To sell a product, low prices and total quality are no longer enough, it is a fact that there is a psychological filtering and also a forgetting function, for which the recall or fixation of brands and products is increasingly low. This is due to the large number and diversity of products and the saturation of advertising in the media.
To this, we add the boom that the free service modality has acquired among customers, who want to independently decide what, how much and where to buy. The seller, especially in large hypermarkets, is no longer an intermediary or value aggregator.
Today it is the product and its entire “shell” that is in charge of selling itself.
Merchandising is one of the many techniques that tends to replace the passive presentation of the product or service with an active presentation, eliminating its dependence on a seller and appealing to everything that can make it more attractive: placement, operation, packaging, presentation, exhibition, installation… The list goes on as far as the imagination can take us, while the objective is achieved: to make ours a differentiated, perceived, chosen product.
The type of business, the shape and surface of the premises, the location of the entrance, the direction of circulation of the customer also star in this new sales strategy and must be taken into account when locating a product.
"Examine, evaluate, create and order the information and all those elements, which in the form of impressions, reach the minds of the recipients in order to create a position and thus distinguish their products."
These marketing techniques begin to act from the moment in which a place is searched for the location of the establishment. Supermarkets open a gap in shopping centers, built in isolated areas with quick access, generally by highways, where the problem of circulation will not be a matter of hours.
The advertising language. M. Victoria Navas. Díaz Elena Parral. Gonzáles Course: 2nd Foreign Languages
»Tricks to« snack »in the supermarket» By Elena Rita.Your money. number 95 Sunday, October 19, 1997.
Provetel Commercial Technical Encyclopedias Volume 2.
Robert F. Werner (Member of L'Academie des Sciences Comerciales et President du Groupe des Experts de L'Association lnternationale de la Distribution Alimentaire et de Produits de rande Consomation, Administrator of L'Institut Frangaise du Libre-Service)
The Feng Shui also talks about the location and how to attract customers: "If the business is away from the busiest places, you need to do something on the outside to attract customers. If instead you are in a central location, focus on dragging customers to the back of the store by putting something special inside ”
Proximity is not a sole criterion and distance can be perceived in different ways, depending on the clients and according to the periods.
Depending on the type of needs to be satisfied, consumers react in different ways:
- If the desire to buy implies a quick and determined choice for a product, it will be the establishment with the largest assortment that has the maximum possibilities. If it is a question, for an experienced customer, of making a current purchase, the consumer uses a routine decision process, insofar as their possibilities or needs have been satisfied, at a point of sale that is regularly frequented. In the case of exceptional purchases and ignorance of the points of sale, the decision process is longer, as it will be preceded by the collection of information and an evaluation phase of the different possibilities.
As for the interior space in supermarkets, everything has been perfectly studied to condition consumer habits. Large supermarkets have an internal code - what they call layout - which is the design and strategic place where the different products are located so that they do not go unnoticed.
For example, in most cases, the customer will have no choice but to enter from the right of the cash registers. This location is not arbitrary. Merchandising experts know that mortals tend to turn their heads to the right. For this reason, almost the entire surface will extend on the left and on the right side there will only be one space where clothes will usually be placed. The reason is none other than the knowledge that the customer will probably not go to the supermarket to buy a dress or pants. But this effect will have been achieved: you have looked to the right and may have seen something that interests you.
»Tricks to« snack »in the supermarket» By Elena Rita.Your money. number 95 Sunday, October 19, 1997.
»Feng Shui for the West». Terah Kathryn Collins 1995, Urano, SA editions, 1997
Provetel. Commercial Technical Encyclopedias Volume 2.
Another of the most common measures is to locate the appliances at the entrance so that people see them as soon as they enter the supermarket and stay with the fixed idea of buying it.
The experts are aware that the customer will go to the bottom where the bakery is located (bread is a staple product and the supermarket considers that people are going to buy it even if it is not on display in front of their eyes), and then inevitably you will have to head to the left. Therefore, they place the food in those directions.
"But since what merchants want is for the customer to kick the entire surface, they scatter the staple food throughout the establishment."
There are two types of zones in which the establishment is divided: hot (spaces of great attraction and high level of sales) and cold (whose sales are below the average). In the hot zone the circulation of customers is assured. Thus, the products that are exhibited are those with the least purchase, while in the cold zone it is necessary to induce the purchase, so basic necessities are placed. And it is in this journey where merchandising acts.
The placement of the products in the gondolas follows some golden rules that every merchant knows. The gondolas on which the products are presented are usually approximately 1.80 meters high with five shelves and a very uneven commercial value The shelves are divided into three levels: the first is at ground level (products whose purchase is essential); the second at the height of the hands (the products are easily reached); and the third is located at eye level (it is the optimal level, since the purchase is more spontaneous). It is in these last two where sales are higher, and their price is higher. In this way, the products that the company wants to be sold more ("facing" of the products) will be visible and within reach. If the shelf is flush with the floor,sales are lower as you have to bend down to grab the item. Mandatory or staple items will be at this level. ("Everything that is seen is sold, everything that is taken is bought.").
Statistics show that moving a product from one level to another can increase sales by up to 80%.
Similarly, in the center of the gondolas, being the place where customers focus their gaze, the most profitable products are placed. Everything that is located at the ends -the tips or heads- of the gondolas is to spread it, that is to say that the supermarket seeks that people know that product and consume it. Some chains charge more for this location to their suppliers.
»Tricks to« snack »in the supermarket» By Elena Rita.Your money. number 95 Sunday, October 19, 1997.
The Power of Consumers Coppenet. May 9, 2001 ANA MARIA COLOMBO.
Provetel Commercial Technical Encyclopedias Volume 2.
Other strategies are:
- The width of the aisles is a maximum of three carts (everything is designed so that the customer is not overwhelmed by the continuous collisions with the carts), just enough so that they have no choice but to stop and see the products on both sides. average in a hypermarket is 55 minutes. The techniques of 'merchandising' lengthen or reduce the time through the use of music. The smooth rhythms encourage staying in the store - generally all carts veer slightly to the left. This forces them to be held with the left hand, leaving the right hand free to comfortably reach the products. Prices ending in 5,7 and 9 attract more the buyer. Another principle of merchandising reveals once again the importance of the visual factor in the sale: «It is the mass that makes you sell.»The mass presentation catches the buyer's attention, eliciting a feeling of abundance, power and, to some extent, buying euphoria. Another rule is to organize the exhibition in such a way that high-margin, high-turnover products alternate with those that are sold with more difficulty. In the same vein, we frequently find products whose use is complementary. and
There are video cameras installed in specific sections to study the behavior of customers in front of new products.
- On the other hand, there are several techniques that are not yet so popularly known:
“The basic tools of Feng Shui can be used with ingenuity to attract clients; spectacular flags, advertisements, pleasant sound sources (bells, music or water) and the colorful samples of the products that they put on sale… the advertisements that demand the bright colors of the trade, its symbols and / or logos, capture the attention of the passerby with a special force, and they create a festive atmosphere of great attraction for potential clients ”.
»Tricks to" snack "at the supermarket" By Elena Rita. Your money. number 95 Sunday, October 19, 1997.
»Feng Shui for the West». Terah Kathryn Collins 1995, Urano, SA editions, 1997
Provetel. Commercial Technical Encyclopedias Volume 2.
conclusion
From the color of the product, to its location with respect to the whole, it counts when a product is perceived. There are many strategies to manipulate this phenomenon, and both manufacturers and traders cannot ignore all these techniques.
Today the seller is no longer an intermediate figure that suggests or advises on the purchase to be made. It is the same products that are in competition in front of the consumer and must sell themselves.
Their implementation and situation at the point of sale largely determines their success or failure.
The competition starts from the moment the product is decided and the segment to which it is directed, from its birth the factors that will make said product the most attractive must be considered. Gone are the days when a product only sold satisfaction of needs, today it must sell more than what is expected, it must stand out, it must differentiate itself, and above all it must provoke the customer, not an easy task among so many offers, and even less if it is Consider the fact that you cannot afford to disappoint.
Merchandising, Feng Shui, color strategies, NLP, all, in some way, address the same thing, they all contribute the same: greater knowledge of the customer and their buying behavior.
Every day the percentage of mass consumer products that pass through establishments in a free service regime is higher and in this it is the customer who will decide on their conduct.
In the past, the seller could professionally manipulate consumer behavior, directing it with discretion. Today the customer is freed from this influence, but paradoxically, the "new salespeople" work on a much deeper aspect of their psyche, their unconscious.
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