Have you ever walked into a big box retailer like Wal-Mart, Costco or Target to buy a few household items and walked out with lots of stuff you didn’t plan on buying? So have I.
The impulse purchase is a “tried and true” retail strategy. Get the consumer in the door with a good price on detergent, and work really hard to make sure they walk out with a $350 propane patio heater.
But this strategy is showing some weakness in today’s economy. Why? Because consumers are getting smarter. They are going to the store with a list in hand and avoiding the temptation to buy items they don’t need. To see an example of this trend, look no further than Costco’s April sales numbers. According to this report by American Public Media, Costco’s sales dropped more than expected in April for this very reason. If this trend continues, it represents a pretty big threat to the impulse purchase retail model.
At Alice, we’re working to help consumers avoid the store trip altogether, making it much easier to plan spending and avoid impulse buys. We’ve been beta-testing Alice with a small group and many of them have highlighted this as one of the reasons they love Alice. (“I’m amazed how much less I spend by not walking into the store.”). We’re going to be expanding the Alice beta very soon and we are excited to help lots of other consumers avoid the temptation to buy that patio heater, espresso maker, and the hundreds of other products we buy and never really use.
I heard on the news recently that a good strategy to combat impulse buying is to:
1) pick up the extra item
2) hold it in your hands for approx. 10 seconds
3) while holding it in your hands state 3 reasons why you NEED this item (as opposed to WANT)
If you can’t come up with 3 good reasons to buy then put the item back where it was located in the store.
Re:htowntex,
Move to wisconsin,all they sell is cheese and beer.
Think of all the money wou would save putting all your efforts
into collecting old transmissions and refridgerators for your front lawn.
Propane patio heaters are $199 at Costco
[...] You go shopping for some toothpaste, and end up with a yellow belt that you’ll never wear. Oh the regret! Here are ways to avoid impulse purchases: [...]
Or you go shopping, pass the toothpaste shelf and can’t remember if you need toothpaste. So you buy toothpste and realize when you get home that you already have two tubes.