Supermarkets: The Psychology Behind Consumer Behavior and Retail Strategies

To achieve the goals described above, it is enough for these specialists to immerse shoppers in a light, trance-like hypnotic state, in which most actions are carried out without conscious control (automatically). Marketers and psychologists deliberately push shoppers to act on a reflex level, choosing precisely those product lines that the retail chain is promoting. Emotions and the desires they trigger in shoppers play a significant role in this. To satisfy the needs that arise in the process, supermarket visitors try to do so precisely by purchasing a larger quantity of goods, many of which they simply don’t need.

One example of this kind of influence can be considered the background music and advertising inserts that seem to play, seemingly detached, throughout the supermarket’s entire operating hours.

Most people don’t pay any attention at all to the music playing in a retail chain. That’s because in every branch belonging to a particular chain, the same familiar compositions play, ones that shoppers simply no longer notice, perceiving them as one of the attributes, symbols associated with that particular store. However, even primitive and unremarkable melodic compositions playing in supermarkets can stimulate the desire to buy certain goods or to buy more. The effect of such methods of influencing visitors shouldn’t be seen as ordinary hypnosis. To a much greater extent, the influence of such methods shows up in the emergence of natural physiological needs and desires (thirst, hunger, chills).

For example, a barely noticeable coffee aroma, deliberately spread through supermarket floors, substantially intensifies a person’s feeling of hunger.

The main task of marketers is to strive to make these kinds of influence on shoppers as imperceptible and unconscious as possible, so that a person perceives the needs that arise in the store as entirely natural, considering them a consequence of their body’s normal functioning. This is one of the criteria for the effectiveness of such specialists’ work. Marketers can confidently call shoppers their pawns, whom they can easily manipulate as they see fit. In most cases, work at a supermarket properly organized by marketers makes it possible to increase its revenue almost fivefold – put simply:

Skillful marketing increases a retail chain’s revenue by nearly 500 percent.

Methods of influencing shoppers make it possible to genuinely manipulate consumers’ actions, pushing them to buy a specific product and to increase the quantity of goods purchased. This happens even to people who make lists in advance, trying to approach the shopping process as rationally as possible. The decisive role in such situations is played not by the shopper’s logic, but by spontaneous (from their point of view) thoughts, emotions, memories, desires, needs. At the same time, the realization that the quantity of goods bought at the supermarket significantly exceeds what was planned very often comes only at home, at the moment of unpacking the grocery bags. To achieve this, marketers working at management companies study in depth how to lull the vigilance of virtually any person while manipulating their emotional state.

All of this becomes possible through the combined influence of color, lighting, aroma, musical and sound background, product placement within the store, and other factors.

The Shopper and Their Behavior in the Supermarket

Several factors simultaneously influence a shopper’s behavior in a supermarket, among which the following can be highlighted:

1. Long aisles in the sales floor.
2. A large assortment of goods on display, which somewhat confuses the shopper.
3. Bright, colorful design of supermarket display windows and shelving.
4. An excess of information about the price range of goods on offer in the supermarket.
5. The presence of both familiar and unfamiliar packaging.

When choosing a product, peripheral vision plays a certain role, through which a person notices products located nearby. The excess of information received this way inevitably disorients a person, putting them into a state of mild absent-mindedness — put simply, into a trance, characterized by slowed perception of information and immersion in memories triggered by the virtually instantaneous action of factors called anchors in psychiatry.

This is how our brain’s natural (involuntary, uncontrolled, reflexive) protection of the body against information overload takes place. Absolutely all people, and most species of highly organized animals with a nervous system sufficiently developed for this, are prone to trance. There can be no exceptions among people for natural (physiological) reasons. Claims that people with, say, mental disorders don’t enter a trance are in most cases mistaken, since such individuals are practically always (depending on their psycho-emotional state) in that very same trance. To an outside observer, this resembles a state of concentration combined with a simultaneous detachment of the person from perceiving the surrounding reality.

The State of Trance From a Physiological Point of View. A Simplified Explanation

The actual manifestation of trance in everyday life, including while in a supermarket, can be described as:

a gaze fixed on a certain object;

noticeably slowed movements;

nearly vanished auditory perception of the surrounding space;

absorption in one’s own thoughts;

slowing of blinking, breathing, and heartbeat;

At the same time, a person’s slowed movements resemble, to an outside observer, purely mechanical actions — put simply, reflexes. In many respects this can resemble so-called “gypsy hypnosis,” which in most cases is caused by that same overload of consciousness brought about by primitive chatter combined with repeated physical touching of the person.

A person in such a state also shows a significant slowdown in the processes of swallowing, breathing, and heartbeat, along with motor inhibition. Sometimes this develops into something close to catatonic stupor — that is, complete immobility comparable to a state of paralysis, caused by extreme tension in most of the body’s muscle fibers.

But such pronounced manifestations of trance are extremely rare in everyday life. On the other hand, a light state of trance can practically be observed every day on public transport, in an elevator, or while browsing any information online…

The mental and emotional perception of a person in such a state can be linked to memories of certain moments in their life. The specific nature of the memories is determined precisely by the particular trigger (anchor) that caused, that brought about, the onset of the trance state. In doing so, the person (the shopper) unconsciously — that is, uncontrollably — carries out their actions, among which one should note the selection of goods located within reach.

An important role here is played precisely by tactile contact with the product, occurring either at this very moment or made a little earlier. It doesn’t matter exactly what it is. Having held any product in their hands, having touched it, a person subconsciously perceives it as their own, which in many cases contributes to the purchase of that product, often bringing the shopper back to a shelf they had already passed.

In the process of choosing food-category products, an important role is played by such a reflex as salivation, which excellently provokes appetite and a feeling of hunger. Even brief tactile contact with a product can make a person purchase it, which often becomes possible even when such a purchase wasn’t planned at all. While in a trance state, a person is especially prone to suggestion from the people and objects around them.

At the same time, a shopper, while in the supermarket, decides to buy a product they liked, considering their decision to be completely conscious, fair, justified, logical, seeing in it no inclination toward outside influence whatsoever. Meanwhile, all a supermarket needs to do is immerse a person in a relaxed state, a state of concentration on selecting desired or necessary goods, a significant portion of which the person will choose even without a pre-made shopping list.

From a physiological standpoint, the light trance state is explained by the partial deactivation of the cerebral cortex responsible for rational behavior and logical thinking, opening the way for emotional perception.

It is precisely at this moment that the shopper’s actions come under the control of those same mysterious subconscious decisions — that is, of nearly automatic (reflexive) actions.

This happens under the influence of the brain’s limbic system, which is responsible for emotional and sensory perception of the surrounding reality. According to physiologists’ interpretation, the human limbic system is capable of storing virtually all emotional reactions, including the specifics of perceiving particular information, as well as the experience of generations. To be more specific, an important role in the functioning of the human limbic system is played by the work of the midbrain, since it is precisely in the midbrain that the neural circuits responsible for forming emotional reactions and emotional perception originate. The nervous system of lizards, crocodiles, and other more evolutionarily primitive animal species functions in a similar way in this respect. Practically from the very moment of their appearance, in dinosaurs among others, the structures involved in the formation and functioning of the midbrain have hardly changed or evolved at all, which is exactly what the extremely primitive behavior of a person in a trance state while shopping in a supermarket demonstrates.

That’s why the key role here is played not even by greed or the desire to save money, but precisely by physiological factors (the work of evolutionarily ancient brain structures, including the midbrain), which determine a person’s behavioral strategy, decision-making, and actions.

Conscious control of a person’s behavior in such situations becomes practically impossible, since it is precisely the midbrain and the entire limbic system that get engaged at the physiological level. A person is also governed by emotions in such moments. At the same time, research conducted by Austrian and Danish physiologists and psychologists confirmed that in nearly 90 percent of cases, when choosing products in supermarkets, a person acts not consciously, but associatively.

Seeing, for example, beautiful fruit on a product’s packaging, we subconsciously perceive it as healthier and safer. It’s precisely for this reason that the color, design, size, and shape of product packaging carry extremely high importance, something a great many people work on, designers included, of course.

The scent of freshly baked pastries makes us, distracted from searching for items on our pre-made list, head toward the bakery or confectionery section, or the fresh-baked-goods section.

The aroma of fried food makes us buy, along the way, the very sauces, ketchups, and seasonings that go with it.

Beautiful, melodic music automatically triggers an association with romantic memories, prompting us to buy chocolate, candy, pastries, cakes, or other sweets.

Thanks to such simple techniques, shoppers’ carts end up containing more products than what was on their pre-made list. The choice of such products is driven precisely by the emotions that arise under the influence of music, aromas, and lighting, with which supermarket floors are always filled.

Controlling and managing the consciousness and actions of a person in a trance state is fairly simple. To do this, it’s enough to act even briefly on all the sense organs, thereby triggering the necessary emotions, while simultaneously storing in the person’s memory the satisfaction derived from the purchase made in that place. This is where the knowledge of neuromarketing is used.

Neuromarketing is a field at the intersection of marketing and physiology that studies the specifics of how a shopper’s brain works, the particulars of human behavior, and the main factors that influence it. Neuromarketing techniques are applied in practically every European, American, and, by now, Ukrainian chain supermarket. This is very convenient, since such methods are refined, tuned down to the smallest detail, and tested many times over.

In neuromarketing, important roles are assigned to scents, lighting, and the color and sound design of supermarket sales floors and other retail spaces. All of the factors listed above can become that same anchor or trigger that sets off the shopper behavior marketers need. For each person, this factor (cause) will be something different, but all supermarket visitors will, in one way or another, be susceptible to the influence of a store’s sound, color, lighting, and scent design. Both men and women, moreover, are practically equally susceptible to this kind of influence.

Sounds and Music on the Sales Floor

When there are relatively few people in the supermarket, calm, measured, and pleasantly rhythmic music usually plays, which makes a person spend significantly more time in the store, moving along its aisles. Even a shopper’s movement in such moments will unconsciously adjust to the musical rhythm, and their steps and pace of movement will vaguely resemble a dance. Absolutely any person listening to music through headphones or, say, in a car, behaves in exactly the same way. This is due entirely to the physiology of our bodies.

In particular, brain neurons in such moments start working in accordance with the musical rhythm imposed on them. Upbeat music subconsciously pushes a person to make more movements, which is why they end up covering more sections of the store.

A properly selected musical background alone, according to neurophysiologists, is capable of increasing sales volume by 40 percent. Music is capable of triggering various sensations in a person, for example, that same thirst or feeling of hunger.

Based on the results of many psychological tests conducted, it has become clear that the vast majority of people choose products guided by their emotions. But technologies and methods that make it possible to embed various desires and needs in a person’s brain have already been refined today. In addition, the right choice of musical accompaniment already helps many supermarkets, for example, significantly reduce the level of theft.

Making a shopping list in advance can’t save someone from aggressive marketing techniques in every situation. Under the influence of such factors, a person can act virtually without control, including making previously unplanned purchases. Most often, such behavior is accompanied by emotions, memories, and associations that arise unexpectedly.

Color and Lighting

Colors and the placement of products on shelves are also important for their marketing promotion. It’s precisely brightly designed shelving, display windows, and sections that can easily catch the attention of shoppers of the most varied age and financial categories.

Probably every person considers themselves a rational, sensible, responsible shopper, not inclined to be influenced by marketers. However, this view of surrounding reality is extremely simplified and naive.

Which categories of goods do marketers associate with emotional and impulsive perception?

Such products can confidently be called things like chips, pastries, sweets… Put simply, various treats. A lack of funds in such moments is almost always compensated for by choosing a more affordably priced product.

The words “promotion,” “discount,” “markdown,” “low price” influence a significant portion of retail chain visitors almost without fail, stimulating them to buy a substantially larger quantity of goods. In doing so, shoppers may quite consciously and deliberately head toward sections with discount price tags, as well as toward the section with goods featured in free promotional flyers.

An important role here is played by the color of the price tag, which may be either red or yellow. This is due to the specifics of human perception.

It’s precisely yellow that, among the entire variety of surrounding objects, the human eye perceives most simply, quickly, and easily. It takes the human brain roughly 50 milliseconds to perceive yellow color tones. The neurons then send the processed information on to that same limbic system. It’s precisely in the limbic system that associations of yellow tones with joy, movement, and warmth arise. Thanks to this, a person develops subconscious trust toward such a product and a desire to purchase it.

The presence of practically any informational add-ons on a product’s packaging, or on an entire section of a store, allows human perception to pick it out from the general “gray mass” and the wide range of products on offer. The same rule applies to “golden shelves,” located at shoppers’ eye level.

There’s clearly no reason to consider the variegated, colorful design of display windows, shelving, sections, aisles, and everything else in chain supermarkets to be random or the initiative of a store’s immediate management. This becomes clear if only from how uniformly product lines are arranged on supermarket shelves. They are displayed in a centralized manner — that is, according to schemes distributed by the department of the company that manages this area.

In supermarkets, one can sometimes even notice a seemingly completely unremarkable black-and-white sheet of paper with some diagrams incomprehensible to shoppers. It is precisely on such sheets that the detailed placement of product lines for each supermarket section is mapped out. Every merchandiser in a supermarket is assigned to one or several sections of the store; they are responsible for stocking them with goods according to a strictly regulated scheme, presented exactly on such sheets of paper.

A well-chosen palette of color tones makes it possible to effectively steer the choice of products made by supermarket visitors, by triggering powerful taste, aroma, visual, and auditory associations and memories in them, which, once again, is linked to the workings of the subconscious — that is, to a person’s actions on a simple reflexive level.

An important role in this kind of complex influence on shoppers is played by informational posters and announcements placed throughout the supermarket, showing appetizing dishes and happy people. For some people, it’s enough just to glance at such a picture for the desire to purchase a similar product to arise involuntarily.

The design of a supermarket’s sales floor and its specific sections is chosen in such a way as to evoke positive emotions in shoppers. This applies both to food sections and to household chemicals sections, and to all other parts of the store. Put simply, the layout of such spaces is done in a manner similar to creating advertising commercials.

Such actions by retail chains prime a person to derive maximum enjoyment from the shopping process, and even from simply visiting the store. Images of appetizing dishes, entirely naturally, intensify salivation, which, once again, heightens a person’s appetite.

But how effective do such techniques and methods actually turn out to be in practice — that is, in real life?

The relatively recently introduced use, in some chain supermarkets, of monitors continuously displaying images and videos dedicated to consuming food products also plays an important role in increasing a retail chain’s overall sales.

Photos and videos depicting luxury and the process of deriving enjoyment from preparing or using a particular dish or product stimulate shoppers to make significantly more purchases.

Scents in Supermarkets

Marketers very often supplement visual elements in stores with a process of organoleptic influence on shoppers. This shows up in scents that can sometimes be noticed in certain sections of supermarkets. This kind of influence also helps intensify appetite and lead to more purchases being made. Coffee-scented fragrances are most often used in such cases. It excellently stimulates the onset of a feeling of hunger, and also distracts a person from other, extraneous smells. After all, it’s no secret that perfumers use natural ground coffee to adequately assess a large number of different scents within a short period of time.

In terms of its effectiveness of influence on a person, smell ranks second after visual perception of information. Information from scent-perception receptors sometimes even turns out to be more important than images or sounds. That’s exactly why scent stimulates a person to unconsciously carry out certain actions much more strongly.

The importance of smell for mammals is well illustrated by the example of cats or dogs, which, upon encountering a new object, first become acquainted with its scent rather than with its tactile or other characteristics. The perception of scent is linked to a person’s associative memory, since it’s precisely aromas that become firmly fixed in it. If you’ve smelled a particular scent even once somewhere, the next time it will inevitably appear familiar to you. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the basis for this kind of perception is precisely the physiology of the human body.

In retail chains, and even on crowded city streets, this is done deliberately. To achieve such goals, compact fragrance dispensers, hidden from shoppers’ eyes, are used in supermarkets. Miniature bakeries may also be used.

Such methods are based on the primitive physiological needs of the human body. As a result of this kind of influence, a person buys significantly more goods than they had initially planned. Scent marketing is based on the use of both synthetic and natural fragrances, which are deliberately spread through supermarket premises. Among the most commonly used are scents of bacon, coffee, baked goods, and fruit smells, such as melon or strawberry. All of these are sold in miniature bottles that are easy to hide from supermarket shoppers’ eyes by placing them near the product shelves.

Using scents as an additional factor of influence on supermarket shoppers increases sales volume by roughly 20 percent. For example, the smells of coffee or chocolate trigger an almost instant need in a person to taste these products — put simply, to physically try them. The effect of fragrance dispensers is nearly foolproof, and when combined with properly configured lighting, background sound, and other factors, avoiding unplanned purchases becomes absolutely impossible. At the same time, every shopper remains convinced of the soundness of the purchase they made.

The people least often subjected to this kind of combined influence are those with a stable psyche and nervous system, characterized by heightened self-control. People with pronounced emotional perception of reality, on the other hand, are the most susceptible to marketers’ influence when visiting supermarkets and other stores and retail outlets. This is due to the combined effect of several stimuli.

The combinations of auditory and olfactory, or auditory and visual, influence turn out to be the most effective in terms of their impact. It’s precisely such combinations that are used in practically every supermarket.

The Supermarket and the Shopper’s Path Through It

One of a supermarket’s main tasks with regard to, say, married couples entering the store, is to separate them — that is, to split them by gender. To achieve this result, navigational signs are placed at the entrance to the supermarket’s sales floor. The main goal of separating men and women in the store is to prevent them from limiting their partner’s choice of products. After all, most women take significantly longer choosing products they like.

The average time men spend in grocery supermarkets doesn’t exceed 30 minutes, while for women this figure can be almost twice as high. For this reason, about 80 percent of purchases in grocery supermarkets are made precisely by women, which makes men less attractive in marketers’ eyes. This is due to men’s greater rationality, emotional stability, and composure.

Most purchases are the result of visitors’ impulsiveness, triggered by the combined influence of the factors described above. It’s precisely for the sake of making such impulsive purchases happen that the work of supermarkets is organized. To this end, the methods of influencing shoppers described above can be supplemented by the specifics of the flooring design, the presence of colored lines on the floor leading toward certain sections of the supermarket.

Such lines very effectively catch the attention of supermarket visitors, pushing them to walk in the indicated direction. In addition to painted lines, lighting fixtures arranged in a single row can also serve as factors regulating the movement of visitors in supermarkets. The mutual arrangement of a supermarket’s sections, along with many other aspects imperceptible to most shoppers, also turns out to be an effective factor.

To achieve this result, certain supermarket sections may be deliberately dimmed, so that a shopper passes through them more quickly and ends up at the shelves with goods located nearby. To this end, shelves with bright lighting may be placed right after a dimmed section, so that the visitor develops a desire to move more quickly precisely in that direction.

Shoppers subconsciously perceive better-lit product lines as more beneficial, more necessary, and safer. In doing so, their hands automatically reach precisely for them. To achieve this, as already noted, display windows are lit in a particular way, determined by the specifics of the goods sold there.

To achieve the desired result, marketers use not only lighting but also special decoration of certain supermarket sections. For example, the use of decorative straw and sunflowers in produce sections triggers, in visitors, an association with nature, naturalness, benefit, and the safety of the products sold there.

However you may perceive the information presented here, neuromarketing genuinely does work. And it works extremely effectively. The result of proper design, lighting, and other organizational elements is the creation of so-called hot zones, distinguished by a substantially higher volume of goods sold. Such places include, for example, shelf end-caps. It’s precisely in such zones that marketers deliberately place products that duplicate the most in-demand product range.

Bread, Milk, and Meat

It’s precisely these three product categories that marketers call the most in-demand among shoppers. This is exactly what accounts for their interconnected placement in different corners of the supermarket’s sales floor, so that a shopper wanting to buy even items from a pre-made list is forced to walk along aisles containing other goods. This substantially increases the likelihood of them purchasing other product lines as well.

The bread, dairy, and meat sections form what’s called a “golden triangle” among themselves, within which shoppers unconsciously buy the largest quantity of goods.

The presence of boxes of goods, or even entire pallets of freshly delivered products, creates the impression among visitors that goods in this store are sold very quickly and that staff sometimes don’t even manage to get them onto the shelves in time. The presence of unopened boxes of goods also limits the space available for shoppers to move around freely. Because of this, visitors are forced to slow their pace, stop, and simultaneously examine the goods placed nearby.

Shelves located at eye level are called “golden” precisely because shoppers always pay attention to the products placed on them, which multiplies sales of those product lines. This is also due to the maximum ease of assessing products placed at shoppers’ eye level.

Shelf end-caps and the checkout zone can also confidently be counted among the hot zones where the largest quantity of goods gets sold. It’s precisely in these places that customers buy the greatest quantity of completely unnecessary goods. The checkout zone almost always features relatively inexpensive product lines that nearly every shopper can afford to buy.

A shopper’s financial standing and psycho-emotional state, which determine their thoughts and actions, play an important role in whether they are frugal or wasteful. Positively disposed shoppers are usually not inclined to make unplanned purchases, while people in a bad mood do the opposite. Put simply, supermarkets deliberately create an illusion of well-being. That’s why many people visit supermarkets purely to improve their own mood.

In conclusion, it must be said that neuromarketing and other marketing techniques make it possible to substantially increase the number of purchases made. The result of using the methods described above is a two- or even threefold increase in sales volume.

In doing so:

scent-based influence contributes up to 20 percent of the total sales increase;

auditory (musical, voice) influence accounts for roughly 40 percent of the effect;

while absolutely any goods can be sold on “golden shelves.”

How Can You Avoid the Influence of Neuromarketing?

No one can fully avoid the influence of marketers’ techniques, refined down to the smallest detail. But it’s still possible to try to minimize their effect. To do this, it’s enough to follow a few simple rules:

make a detailed shopping list in advance, specifying the item name, quantity, price, and even brand name;

determine the necessary quantity of goods in advance, and don’t bring more money with you than you need;

when choosing a large number of products, try to realistically assess whether you actually need to buy them;

prefer small baskets over large carts, so as not to accumulate an excessive quantity of goods.