The Stores Are Messing With Your Mind When You Shop!

As this ever happened to you before, you draw up a list of items to buy at a store and you match it with a budget but after all is done, you realize that you have bought several things, not on your list and have overspent your budget? You blame yourself. Truth be told, it isn’t all your fault!

The stores are designed to tap into your senses to reach the brain which in turn releases oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin and other feel good chemicals. The brain also releases adrenaline and cortisol which are stress-response chemicals that can change the shoppers intended behavior.

Stores manipulate your senses so that you can spend more money.

The sense of SIGHT: Stores tap into your sense of sight by a deliberate arrangement of colors in the store to get you into the right mood. Different colors provoke different feelings and stores carefully take advantage of this. They also manipulate your sight by arranging items in such a way that you are forced to see them.

A lot of science and economics goes into this with ‘fights’ over what should be placed where. The brand items usually get the ‘eye-level’ shelf but the best shelf position is said to be just right to the eye level because most people are right-handed. Some stores also employ staff to welcome you at the entrance. As you see a friendly staff, this friendly gesture sets you on a positive note to start buying.

Those security cameras aren’t just there for security. They also help the store track the movements of customers, so goods not selling well are constantly moved to where shoppers go often and goods that sell well are placed further away. As you walk towards where these best seller items are, store owners cleverly line up other goods on this path for you to see and buy.

The sense of SMELL: Have you noticed that stores smell so nice? It is not an accident that they do so. Clothes and shoes in the stores are perfumed carefully to excite you. Particular scents are put in particular areas to encourage you to buy.

For example, a lot of stores are now baking inside the store even though it is much cheaper to have the bread and pies baked outside by a wholesaler and brought into the store. This is because the smell of freshly baked bread and pies releases dopamine in your brain and this will in turn make you buy bread, pies, butter and other stuff you didn’t plan to buy before coming to the store.

The sense of HEARING: The sense of hearing is used to manipulate shoppers into spending and staying longer. This has to be planned carefully because not doing so can be counter-productive. But store music has the ability to create the right feeling it is intended for. When music gets you into the right emotion you will no longer be thinking things instead you will be feeling things.

For example, a jewelry store would play classical music to arouse the feeling of importance and class while a teen store would play hip hop to reinforce the connection with the teens that they are in the right place and doing the right thing. Fast music is used to get shoppers to move through a fast food store faster and slow music is used to make shoppers stay longer in a store like a restaurant.

Music in the store affects your mood which in turn affects your choices. The type of music the shop owner plays depends on what the retailer wants you to do in his/her store but the end result is always to make you spend more money.

Next time to go shopping, you might not be able to close your eyes, block your ears and your nose but you should be able to make a mental note that a lot has been put in place to make you spend more and you are going to do NOT that!