Save Money Shopping- Psychology behind Visual Stimulaiton

Every aspect of a successful store is carefully manufactured to maximize the amount of money you will spend there.

* Courtesy of The Old Charm GuestHouse

When it comes to making money, we know that the house always wins. It’s not just the tables that make sure that casinos are able to maximize money collected. Casinos ensure that the carpets are dizzying patterns and that the slot machines have bright colours. Why you ask? Casinos are endeavoring to ensure that you are attracted to the slot machines like a moth to a light, so that you spend the maximum amount of money during your stay. There is no natural sunlight in a casino as this is designed to disorientate the player from understanding how long they have been playing for. Have you ever heard the stories about the person that wins big at the Casino and then receives a complimentary stay in a great hotel suite- well the purpose is obviously so that the Casino can win back their money and it works!

I’ve written on this blog before about the way McDonald’s use the colours to trigger an emotional response designed to create hunger, so I’m not going to delve into colours on this one. I want to explain the reasoning behind ‘What you see is what you get’ from a retailers perspective. The formula in the supermarkets is that ‘eye level = buy level’. All the expensive items in a supermarket are stocked at eye level, with the cheapest products being at the bottom. Most of the special promotions 2 for 1 etc. are also conveniently at eye level. Items in a supermarket are generally a low involvement purchase and thus when an impulse is triggered, a decision is usually made on a product. A low involvement purchase means that consumers won’t spend too much time analyzing alternatives. If you want to save money, look further down the bottom of the shelves. Promotions are usually in bright red so that you can’t miss them. Promotions maximize your expenditure as they entice you to purchase more than you need, people will always reason that they are making a saving by preparing for the future. More often than not, you will actually purchase items you don’t need and never had any intention of purchasing, all in the name of saving money, ironically!

That also brings me to my next point… perception is everything. The most expensive items on the shelf always have the most visually appealing packaging. They need to have a nice package to justify the increased expense right? It represents quality? Well, yes it does but the cost of the pretty little package is always passed on to you. Do a blind taste test on a No Frills product against one in a pretty package and draw your own conclusions.

Perception can also be altered to increase your personal brand. Katie Price released lingerie this year and instead of hiring Victoria’s Secret models she opted to use ‘real women’ as they are the people that will be purchasing the product. This occurred for two reasons;

a)      The use of real models, illustrates that Katie Price understands the needs of her target market, creating the perception that Katie is a real person just like them.

b)      When Katie price stepped out amongst the ‘real women’ modeling her lingerie, she appeared to be the most beautiful lady in the room.

She has covered all bases with this. She has appealed to the masses as understanding them and then she has created an aspirational appeal for the consumer, a ‘purchase this and you can look beautiful like me’ appeal.

Visual stimulation isn’t always what you can see.. it’s about what you can imagine. With high involvement purchases, a successful sales person will ask the purchaser to imagine. Imagine your kids playing in the back yard, imagine cruising down the high way the top down in this convertible on a warm sunny day. Imagine, that you have already bought it. Once the purchaser has imagined purchasing the item, and the great new life they will have with it, it is a stark reality without it. Price has now become secondary. This technique is very similar to the Puppy dog sales technique that I have discussed on this blog.

I’ll leave you in the words of Bob Marley:

‘ Not all that glitters is gold/ half the story has never been told’.

Arron Child 

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