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. Along with that, supermarkets
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, this tends to cause the customers to buy more product that they do not
need.
There are simple solutions to help people move around the tricks supermarkets have.
There is more thought into the placement of food in supermarkets than people think. As Real
Simple states, The placement of items on store shelves is not haphazard. Here, the experts
explain whats up, whats down, and whats in the bulls-eye (par. 1). 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.
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.
Even though people do not know that supermarkets are tricking your mind, there is a simple way
around this problem, Mary MacVean says. 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 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. It has been shown that there are is
a difference on where items are placed in the store. With that, it also matters what side of the
aisle people is on. This is because 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.

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.
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. Well, just think about it. 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.
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). Have people ever given much thought to this? Most people dont. 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.
However, 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.
There are simple ways we can make sure we do not spend too much money or buy too
much food. There are several ways we can do this and work around this problem. 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. We would be much better off if we followed these simple rules.
People are much too impulsive, they do not stick to what they need and they show little care
about the pocket books or a stick 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.