Buying

When I go to the supermarket (I do most of our supermarket shopping), I bring a list. I do make impulse purchases, but not often, and when I do, I note the price. If I buy something, and there's a 'two for one' marker, I'll get two, but I check the receipt afterward to make sure that I did get the second one free. (If not, I go back and complain. At least once, when there was a line at the customer service desk, I simply went back and took another.)

So I think I'm a pretty good shopper. And then I read this, from a Fast Company article, and I think Wait a minute....in my store, the first thing I smell is coffee, and the first thing I see is flowers....

Let's pay a visit to Whole Foods' splendid Columbus Circle store in New York City. As you descend the escalator you enter the realm of freshly cut flowers. These are what advertisers call "symbolics"--unconscious suggestions. In this case, letting us know that what's before us is bursting with freshness.

Flowers, as everyone knows, are among the freshest, most perishable objects on earth. Which is why fresh flowers are placed right up front--to "prime" us to think of freshness the moment we enter the store. Consider the opposite--what if we entered the store and were greeted with stacks of canned tuna and plastic flowers? Having been primed at the outset, we continue to carry that association, albeit subconsciously, with us as we shop.