Brendan McDermid/Reuters Eye-catching signs and "tailored" styling advice at clothing stores can get you to spend more money than you originally planned.
- Clothing stores use subtle strategies to get you to spend more money without thinking twice, even if you walk in with a set budget.
- Sales associates are trained to up-sell and cross-sell, suggesting both more expensive items and additional items based on customers' needs and desires.
- Companies meticulously arrange their stores to optimize visual details, cater to shopping patterns, and keep the customer in the store for as long as possible.
- I worked in
retail for six years, and these are some of the specific strategies my managers instructed me and my coworkers to use.
Many of us overbuy more often than we'd like to admit.
You walk into a store with a clear mission to purchase a new pair of shoes or a shirt for work, but the moment you see red sale signs and pristine stacks of clothing, your goal gets a bit hazy. Not to mention, a friendly salesperson helped grab your sizes and explained the fit. You leave the store two bags heavier and a receipt with five times what you planned on spending.
Eye-catching signs and "tailored" styling advice can certainly prey on your self-control, but retailers' tactics aren't always obvious. They often use the smallest detail to entice you to spend more, from the way they arrange the floor to the strategies they tell their sales associates to use.
I worked in retail for six years as a sales associate for companies like Ralph Lauren and Fossil, and my managers always gave me and my coworkers specific strategies to get customers to pick up more items and spend more at the registers.
Here are some of the subtle ways stores get you to spend more without thinking twice: