Marketing for good – not evil
Associate Professor Svetlana Bogomolova is an expert shopper. But not just any shopper, as a consumer and social marketing researcher, she knows her way around complex marketing theories and practice, not to mention a bustling supermarket aisle.
Her studies have included extensive research into food choices and shopping habits, including the intricacies of the supermarket landscape and what shoppers are naturally attracted to – and why certain foods are stocked in particular places.
“A typical supermarket stocks over 30,000 items and yet a typical household buys just 300 or so unique products per year. That is, they walk past roughly 29,700 products on shelves without putting any of these in their baskets,” writes Associate Professor Svetlana Bogomolova in The Conversation.
“That’s assuming those shoppers actually walk past the shelves in the first place! Despite a quarter of shoppers claiming to traverse every aisle on a shopping trip, less than 2% of shoppers actually do.
“Shoppers are naturally attracted to empty spaces. They prefer a wide pathway around a store or mall that allows them to see into the distance and avoid getting too close to other shoppers. Thus, the most common route around a store is the perimeter of the store, known as the “racetrack”.
“From that main route shoppers can see down each aisle and duck in and out to get the items they need. Naturally, the shelves at the ends of aisles, known as “endcaps” or “gondola ends”, are the most valuable, simply because more people go past products placed here. So these products get seen (and bought) by more people than products hidden away in the aisles.”
Read the full article on UniSA Business School Alumni News.
