Safeway Stores essay

One of the major factors, which influence shopping activities in Safeway, is science. According to the article “The Science of Shopping” by Gladwell, Safeway stores employ science in luring diverse customers (66). In addition, it is through science that the store manages to convince clients to purchase products and services. It remains the main marketing strategy for the company. The paper seeks to explore various reasons, which improve the customers’ need to shop at Safeway stores and the reason behind spending more time shopping at the store. People would like to shop at Safeway due to the right marketing strategy and product placement in the store.

According to Malcolm Gladwell, individuals walk in a similar way they drive and in turn will keep to the right (67). In this regards, most airports have gift shops located on the right side of the pathway to the gate and restaurants are on the left side. Paco Underhill, an urban geographer in Manhattan, supports Malcom Gladwell’s ideology by suggesting that retailers should ensure that window displays are canted on both sides, but specifically on the left one. In this way, when a potential shopper enters the store from the inside of the sidewalk he or she can see a display from twenty-five feet away. The science behind the geographical location of stores is that the faster a person walks, the more the peripheral vision narrows. The author further explains that shopping stores should not be located close to a bank since potential shoppers speed up when passing a bank. Science further explains that when shoppers enter a supermarket, it takes from five to fifteen minutes before they adapt to the lighting of the store. For this reason, most stores need to avoid displaying merchandise at these areas since people would not see them (Gladwell 69).

 

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An example of consumer’s natural inclination when they are shopping and the way that retailers attract potential shoppers is putting items on the right. It is because most Americans are right-handed. Safeway uses the product category method to attract shoppers by placing items strategically to capture the shoppers’ interest and attention. For instance, stores will put on view such products as milk on one side, animal protein at the back, and fresh products on another display. Such display methods ensure that customers walk from side to side of the shop, and in the course, they see other attractive products and are lured into buying the ones. Most people go to the food store to buy foodstuffs. So when they are walking across the store from dairy products to fresh fruits and vegetables, they see other items. The impact made by product placement is that it attracts attention of consumers, who can decide to buy even though they have had no prior intention before (Gladwell 72).

Human beings walk the same way they drive, as most Americans tend to keep to the right. Safeway utilizes this opportunity and in turn places living goods on the right shelf just at the entrance of the store. Such strategies ensure that customers see products as they enter the store before they make their way to foodstuffs shelves. It is also for the same reason that in a well-designed airport travellers drifting towards the gate always find fast food restaurants on the left and gift shops on the right. Accordingly, it is an effective marketing strategy to make customers buy items, which will attract their attention before they go to restaurants for food (Gladwell 71).

The main purpose of Safeway stores is to sell and concentrate on foodstuffs as customers buy them more than other products. The management uses this information to its marketing advantage having split foodstuffs. The store displays dairy products on shelves on the one side, places meat products at the backside of the shop, and fresh produce are on the other side of the store. Ideally, this is a clever way to ensure that all shoppers have to make an entire circuit of the store before getting the intended foodstuff. In the process of making the circuit, they find products being attractive offers of the supermarket. Customers become tempted whey start looking around the store (Gladwell 72). Offers are emphasized using attractive colours and price discounts to capture customers’ attention. In most accounts, this approach makes the customer change his or her mind and buy these items, including living foodstuffs they have specifically come to purchase at the store.

The supermarket’s product category method also plays a significant role in attracting potential shoppers. Children stuffs like toys are on the bottom shelves to attract children. When toys amuse the latter, they ask their parents to buy for them. This product category method is an effective strategy of making supermarket products more accessible to the target customer, and as a result, it increases the sales of the store. For instance, in a clip of the father who was shopping with a small child, trade advocacy was depicted where the four-year old boy went and grabbed a bag of cookies, which the store had intentionally put on the bottom shelf. The dad was forced to buy for him, yet previously the one had not intended to buy the cookies (Gladwell 75).

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The above strategy used by Safeway to attract potential shoppers is scientific and useful. It has revolutionised the marketing methods of the supermarket. The method is effective in ensuring the supermarket increases sales of its products and hence profits. It has clearly showed that a scientific operation method can make the retailer attract more consumers of products and services.