are unconsciously in the mood to throw as many things as possible into it. Retailers know that, and so welcome you with the carriers in the form of baskets and shopping carts. Worse still, when you are shopping with your child in the cart, or hand in hand with your lover pushing the cart, you are bound to spend more than you ever imagined before stepping out of the store.
- They use personalized adverts
It is creepy the moment you notice recent ads that pop up on your screen as you browse, showing sandals and coats you had once looked through on a store’s website. Fear no more; that online store tracked your cookie as you checked those items and decided to terrorize you with the same or similar items so that you would succumb and buy them someday.
In conclusion, your life will be better if you understand that retailers are after your money. Be watchful and resist the temptation to overspend, especially on things you don’t really need.
Thank you