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Grocery stores spend money specifically to learn how to fool you into parting with your hard-earned cash in their store. Whether it's enticing you into the store with sale items or convincing you to buy more expensive items that you didn't need, it's helpful to be aware of some of these tactics.
Seeing through the aisle switcheroo
When you walk into the local grocery store and realize all the aisles have been reorganized and the things you usually purchase aren't where they used to be, you're experiencing a common grocery store gimmick. Yes, your grocery store actually moves items around just to make you, its loyal customer, confused and unable to find anything.
Do you want to know the method behind the madness? If you shop at a particular store regularly, you know where everything you buy is located, right? Without realizing it, you've developed tunnel vision and don't really see anything except for what you need. But what happens when the store rearranges the aisles or moves items from one shelf to another? You have to look around and actually focus on each aisle and every shelf. By losing your tunnel vision for a time, the possibility of something new catching your eye increases dramatically, and consequently your impulse purchases increase, too.
 | Avoid making impulse purchases and sending your grocery bill through the roof by sticking to your shopping list. If you notice your store is going through a major overhaul and rearranging everything on the shelves, know that impulse buys are lurking around each corner and on every aisle. Turn on your tunnel vision and beware! |
Understanding the store's layout
If you've ever run into the grocery store after work to buy a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs, you've probably questioned why you have to walk all the way to the back of the store just to find those two items. Here's the answer: Most grocery stores have the same general floor plan — they keep produce, bread, dairy, and meat products along the edges of the store or up against the walls. Oftentimes the stores put commonly purchased items way off in a back corner. Store marketers know that if a customer has to walk to the back of the store for one little item, they pass numerous displays and shelves full of goodies. Customers constantly walking past attractive displays in the local grocery store encourages every store manager's favorite customer activity: impulse buying!
| Keep your impulse buys low by curtailing aimless wandering through the store. Plan your menu and shopping list around the items against the store walls, and then plan for a single quick trip down each of the following aisles: |
- The baking supplies aisle
- The cereal aisle (but be careful about impulsively buying expensive boxed cereals, especially if your children are shopping with you!)
 | When you shop the edges of the store, you find yourself saving considerably on your grocery bill. Plus, the perimeter carries the healthiest items in the store. Your waistline — and your budget — will be healthier on a diet consisting of fresh fruits, vegetables, and lean meats, rather than potato chips, boxed dinners, and processed luncheon meats. |
Escaping the store with only the loss leaders you went in for
When you see a price on something in a store flier that seems too good to be true, chances are you're looking at what's called a loss leader, those items the stores sell at (or below), the wholesale price paid for the merchandise. Stores advertise products for zero profit to entice new customers into the store for the drastically reduced item, and then hopefully keep the customer browsing around, giving in to a couple of impulse purchases. Many customers do all their shopping in whichever store has the most loss leaders, thus bringing their entire grocery budget that week into the store with the highest discounts. The stores take a loss on selected items because they recoup their loss through increased traffic.
Supermarkets usually offer more loss leaders at deeper discounts than convenience stores because the larger stores carry a broader line of products and sell higher volumes of goods. You can find loss leaders advertised on the front and back pages of the ads and circular sections, or splashed across the reader boards and signs on the store.
Occasionally, stores will match a competitor's price if the customer brings in the ad with the competitor's price displayed. So even a loss leader offered at another store could reap benefits for you if your regular store has price matching policies. If you find an excellent deal and then don't have to drive around to different stores to get the better prices, you'll save even more.
| The key to taking advantage of loss leaders instead of loss leaders taking advantage of you is to not give in to temptation. Stop at several different stores to take advantage of their loss leaders, but be careful about those impulse buys. Stopping in for a couple cans of tuna fish but then buying $20 worth of holiday decorations that aren't on sale is hardly a good way to save your family's hard-earned money. |
Here are a few tips to help you take advantage of loss-leader savings:
- Loss leaders frequently have a limit on the number of items you can buy at the discounted price, so you have an opportunity to take the troops to the store with you. Send your kids into their own checkout lines with their own supply of loss leaders. They feel grown up and you save additional dollars. But if the ad specifies "one per household," this technique won't be an honest way to save a few pennies.
- You can also make multiple trips to the store to stock up on the loss leaders. If you walk or jog by the store, duck in each day as you pass. You don't want to make too many extra trips to the store in the car because you use up your savings in gasoline, but if you have to go past there anyway, stock up!
- Plan your weekly menu around loss leaders. Scanning the ads helps your budget considerably if you eat what's on sale each week.
- When you go shopping, do your loss leader shopping first, and then finish the remainder of your grocery shopping at whichever store has the best prices in general.
 | Don't consider loss leaders an excuse for splurging. Stock up on those items you can reasonably store and use. Having a six-year supply of toothpaste is overkill. And be sure to check the expiration date on any loss leader purchases. Oftentimes the store is trying to clear off their shelves before the "sell-by" date arrives. Even toothpaste and cans of soda have expiration dates, so check the labels carefully before buying items with too-good-to-be-true price tags. |
Looking high and low: Finding the best bargains on the shelves
If you're like most people, you first notice the items at eye level. Because marketing experts are also experts in human behavior, they plan store displays accordingly.
| If you want to find the best values on the grocery store shelves, look high on the top shelves or bend down and look at the bottom shelf. The brand name and higher-priced products are located at eye level, while the generic, store brand, and lower-priced items are in the more awkward places to see. |
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