Grab A Cart

Written & Designed by Jillian O’Farrell | Graphic by Tamar Ponte

The Psychologies and Strategies Behind Your Favorite Grocery Stores

Grocery shopping: the essential task that most young adults dread. As college students, balancing independent living with demanding academic and social lives, we sometimes avoid basic routines like gathering food. When we do work up the energy to act like responsible adults, one grocery store reigns supreme: Trader Joe’s.

Individuals aged 18 to 40 spend more on groceries than any other age group, but they also tend to eat locally and are more health-conscious. They’re open to a wider range of cuisines and products, but they still want to pay a low price for good value. Trader Joe’s earned its fanbase by catering to these wants— maximizing quality and minimizing cost.

Trader Joe’s is known for inexpensive, quality food products, particularly freezer favorites like its Mandarin Chicken, Butternut

Squash Mac & Cheese, and Cauliflower Gnocchi. Trader Joe’s mainly sells under its own brand name; private labels account for about 80 percent of their products. These specialty foods are usually organic or health-focused (non-GMO, dairy, and gluten-free options). Adopting private labels keeps prices low by cutting out intermediaries in the supply chain. It also increases demand because its products can only be purchased at Trader Joe’s stores.

Aside from the Trader Joe’s name and logo, there is little aesthetic consistency between the different stores. Interior designs vary based on the store’s respective location. The spaces are meant to be welcoming, fun shopping environments that represent the local area. Incorporating local motifs in-store designs makes shoppers feel like they’re in a local grocer; this ultimately fosters a stronger affinity toward the store and its products.

Trader Joe’s functions with the motto “less is better”; the company is extremely selective when choosing what items deserve the brand name. Without ties to big brands, Trader Joe’s curates its product portfolio around the current needs of its customers. Stores have a very small inventory capacity, so only the fastest moving products can stay on shelves. As buyers’ interests change, so do Trader Joe’s products.

The most effective aspect of Trader Joe’s business plan, however, is eliminating the need to choose.

Imagine you’re at the grocery store deciding if you should buy pasta sauce.

As you stand in the aisle examining the wall of jars, you don’t know which to choose: the brand you recognize, the brand you’ve never heard of, the least expensive, the most expensive? Studies show you won’t choose any.

In a phenomenon called overchoice, you will likely be overwhelmed by the vast options and decide the safest decision is to not make one at all. However, at Trader Joe’s, you only have one choice of brand and within that, a few choices of flavor. Fewer options encourage customers to try new products because it feels like the chances of being satisfied by their choice are greater, especially if they already love the Trader Joe’s brand.

Trader Joe’s annual revenue is about $12 billion—hardly comparable to megastores like Walmart and Target. However, it earns the highest Sales Per Square Foot. This metric directly relates to efficiency and inventory turnover. Based on Trader Joe’s total square footage, each square foot produces $1750 per year. In context, Walmart’s annual turnover is about $400 per square foot and Target comes in around $300 per square foot.

Trader Joe’s isn’t the only food retailer that employs psychological strategies to get customers to buy more. In the typical supermarket layout, shoppers are subconsciously encouraged to follow a one-way flow of traffic. Separating the entrance and exit doors directs them toward the intended “starting point,” often amid the produce. The fresh scent and bright colors of the fruits and vegetables begin customers’ shopping experience on a positive note, establishing a precedent that the rest of the store will be equally pleasing.

After this point, the supermarket’s main goal is to draw shoppers away from the edges and into the middle of the store where the majority of the products are. Essential items, like bread and milk, are usually located furthest from the entrance, forcing shoppers to walk through more aisles, pass more products, and increase the likelihood of buying an extra item. For products that require significant choice, supermarkets tend to take a different approach than Trader Joe’s streamlining; they position these items away from high traffic areas, so if a shopper wants to spend half an hour researching the best pasta sauce or coffee bean, they won’t feel rushed.

Shelf placement for products is also intentional. Companies pay steep rates to have its products displayed at eye level. Big brands often populate eye level and above, which our eyes will naturally gravitate towards, and bottom shelves are usually filled with generic brand products. Shelf placement should be in relation to the target market for the item; stocking a sugary cereal product on a five feet high shelf is not as helpful as stocking it at a child’s eye level. Brands want kids to grab the product off the shelf—maybe even sneak it in the cart without their parents noticing.

Even when you walk into a store and grab a cart instead of a basket, you’re playing into the stores’ hands. Your grocery list looks a lot smaller in a cart than it would in a basket; so you might decide to pick up a few unplanned items. But when food waste is such a prominent issue in American households, we should be aware of how our consumption habits are influenced. Don’t go to the grocery store without a plan, and definitely don’t go on an empty stomach.