Response to Ashley Guidi

Ashley stated in her recent blog post:

"If we all took the time to question how often we go in to the store with a set list of items and actually stick to it, without grabbing that extra, "special buy", i think we would find that we buy a lot more than we actually need.

How often do you go into a supermarket and buy exactly what you need?"

I find this to be a very interesting question. My mother goes grocery shopping as much as twice a week sometimes and I always find her coming home with so much more than she went in to get. After reading Ashley's blog, I found a few points to be very interesting. She said that grocery stores put the most attractive products for children on the lower level so the little children are at eye level. I can remember back to when I was younger always begging my mom to get certain things. I think this is a good marketing technique for the grocery stores to use because if every customer purchases a few extras they can certainly generate alot of profit after just one day. I try and go into the grocery store with a full stomach because I find that I will purchase things that I want at that specific time. I think it is hard for people to stick to their lists because they'll see certain things on sale and it will trigger a new meal idea for the week. Once that idea pops into their head, they will need to find all of the other ingredients to make the meal and soon enough they have purchased 5 extra things! Another point that Ashley made was that there is always a display of candy and magazines at the cash register. People will just grab a pack of gum or a magazine and there's another $2. dollars. If you multiply that by 250 customers a day thats an additional $500 of revenue!