Do stores manipulate our senses to make us spend more?

Have you ever gone shopping with a clear idea of what you need and then go back home with two extra bags of clothes? I went shopping over Labor Day weekend and realized that I had spent a lot more money than I had planned, which made me wonder if stores have ways to manipulate your senses and subconsciously tell you to buy more of their products.

Neuromarketing author, Roger Dooley, asserts that “only 5% of our buying decisions are made consciously. It is the subconscious 95% that retailers play tricks on.” This being said, Dr. Kit Yarrow, a psychologist from Golden Gate University, claims that one of the main senses retailers try to manipulate is sight. Colors have a big impact on your emotions and can encourage you to spend more. Yarrow states that, “Colors have different associations and those things tend to get people going. So, for example, red is almost always the color associated with sales because it inspires people to take action and it’s a stimulating sort of color.” One main reason Target has so many customers is because of their red logo. If Target’s logo was blue, people wouldn’t be as inspired by their “low prices” since blue is associated with calmer emotions as shown in the image below. I believe Yarrow’s findings are true because as a frequent shopper, I’m usually more drawn to clothing racks that have a red sign on top because I know those items are on sale.

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Another major sense that stores try to manipulate is your hearing. Marketing professor, Ronald E. Milliman, at Western Kentucky University, discovered that playing music with slower tempos such as classical made it more likely for customers to “linger inside stores — and spend more money.” Researchers at Penn State and Singapore found that upbeat music also influences a shopper’s purchase. Their research suggested that upbeat music tends to “overstimulate shoppers and prompt impulsive purchases.” The infographic below illustrates how a few well known retailers use music to encourage their shoppers to spend more. Whether it be classical or the Top 40 chart, shoppers are manipulated into buying more items, which concerns me as a shopper because I don’t want to spend more money than I planned on. This also surprised me because I always thought music played in retail stores was just meant to go along with the overall vibe of the store, not to prompt me to stay in the store longer or buy on impulse.

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Lastly, retailers also use your sense of touch to their advantage. Researchers from Yale, Duke, and Stanford found that “staples like bread and milk are often found at opposite ends of the supermarket, because this forces shoppers to travel the length of the store, past shelves of tempting nonessentials.” Since items like bread and milk are usually found at the back of the store far apart from each other, costumers have to walk through aisles of other groceries, tempting them to buy items they don’t need. Basically, “the more time an item spends in your hand, the more likely you are to purchase it. That means stores are structured so you’re always picking things up”, states Environmental Psychologist, Paco Underhill. This strategy lets a costumer’s eyes linger on other items and be drawn to buying them.

Many people, including myself, enjoy shopping but not being manipulated, and these strategies that stores use to make people spend more money will make me more cautious of what I’m buying the next time I’m shopping. One way to avoid being tricked by stores is by shopping online, but part of the shopping experience is seeing the actual product, feeling the material, and getting a whiff of the store’s scent, so I guess retailers will always have the advantage over us. Maybe that’s why mothers always tell us to make a list before we go shopping.

3 thoughts on “Do stores manipulate our senses to make us spend more?

  1. Nicholas Sivak

    This blog interests me on a topic you touch on in the beginning about subconscious purchases. I am planning on being a Film-Video production major and the prospect of product placement in films has always fascinated me, from the effective uses to the eye rolling obvious ones. Readers who are not as familiar with the details of how product placement works can check out this neat video. It is really interesting to read into how film can borrow certain aspects of consumerism that are displayed to us in our own grocery stores.

  2. Shirneil Merisier

    Stores also put different items at different eye levels depending on whose attention their trying to catch , as it states in this article here . If their trying to sell a toy to a kid then their put it at a level that is in the child’s direct view and if its like the latest bbq fork that an adult may be interested they put in higher up so it reaches the eye level of the adult. This technique usually increase sales

  3. Anastasia Skold

    Every time that I receive a coupon in the mail, I think that I have to go shopping because I got the coupon. Dr. Paul J. Zak, a professor of neuroeconomics at Claremont Graduate University in Sothern California did a experiment on coupons and found that when we get coupons, we feel less stressed about shopping. You can find the article here. Therefore making us happier. Another little trick stores do to get us through the doors.

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