Food
Supermarket sales tactics
Introduction
Supermarkets are designed to influence your shopping – and they make it difficult to make healthy choices.
Price promotion of unhealthy items, bigger sizes and junk food at the checkout are just some of the ways supermarkets encourage unhealthy choices.
Try our interactive supermarket layout map to see how they try to manipulate your shopping behaviour.
Deliberate design
Supermarkets aren't haphazard things. They are deliberately designed to get you to buy as much as possible.
Marion Nestle in her book 'What to eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices and Good Eating' claims "supermarkets have one purpose only: to sell food and make a profit".
Nestle adds that although you exercise freedom of choice every time you put something in your trolley, massive efforts have gone into making it more convenient and desirable to buy one product over another. The book is written from a US perspective, but there are some similarities to New Zealand supermarkets.
Professor Janet Hoek from the Department of Marketing at Massey University, agrees.
"Supermarkets are highly manipulative environments. The location of products and the ease with which consumers can find particular brands is carefully planned and monitored. Stores are designed to keep shoppers inside for as long as possible, stimulate impulse purchase, and promote high-margin items."
Rent this space
It's not simply a matter of supermarkets positioning foods in the high-traffic spots. If you ever see a product sitting in a prime location, you can be sure the manufacturer or distributor has paid "rent" to be there.
These are known as trading terms and are confidentially negotiated with each supplier.
By offering good deals for the store and consumers, sales increase and store data is used to show one company's products are selling better than a competitor's.
Trading terms may also influence where a product is placed on a supermarket's layout planogram.
This maps, for example, where all the cereals, muesli bars or bottled waters will go. A carefully planned planogram aims to maximise the supermarket's profitability with the best-selling and most profitable products at eye-level. See our interactive supermarket layout plan for more.
Unhealthy impact
Supermarkets can have an impact on your health, through the shopping choices they prompt you to make.
Unhealthy price promotion
Fruit and vegetables make up too small a proportion of price promotions and advertising.
According to a 2005 Ministry of Health report, the total advertising spend by the food industry on chocolate, confectionery and soft drinks was over nine times the amount spent on advertising fruit and vegetables.
Price promotions encourage you to buy more. A US study from the University of Illinois found that people buy more of an item if the sign uses multiple pricing such as "two for $1", rather than "50 cents each". Quantity limits like "four per customer" also promote multiple purchases.
A New Zealand study published in 2006 reported the effect on shoppers of different price discount styles.
One finding was that for goods like tinned spaghetti, which are relatively cheap and easy to stockpile, volume discounting was more attractive than a monetary discount. If using a volume promotion, "buy one get one free" promotions are likely to be more effective than "two for the price of one" promotions.
Supermarkets always have some fruit and vegetables on special, but they rarely have specials encouraging us to buy extra fruit and vegetables.
Big sellers
High-sugar and high-fat big sellers are often priced to encourage you to buy bigger sizes of a product. This encourages you to make financial savings, but these may come at the cost of your and your family's waistline and health.
Take Coca-Cola – there's often a large financial disincentive to buy the smaller bottle of Coke. The same goes for chocolate. It's a lot cheaper for each 50g of chocolate, if you buy the king-size bar.
Gondola ends
The ends of aisles are often the most profitable spots in the store - filled with specials and impulse buys. You'll often see junk food like soft drink, chocolate and chippies on offer.
Supermarkets also entice you to stock up on beer and wine specials.
Unhealthy check-outs
How many times have you given in to your kids at the check-out and bought them a chocolate bar?
An Australian survey showed that 80 percent of responding parents said they were always or sometimes pestered by their children to buy junk food at the check-out.
In UK supermarkets, Waitrose and Tesco, all the checkouts are completely snack- and confectionery-free.
Unfortunately, that's not the case in New Zealand. We'd like to see more confectionery-free check-outs in New Zealand so parents can avoid the pester power.
Loss leaders
Supermarkets, especially those with strong local competition, offer "loss leaders". These are heavily discounted products, advertised to get you in the door. They're sold at or below cost - and the cunning plan is for you to pick up a few extra items while you're buying your bargains.
Our advice
Tips for savvy supermarket shopping
- Make a list and stick to it - it's the key to avoiding impulse buying.
- With specials, check the regular price to see how much you're really saving.
- Check prices and sizes. Smaller sizes sometimes work out cheaper than the larger size.
- Does the special really offer you something? Or is it on a more expensive brand than you would normally buy? Don't buy it just because it's a "bargain".
- Don't go shopping when you're hungry. With a full stomach you're less susceptible to the free samples and promotions designed to tempt you with extra purchases.
- Get to know your local supermarket layout. You'll be able to hone in on the things you really want and avoid the temptations.
Report by Belinda Allan.