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Supermarket Strategies
Stay on course and on budget with these insider tips for navigating the supermarket
“Two-thirds of what we buy in the supermarket we had no intention of buying,” says consumer expert Paco Underhill, author of Call of the Mall (Simon & Schuster, $14, www.amazon.com) and founder and managing director of Envirosell, a behavioral market-research and consulting company headquartered in New York City. Supermarkets not only rely on such behavior; they encourage it. Every aspect of a store’s layout — from the produce display near the entrance to the dairy case in the back to the candy at the register — is designed to stimulate shopping serendipity. To explain how store geography influences your spending, Real Simple enlisted a team of merchandising experts to map out a typical supermarket, identifying the booby traps to help you emerge with exactly what you need and want, and not a single potato chip more.
Store Layout
Are supermarkets all alike? In important ways, yes. This blueprint shows a typical layout. Experts in store design explain why this setup is so common and share some smart-shopping secrets.
Entry
• Flowers
Why Theyre Here: “Flowers can enhance the image of a store,” explains Wendy Liebmann, founder and president of WSL Strategic Retail, a consulting firm in New York City that publishes the consumer studies How America Shops. “Consumers walk in to something that is pretty, smells great, and builds the notion of вЂ?fresh.вЂ™Ð²Ð‚Ñœ
Shopping Tip: Buy supermarket flowers for convenience, not value. The prices may be low, but the flowers are seldom as fresh as local florists’.
• Produce
Why Its Here: To create a tempting sensory experience. “Stores need to communicate to shoppers that produce is fresh, or else people won’t buy anything,” says Liebmann.
Shopping Tip: Reach to the back and dig for the freshest items. “The smart retailers always have the oldest merchandise in front or on top, since they need