How to Plan Your Grocery List to Avoid Impulse Purchases
Read on and see what marketing researchers found out about purchasing behaviors.
Then use the Top Ten Tips provided as a guide to avoid impulse purchases when you go grocery shopping.
Savvy marketing researchers as Uzma Khan of Stanford Graduate School of Business, Ravi Dhar, of Yale University and Joel Huber of Duke University, did a series of tests of purchasing behaviors. They found out that for most people buying that fateful first and often innocent item seems to open the purchasing floodgates. This realization, they say has important implications for how stores are laid out as well as for understanding individual behavior.
Read more about this study at www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/khan_shopping
The Top Ten Tips on Planning Your Grocery List to avoid Impulse Purchases
1. De-clutter and organize your kitchen and grocery storage area. Take an inventory of your grocery supplies so you know what you have on hand.
2. Post a slate board or a note pad that you and your family can use to add items that need to be replenished to your next shopping day list.
3. Plan a weekly or biweekly menu with your family and prepare your shopping list based on the menu. This will save time, reduce your trips to the store, save gas and promote family involvement.
4. Avoid impulse buying, stick to your shopping list. The check out counter is the impulse station. There are magazines, candy and all sorts of grab and go items. Just say NO!
5. Shop during the week if possible there will be less shoppers, shorter check out lines and you will be in and out of the store sooner. This will reduce your time in the store and your chances of impulse buying.
6. Become familiar with the lay-out of the store, know where to find the items you need. Roaming around in the store may result in impulse buying.
7. At times you may go to the store and every aisle is reorganized, you are totally confused. You cannot find the items that were in aisle five last week. Don’t panic, this is a marketing strategy to keep you in the store longer roaming about and tempting your impulse to buy things you don’t need. Ask for help or navigate the aisles and stick to your shopping list.
8. Do you notice the bakery is usually at the front and you smell the aroma of fresh baked goods immediately? Guard your impulse eat before you go shopping and save money.
9. Have you noticed that the shopping carts are now deeper, wider and much bigger; you don’t have to full your cart. Just buy what you need and go.
10. Only take enough money with you to purchase what you need. Leave the credit cards at home.
Follow these tips and become a happy grocery shopper.
