Educating the Public on Grocery Marketing Strategies

As a grocery store checker, I have learned quite a bit about grocery store sales, marketing, and unique and effective ways to get people to buy a product. And I’m going to explain how even though it looks like a great deal, the grocery store can still make money off of you. Here are some tactics and strategies and gimmicks and ploys grocery stores, like Safeway, use to try to get you to buy something.

- Using the word “Free” in gigantic lettering, but really, you’re not getting anything free, or even that much of a discount
Almost always you will see something like this in a grocery store, especially during any holiday season (Easter, Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, etc.). It will say “Buy One Get One FREE” with the FREE being in size 148 text and capitalized and everything else size 20. They know people are drawn to the word “Free”. Who doesn’t like free stuff? But they use the word “free” in a misleading way—nothing at a grocery store is free—unless there are free samples somewhere. Instead, they advertise that if you buy one of the product (or perhaps two), you get the 2^nd one free of charge.

You see, what they really do is really sneaky. I will use Safeway’s Eating Right Chicken Breasts as an example. When they are NOT buy one get one free, they cost about $15 without the club card and then with the club card you save anywhere from 5 to 8 dollars. Pretty good deal. But then, when it’s buy one get one free, they take away the sale price, jack it up to $15, and then advertise if you buy one for $15, you get another one of equal or lesser value free. So without the buy one get one free, you could get two for about 15-20 dollars. With the buy one get free deal, you get two for about 15 dollars. They make it seem like a great deal when really, on average, you’re only saving a couple bucks. Stay away from this deal unless you want to stock up.

- Using an insane quantity of an item to try to get you to buy more
What you will also always see at a grocery store is a type of price that says “10 for $10” or “4 for $5”. They make you think you must buy 10 or must buy 4 to get the sale price. NOT TRUE. Unless specified on the tag saying “Must buy (certain amount)”, you do not have to buy as many as the deal says. This is just a gimmick they use to try to get people to buy more of a certain product, which I’m afraid to say, some people still fall for. All you have to do is do a bit of math. 10 for $10 is easy enough, that’s $1 each. No need to buy 10. Just buy 2 or 4 or 5, and you’ll still get it for $1 each. If you look closely (at least at Safeway), the tag will even say in small print “$1.00 each”. They must put that on there for legal reasons, but no one can control how big or small it is. Just be wary of these kinds of signs and ONLY buy as much as you need.

- If you buy this many, it is ___ each, but if you buy THIS many, it is only ___ each
Not as common as the ones above, but still used, is the “discount only if you buy a certain amount” technique. Basically, a tag will say its price if you buy one, but will display a smaller price that will say below it “if you buy (a certain amount)”. Most often, the discount will be quite small in comparison to the product. For example, every day at Safeway, wine is 10% off if you buy 6 or more. When you think about it, saving 10% on a $60 purchase of 6 wines will only save you $6 dollars. Basically, if you do the math, it is a worse deal than buy 5, get one free. I kid you not; it is a worse deal than that. My advice is simple and the same as above: Don’t buy more than you need. If you actually NEED six bottles of wine, then great you’ll save 10%. But if you don’t, then just buy 3 or 4 or whatever it is you need.

That’s all I have for now. I’m sure there are masterminds at work right this second trying to think of more gimmicks, techniques, and marketing strategies to get us to buy a certain product or to buy a certain amount. But these three are the most common and the most costly if you don’t pay attention. Shop smart, people.