By Erin letson
It’s a situation most of us are familiar with: we’re waiting in line at a superstore, frustrated at the incessant beeping of products being scanned, wanting to escape from the retail madness. But despite the irritating surroundings, something is keeping us in the line, stopping us from saying, “Forget it – I don’t need all this stuff.”
It’s true – all the annoying things about shopping at a superstore are put aside for the full-blown pursuit of one thing: the deal. It confronts us every time we’re in one. At Loblaws Real Canadian Superstores, signs everywhere boast “real price drops” and “super-sized savings.” People are barely in the door at a Costco outlet when a flyer is politely shoved in their hands as a reminder of the bargains not to be missed.
The deal is the driving force behind the superstore, a model that takes a “carry-everything-under-one-roof” approach and lures consumers to buy everything they could possibly need and want in one place. While discount general merchandise stores like Wal-Mart and Zellers have been around for decades, new additions and expansions are taking place everywhere consumers turn.
Cases in point: Shopper’s Drug Mart recently announced plans to enlarge 75 per cent of its existing stores to include more food items and general merchandise. President’s Choice, the signature brand of Loblaws, has launched a campaign to promote its expanded line of 175 home décor products. Wal-Mart is making room for more grocery items, including organic produce, due out at the end of the year.
The massive selection and discounted prices at superstores translate into – surprise, surprise – people buying more than they need. In other words, the superstore and its tempting deals are not helping alleviate the rushed, consumption-driven lives most of us lead.
Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, authors of The Rebel Sell, write, “Consumerism is what emerges when we’re duped into having desires we would not normally have.” It’s a concept that superstores are all too aware of, and they’ll go to great lengths to make people buy what they’ve come to the store for – and then some.
All the elements of a superstore – layout, product selection, pricing – have been carefully planned to draw consumers to items they likely wouldn’t consider buying otherwise. Take Joe Fresh, the new clothing line in Loblaws superstores, which occupies a big and brightly lit section at the front of the store. The clothes look great, and the prices are cheap compared to other clothing brands – so, one may suddenly think, why not grab a shirt or two? Even the idea of being tempted into buying something sweet while waiting in line has been magnified – the aisle closest to the checkout boasts mega boxes of chocolate bar favourites like Mars and Twix.
Rick Wolfe of the PostStone Corporation, a Toronto-based market research and consulting firm, says consumers are latching onto the superstore way of shopping.
“It’s a proven model – discount prices with a broad array of products,” he says. “The superstore model allows customers to pick up certain shopping habits by learning to find which items in the store are important to them.”
Like “big box” stores, prices in superstores are kept low due to suburban locations and cramming more goods into less space. Although Loblaws profits have suffered as a result of its transition to carrying a broader range of merchandise, a sales increase of 1.4 per cent was reported in the company’s first quarter results of 2006.
It appears, then, that the business of deals is a tricky but lucrative venture that leaves the consumer in a bind: is a discounted item actually a good deal if it’s not something we were planning on buying in the first place? Could it be we’re actually losing money in a superstore versus a regular store because we can’t help but pick up a few extra things?
In the midst of our harried lives, these stores are becoming more attractive and deals are harder to resist because when our money stretches further, it’s a satisfying feeling. Brain researchers have even discovered a link between shopping and dopamine, the brain chemical associated with feelings of pleasure and happiness. The Sunday Telegraph reported that when people anticipate buying something, they get excited and dopamine is released.
So what’s a consumer to do? With more retailers succumbing to competition and increasing the diversity of the products they carry, temptation is sure to follow.
In The Rebel Sell, the authors point out that “we are obsessed with acquiring more and more consumer goods, even though this leads us to make unreasonable sacrifices in other areas of life.”
This desire to keep consuming has resulted in what many anti-consumerists dub “rampant materialism.” With buying on the mind, we start convincing ourselves that products – especially when they’re cheap – will in some way make our lives better. The question we have to constantly keep asking ourselves is, will they?
Because while Loblaws is quick to tell us that “super never cost so little,” the deals we find so attractive may be costing us more than we think – namely, the ability to suppress our consumer desires and discern what’s really important in life.