Retail worker spills the secret strategies stores like Ikea, Bunnings and Kmart use to make you spend more while shopping
- Most stores use subtle tricks on shoppers
- These tactics aim to make people spend more
- ‘Visual merchandising’ varies in its audacity
A former Ikea worker has revealed why the store makes sure its clearance bins are always overflowing.
Ali Dibley, from Sydney, said managers would make sure the sales sections were full of ‘mountains of products’ to make customers think they were nabbing a bargain.
‘It just makes your brain think that they’re cheaper because there’s so many of them,’ she said in a TikTok.
Small tricks like this are used to encourage shoppers to buy more than they anticipated.
Commenters with experience working at Bunnings, Kmart and Cotton On chimed in to say that those stories used similar strategies.
Ali Dibley discussed visual merchandising and tactics shops use to increase sales in the latest episode of her podcast, Questioning Fashion
Ikea managers make sure that clearance bins always have ‘mountains of products’ to make customers think they were nabbing a bargain (pictured Ikea interior)
Ms Dibley, who now runs Bell Street fashion store, said that creating stock mountains in Ikea gave shoppers the impression that the store had over-ordered.
‘It makes you go, “oh, silly Ikea has over-ordered saucepans and they’re having a clearance sale”. They’re not, but that’s just how they always sell them.’
She asked others to share their stories from working in retail or the experiences they’d had while shopping themselves.
‘Smiggle would put more expensive items on the lower shelves so that kids could grab them,’ one former employee wrote.
‘Kmart moved registers to the middle and returns desk to the back of the store so you walk back past things and maybe buy something else,’ a frequent shopper said.
‘House stores pretend to be closing down at least 3-4 times a year. People eat it up and never notice,’ a third added.
‘Bunnings – they prices items down to the cent, e.g $12.87. For the intention of seeming they have squeezed every cent out of the price they could,’ another said.
One former supermarket employee said that they’d cook onions in the back so that people would buy more meat when butchers used to work behind the deli.
Cotton On scored the most mentions with their use of ‘skinny mirrors’ and warm lighting which encouraged customers to spend more time in the change rooms.
Skinny mirrors distort the reflection of whoever is looking into them in order to make their figure look slimmer.
Ms Dibley discussed visual merchandising and tactics shops use to increase sales in the latest episode of her podcast, Questioning Fashion.
‘What we ended up concluding was that a lot of the time shops make you feel like you need to buy right now and if you don’t, you’ll somehow miss out, she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘A lot of people aren’t aware this stuff. And even in some stores, their sales section or their Boxing Day sales are cheaper products that have literally been produced at a cheaper cost.
‘But it’s also to understand that it’s not necessarily trying to trick you, some of it is just good business, we’re just talking about where the line is between business and creepy.’
The visual merchandising Ms Dibley uses in her own store simply tries to create an environment where shoppers can feel comfortable she said.
‘That’s definitely something I do, but that’s actually an accident.’
‘I’m not a retail mastermind, I think it’s just a nice and welcoming environment where people can spend a couple of hours.’
Daily Mail Australia contacted Ikea, Bunnings, Kmart, Smiggle and Cotton On for comment.