Living Your Best Life Minute – Shopping Tips

We all still shop, in actual shops, some of us until we drop.  All purchases are not virtual, even though the number of Amazon ads on TV might make that hard to believe. What are some of the things that environmental psychologists have learned about how we shop that you can use to live a better life:

• We’re less likely to negotiate vigorously when sitting on a cushion, even one that’s not very plush, say just an inch or so thick, than when we’re not—choose your seat accordingly the next time you need to negotiate a purchase price, for example, when you’re purchasing a car.

• Once we touch something, we’re a goner if it feels acceptable, touching makes us more likely to buy and to pay a higher price when we do—which is why those soft, cozy sweaters are always placed so that it’s hard to avoid touching them. Resist or not, but definitely be informed and touch at your own risk.
• Once we’re walking on a certain material, say stone or carpet, we tend to keep walking on that material, which can be undesirable if your best buy is off your current path material. Continually look around any store you’re in to make sure whatever you should buy is off your beaten path.
• We’re drawn to warm colours and lights—use your will power to shop an entire store for the goods you need at the prices that you want to pay—don’t let environmental features such as color, lights, and window placement keep you from thoroughly searching out the products that are best for you.We also walk along more brightly lit paths indoors, so to keep people walk on the edges of a route through a store, which is where products would be displayed, lights will be placed over those products.  Design keeps you from walking through the middle of the space to avoid impulse purchases, for example, unless you know to avoid the pull of the light.
• You’re more apt to select products whose colours are found in the décor (orange soda when Halloween decorations are in place), another reason to carefully consider what seem to be impulse purchases. Do you even like orange soda?
• If you’re on a tight schedule and find yourself in line, keep checking your watch. Colours viewed distort apparent passage of time – if you’re looking at a warmer colour you’ll think you have spent more time waiting in line than when you’re looking at cooler ones.  This may also explain why service always seems so much faster in one store you visit than another.
• People in places where cooler colours predominate feel more powerful than those in areas where warmer colors prevail; next time you’re purchasing a car select a dealership where cooler colours predominate inside.

• When we see something that reminds us of being warm, say a palm tree or the colour orange, we’re more apt to act (and buy) impulsively than we are when we’re reminded of being cold (say, by a picture of the Alps or the color blue)—another reason to beware store décor.
• We associate the colour blue with trustworthiness, dependability, and competence—ever wonder why you picked your current bank or dentist and continue to work with them?Look at their advertising materials, logos, offices, etc.  Similarly, we link orange to being a good value.
• Products that are more angular are seen as more functional than curvier ones while more rounded than angular ones seem more pleasurable to use.

• Things seen in front of complex backgrounds appear to be smaller than when they’re placed in front of simpler ones – if you’re trying on pants and wondering what your bottom looks like in them, note the wallpaper in the dressing room.
• We have more self control in spaces with more natural light.
• We’re more apt to make decisions based on our emotions when we can see ourselves in a mirror.
• Store spaces can be more or less pleasant and more or less energising. Research consistently shows that you’ll do a better job if you’re comparing two products if they’re more complicated (for example, if they’re two different cell/mobile phones) in a less energizing space while making a selection for a more mundane product, say printer paper, can go well in one of the hustly/bustly high energy locations. Relocate to consider options, if needed.
• Know that you might, at any time, be shopping because you have to (you’re out of bread) or because you want to (you’re just come into a lot of bread and think a celebratory pair of new shoes may be in order or you’re just trying to have some fun, maybe simply by walking around, outside your home).

Final tips

When your shopping trip is more utilitarian you’re going to be happiest going to the store with useful lights, straight aisles, and an intuitive arrangement of goods (milk and cheese near each other not milk and spaghetti sauce cheek-by-jowl!).

When you’re looking for that pair of celebratory shoes, the more adventurous the shopping trip, the better you’ll like it—curving aisles, unexpected groupings of goods, energising colours (for more information on which colours, patterns, lighting we find more or less energising, read this article), variations in colours on walls/textures underfoot/scents in the air, for example, can increase the pleasure of the hunt.

Buying the same brand of low fat milk you always do is quite a different experience than pouring over exotic new cheeses up for sale, and different sorts of places will make each sort of shopping trip a positive experience.

Future articles will provide more information about how shopping spaces influence our behavior while we’re in them.