1. Too busy to check the lowest or highest shelves.
Heinz Bulos, editor-in-chief of MoneySense magazine, says the most expensive items in the grocery are mostly at eye level. If you want to find bargains, you have to stoop down or look up. “This may not be true all the time, but I did find that it was true in some of the grocery stores I went to,” Heinz says.
We had a good laugh at the fact that I’m only all of 4 feet and 9 inches.
2. Moving from aisle to aisle in an “organized manner”.
Heinz also says there’s a science to designing how products are situated in grocery stores. The most expensive food items are placed in the middle while those that are less expensive are in the periphery. So that’s why processed food items are always in the center!
If you move from the periphery to the center (as opposed to from aisle to aisle in a zigzag manner), you are more likely to pick up value-for-money items first and save the frivolous stuff for last, just in case you have some fun money left.
3. Assuming tag prices are accurate all the time.
They aren’t. In the photo above, the actual price is lower, so it was good for me. But what if the actual price is higher? Who has the time and patience to check actual prices at the counter?
4. Grocery shopping before lunchtime on a Saturday or going to the wet market before breakfast.
Never shop on an empty stomach!
5. Leaving the calculator at home.
How about you? How do you keep yourself from buying more than you need?
April 28th, 2008 at 6:30 am
1. Always stick to your well-made-and-thought-of list. I put asterisks on items in my list that I can do away without.
2. Never buy groceries if you are in a hurry. Take some time of to check prices and compare goods.
4. Buy bigger or in bulk if you can.
5. Never bring any child along with you. Minsan kasi nagtuturo. I know there’s nothing wrong with giving your children what they want, pero if you really want to stick to your budget, refrain yourself from bringing them along.
6. Make sure your phone is on “calculator” mode.
7. Never look at items displayed near or within the area of the cashier. It is there to tempt you in buying them.
April 25th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
What you mentioned are just some of the designs groceries make to increase their profit. Knowledge of how the typical mind works is exploited by the supermarkets. Another design feature is that male and female items are separated, but even far away. It is not “just” for the convenience of the customers by having proper segregation. It was designed so that men and women separate while picking-up items. It increases the chances of more items being bought but also minimize the haggling of men and women especially about price considerations. More design were talked about in a show from Discovery or National Geographic (forgot which channel and show).
April 25th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
It’s hard to budget money nowadays so I always have the list & the calculator when I go to the supermarket. My husband and I prefer to buy groceries in Super 8 because we noticed that it’s cheaper there compared to Puregold & Ever.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:38 am
it’s a sad reality… we’re buying things a bit higher because supermarket owners make additional charges for putting company’s merchandise in good location aside from the unreasonable mark-ups… i once heard from the president of hapee toothpaste this story… i hope there will be a government supermarket where products can compete head-on without undue advantage against products produced by small-medium industries and not by multi-nationals…
if everyone will notice, products of multi-national companies are lording it over in our favorite supermarkets…
April 25th, 2008 at 9:36 am
one grocery i went to put two kinds of the same brand of milk so close together that if you are in a hurry (as I was) you would mistake one for the other. I was looking at the price posted on the shelf (which said P39++) but when I got to the counter, it registered at P61.00. When i complained, i was told “Ma’am, Full Cream po yan eh. Yung P39 po yung Family Milk.” But since the cartons looked so similar, and they’re on the same shelf (not on different levels), you wouldn’t notice the difference. Since the line at the counter was already long, i didn’t bother having it changed, and just shelled out P20 more. Now i know better!