Capitalism's Cart: How Consumer Psychology Manipulates Your Shopping
You’re standing in Trader Joe’s holding a basket full of items, when you were originally supposed to grab just three. And yet, there you are, staring at a cart filled with soup dumplings, seasonal items, and a dozen other things you didn’t plan to buy. Sound familiar? That’s no accident–it’s the product of an intricately crafted system, fueled by capitalism.
You first grab your frozen orange chicken, but wow–those brand new spring lemon cookies look great. Let’s grab that, too. You then head to grab some milk… ugh, why is it so far? You’ve got to walk by the ice cream, chips, and cookie aisles. Oh, I have been craving some Lime-dusted Takis. I’ll throw those in my cart. Finally, you go to grab a loaf of bread, but you’re not sure what you want–luckily, it's only the in-house white and brown bread. Guess I’ll get the white bread.
You might think this is just the way things are. However, the entire store is set up to entice customers to have these thoughts. It’s bustling with consumer psychology strategies to satisfy one goal: to make you spend more money.
The aromatic flowers and colorful produce are placed at the front to create an initial impression of freshness. The least bought items are deliberately placed beside the most popular items. Essential items are purposefully placed far apart so consumers have to walk through the store, creating more opportunities for unneeded items to be bought. There’s a limited product selection to shelter choice overload for consumers. See how intentionally they can manipulate your thoughts?
And these tactics are everywhere, in both digital and retail spaces. Ticketing websites throw on a 30% markup at the checkout page rather than upfront, where users are mostly invested and less likely to stop. Cookies are titled with technical jargon, confusing users who even care to “view more preferences.” Retail stores rarely have clocks or windows to blur time. IKEA doesn’t even let you leave unless you’ve checked out its entire product selection.
This article isn’t meant to simply lay out some of the strategies employed by stores and corporations, the implications of which can be universal. It’s for students who are preparing for consulting or design interviews, during which noticing these small details will earn brownie points. Or for people in consumer product management, where picking up on consumer tendencies and strategizing around them may improve their monthly performance results. This article could even serve haters of the overbearing nature of capitalism, who will find even more reasons to hate it. But at the very least, the next time you go shopping, you’ll have a more interesting experience.
Take this article as you will–I think the employment of consumer psychology is something fun to keep in mind whenever I go to my local Trader Joe's. If you make any notable observations, feel free to send them my way (jkwon0429@gmail.com). Below are some ideas of where to start looking. Happy shopping!
Here is some more information to get you started.
Costco reports the highest margins on water bottles and toilet paper. Guess where they’re located? At the farthest corner from the entrance.
When you buy a burger at McDonald’s, if you don’t upgrade to a $6 Combo, the kiosk nudges you to buy $2 Fries, a $2 Drink, and then $2 Chicken Nuggets. This incremental pricing minimizes the dollar amount you think you are adding to your order.
IKEA utilizes an entrapping maze layout (which they market as an “enticing user journey”) to walk you through their entire catalog. This layout also creates a sense of an end and a beginning, prompting users to purchase at the “end” of their journey.
Boutique thrift stores have little to no layout. With the elimination of a sense of “end or beginning,” by having no aisles or pathways, consumers tend to be more relaxed and take their time shopping.
Check out this Cookie Consent tool from Reddit, which shows how obscure cookie preferences are–and the extent to which various dark patterns can be used simultaneously.
Stores like Barnes & Noble and online platforms like Amazon will place “staff pick” or “bestsellers” on their front pages, feeding into the herd mentality that products are approved by other consumers.
Shopping carts have tripled in size since 1975–bigger carts equals bigger receipts!