Tucker Rozell

Profesor Lohmeyer
English 101
22 November 2016
Do people know what they are doing at the supermarket?
As I walked into Walmart a couple weeks ago, I was walking up and down the aisles
looking for the items on my list. But I turned to my left, I saw gushers and immediately wanted
them. Im not sure why it was the first thing I saw in that aisle. Supermarkets are placing items it
certain spots and certain heights to get the customers attention. They want people to buy more
product that they dont necessarily need. Even though supermarkets are tricking the minds of the
people, there are some people that think it is more convenient for the supermarkets to place items
where they are being placed. Although, most people are not aware of this issue. If they were
aware of this, it may result in a healthier life. Supermarkets can trick the minds of their
customers, with this being said customs need to be aware of this problem.
Many writers have noted that supermarkets have used tricks and methods to have their
customers buy more product than what they really need. As Real Simple states, The items here
give tone and texture to the shelf layout, Liebmann says, helping the supermarket stand out
from its competitors. These smaller brands usually dont have the budgets to pay for more
favorable placement. (par. 2). People may not even be aware of this strategy. Some studies have
shown that people will buy certain items if it is what they see first. As Anna J. Maaskant and
others have noted,
In the high accessibility condition, healthier bread was placed in a more
convenient location for the shopper on the left side of the shelves where it was
encountered first. In the low accessibility condition, it was placed on the right side. There
were consistent significant differences in sales between supermarkets, types of bread, a

day of the week, but not between low and high accessibility. Additional research is
needed to better understand the effects of convenience and accessibility on bread
choices (par. 1).
Most people just dont realize there is a problem and need to become more aware of this
problem.
This also shows that people dont know how to shop in healthy ways and buy a healthier
choice of food. People are so blinded by the tempting items that supermarket puts in front of you.
With that being said, people now are buying too much food and that cause them to waste more
and more of it.
When the thinking of the placement of the items in the supermarkets. They intend for the average
person to buy more than what they intentionally go to the store to get. People can be easily
tricked into buy more than what they really need. This is what Mary MacVean explained She
tells us that people waste up to 40% of the food they buy at the supermarkets. But researchers
estimate that we waste 40% of our food in the U.S (MacVean Par.1). Even though people have
simple ways to try and avoid these tricks. People do not always follow these ways. As Marion
Nestle explained in his essay, Research says that about 70 percent of shoppers bring a list into
supermarkets, but only about 10 percent adhere to them (504). I do not think people really catch
this. I think it has just become a habit for people that shop in the supermarkets every day across
the America.
To begin with, supermarkets are placing items in certain spots and heights in their store to
persuade and trick the minds of the people to buy more than what they need. And they are
continually finding more ways to do this and spend thousands of dollars on research and studies.
There are is a difference on where items are placed in the store such as bread, eggs, and milk.

With that, it also matters what side of the aisle people is on. As Nestle pointed out that people
tend to read left to right, but why does this matter? This matters because supermarkets will tend
to put their product on the left side of the name brand. This just gives the supermarket one more
approach to trick the minds of the customers.
To continue on that point, another reason why supermarkets place the renowned brands in
open spots of the store and aisles is well-known Companies will pay big money to have them
placed where their merchandise can be ready seen. As Lhu Wen Kai explained in his article, big
companies pay a huge amount of money to have them situated at these prime positions through
payments more specifically known as slotting fees (par. 55). People that shop in supermarkets
do not realize this. Most of the we time we are in a rush so we just pick up the first thing they
see. That is why I think the name brand products and the most expensive brands are on the end of
the aisles.
Furthermore, supermarkets also trick the minds of their customers by placing the most
commonly bought items far apart from each other. The most purchased items in a supermarket
are milk, eggs, and bread. They did this for a reason and I think they do it so it forces people to
walk through severals aisles in the store, picking items as they go. When this happens, people are
more likely to pick up things on the way that they dont really need. According, to Lhu Wen Kai,
Bread, eggs, and milk are three of the most common items on everyones shopping list,
and they all happen to be located very far apart from each other to maximize the surface
area shoppers cover during their trip. Supermarkets usually position dairy products
against the back wall, sometimes pretty well hidden among the massive array of goods, in
order to force shoppers to walk through the entire store to get them (par. 62).

Supermarkets do not just place their items in spots for no reason. They have a reason for why
every item is placed where it is placed.
However, there are people that do not agree with these strategies. Some people in
America think that supermarkets are placing their items for the convenience of the store. For
example, they have the cold items in the back of the store because trucks unload in the back. This
is what Jeff Weidauer thinks. Milk needs to be refrigerated right away; the trucks unload in the
back, so the fridges are there so that we can fill the cases as quickly and easily as possible
(Weidauer par. 64). Sometimes it may be a better option for the supermarket to have the cold
items placed in the back of the store. With that being said, it is hard for people to have this as a
strong argument because the supermarket could move the frozen items and the refrigerators in
the middle of the store or closer to the most popular sales. The supermarkets have to haul the
items from the freezer anyways. This just shows that they could show more effort and haul the
items a little farther. It would not be hard for the supermarkets to do this.
Nonetheless, people nowadays are not even aware of these issues. Because for the most
part, they do not care or they are just in too big of a rush. This needs to change, people need to
start being aware of this. We are just spending way too much money on food they do not need. If
people were more aware and play closer attention, supermarkets would more than likely be
forced to lower the prices or they would have to do something much different. Supermarkets tend
to trick us into buying too much food that we do not need. I can not stress enough that people
need to start being more aware of this issue. If they do not educate themselves on this, they could
likely have more health problems. This could also potentially reduce financial problems. I can
not stress enough on this, but people need to really think about the choices they are making in the
supermarkets.

With all that being said, there are simple ways we can make sure we do not spend too
much money or buy too much food. Mary MacVean explained many ways to make sure people
do not buy too much food; she has eight simple rules. Some of her rules are, Get a wake-up call.
Keep a log for two weeks Buy what you will eat (MacVean 1). She has many other simple
rules, but we just have to do them. This is no doubt the hardest thing about shopping. People are
much too impulsive, they do not stick to what they need and they show little care about the
pocket books or a strict budget. If people were to keep these simple rules and examples they
would be better off with their health and finances.
In conclusion, supermarkets can trick the minds of their customers which tends to cause
the customers to buy more products that what they need. Supermarkets have used many tricks by
placing items to convince the minds of the customers to buy more of their products. Although
people think that supermarkets are doing this to make more money, some people think that it is
because it is better for the supermarket. Some of the people in America are not aware of these
issues. There are health benefits if we do pay attention when we do our shopping. We need to be
more aware that there are simple ways to move around the mind tricks and strategies that
supermarkets play. Can people really have the right mindset to do what is right for themselves?

Works Cited
@wenkai31. "The Great Supermarket Expos: 16 Ways Supermarkets Are Making Us Spend So
Much More." Lhu. N.p., 2016. Web. 23 Nov. 2016.
Nestle, Marion. The Supermarket: Prime Real Estate. They Say I Say. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy
Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. New York W.W. Norton & Company. 2015. 496-505. Print.
Lhu Wen Kai, Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2016.
Ravensbergen, Eva A.H, Wilma E. Waterlander, Willemieke Kroeze, and Ingrid H.M Steenhuis.
"Healthy or Unhealthy on Sale? A Cross-sectional Study on the Proportion of Healthy and
Unhealthy Foods Promoted through Flyer Advertising by Supermarkets in the Netherlands."
N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2016.
Wijk De, Rane A., Anna J. Maaskant, Nancy T.E. Holthuysen, Ellen Van Kleef, Ilse A. Polet, and
Monique H. Vingerhoeds. "An In-Store Experiment on the Effect of Accessibility on Sales of
Wholegrain and White Bread in Supermarkets." EBSCOhost. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Nov. 2016.