Shopping, shopping and more shopping: How companies manipulate you into buying (without even asking you)

Shopping dilemma

She entered the mall,

eyes focused and wide.

A Saturday ritual,

with plenty of pride.

To locate the sales,

that was her plan.

No whining allowed,

from a pet or a man.

Her vision was sharp,

she was determined to win.

It must look good,

with her purse and her skin.

Suddenly she noticed,

the most beautiful dress.

Her wallet said no,

but her heart just said – yes.

She saw something awful,

on her way to the cash.

The dress and her shoes,

will definitely clash.

She paid for the dress,

and dashed straight for shoes.

Without the perfect pair,

the dress she won’t use.

Hours of trying,

her battle was long.

She tried countless pairs,

but most were just wrong.

Moments prior,

to her defeat and surrender.

She noticed a pair,

that were sexy and slender.

She smiled with confidence,

at her victory of match.

Her new dress and shoes,

what a beautiful catch.

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To survive, humans must fulfill 4 basic needs – eat, drink, sleep, and socialize.

That’s what school teachers like to drone on about. If they unburied themselves from dusty century-old books and took a hard look at the modern lifecycle, they would certainly add shopping to the list (no pun intended). Shopping is the new cardio. It’s a direct injection of dopamine right into our freaking skull. If shopping featured as an Olympics discipline, we would bring home a gold medal every single time.

Behind the scenes though, the real gold medal belongs to the legion of behavioral scientists and marketers that lure us into stores like bees to a flower bed. In fact, if you educate yourself on the tactics designed to lure you into the store and keep you there, you will get a bit furious.

Scratch that. You would be livid and mad as hell. You would probably call NASA to demand social justice.

Viewed through the proper lens, a shopping store is not unlike a battlefield ridden with mines, booby-traps, and hidden trenches. To pass it unscathed, your resume better include a black belt in jiu-jitsu, Rambo among your close relatives, and 10 years in the Tibetan mountains contemplating the ultimate meaning of life, universe, and everything.

Vision

Do you want a best-selling advice on how to avoid a mental equivalent of a nuclear bomb in a marketer’s toolkit when you walk into a store?

Close your eyes.

Can’t do that? Bring a dog.

Not allowed? Oh boy…

Visual content is the king of influence. The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. That’s like comparing a Lamborghini on a highway to an Apollo space shuttle.

Couple the processing speed with a unique reaction that every colour elicits in our bio-chemistry. Then add our predisposition to pay disproportionately more attention to eye-level items. Light the fuse with a store layout that requires you to cross ten aisles you don’t care about before you reach the one you do care about. Boom. Explosion of subconscious signals. Brain partially hijacked.

No wonder huge brands like Nike burn through mountains of cash to get even incremental improvements in that area.

Smell

Do you want another best-selling advice? Clip your nose when you enter a store.

Don’t worry. Nobody is looking at you. Except the cashier.

Whether it’s a pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving Day, chocolate cookies in the oven, or a shepherd pie by grandmother, it feels good. Smell triggers behavior.

According to Nike research, customers are 10 per cent more willing to pay for a pair of shoes in a scented room. That’s before taking into account premium pricing of Nike shoes. Likewise, citrus aroma in large supermarket chains prompts us to shop fast and leave fast. On the opposite end of the spectrum, lilac and vanilla aroma in Zara invites a lengthy browsing session and losing track of time.

Sound

When has been the last time you entered a store and DID NOT hear anything?

You don’t need to turn to science to figure out why. When the music falls flat on our ears, it causes disgust. But when it strikes the chord just right, it causes euphoria.

Marketers understand that music preferences differ across demographics. That’s why they tailor the music to the target audience – country jazz for adults in their 30s, pop for teenagers, Rammstein for crazy ones.

Marketers also understand that music boosts brand recognition. The revving of a Ferrari blazing across an urban jungle serves as a brand signature for example. Roll Royce saloon identifies itself through classical music. Nike through boom-boom music.

Solution

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