Surprising Grocery Store Marketing Lessons For Your Business

How many times have you stood in line at the grocery aisle and thrown in a last-minute item that caught your eye. Maybe a pack of gum, some hand sanitizer, or a magazine? Do you notice how typically those items change up - new magazines appear on the shelves every week, different gum brands appear, a display of gift cards is introduced.

There is a surprising amount of buyer psychology that goes into these displays. These last-minute items are genius for two core reasons:

1) It introduces another stream of revenue into their business model. Magazines pay top dollar for premium checkout counter display. They know most people wouldn't go to the magazine aisle to pick up an issue. It's an impulse buy. Many brands pay stores additional revenue for premium placement (the end shelves of aisles, for example).

2) It enables the store to maximize the average spend per customer. These "small item" impulse buys add up. For example, if 500 people shop at Publix on a Saturday, and just 30% pick up a last-minute impulse buy that averages $4, that's an extra $600 revenue added every day. Over a year, that's an additional $219,000 in revenue.

Think about this with your business. For example, if you have a bricks-and-mortar store, are your top-selling products given the most prominent location? What can you add to the checkout process that your buyers would appreciate having?

If you have an online store, the same principles apply. The page is your store. Your top selling items should be displayed prominently at the top of every page - perhaps a banner ad or rotating gallery. And what about the check out process - can you add a helpful upsell?

Remember small hinges swing big doors! Just incremental improvements to your sales displays and check out process can result in significant additional revenue.