Advertising is all around us in 2023, and you can't even walk down the street without seeing a poster or billboard of sorts to entice you into buying something.
And one of the most prevalent places for bargain and deal pushing comes in the form of the supermarket - with special offers, rollback deals and price locks galore to draw you in.
While you may believe that you're able to visit your local Tesco, Sainsbury's or Morrisons and solely pick up the stuff you initially went in for - there are a number of secret ploys in place which may turn your head along the way, according to a consumer psychologist.
Read more: Best and worst supermarkets ranked for price rises - from Aldi and Lidl to Tesco
The Mirror reports Dr Cathrine Jansson-Boyd from Anglia Ruskin University has shared some major shopping secrets, including how stores like Tesco and Sainsbury's could be getting you to shop for longer without even realising it. The expert explained that this is due to the sounds in the store, more specifically, the music they are playing.
Dr Jansson-Boyd says some supermarkets will play music in store, which in turn makes people think it's 'fun to be there' and this can give you a 'bit of an adrenaline rush' and make you want to shop for longer. And there's a known connection between the length of time spent in a store and the number of items purchased.
This is especially true at Christmas when you might notice festive music playing. The expert said: "How do we keep [shoppers] lingering for as long as we possibly can? Supermarkets do that with music sometimes, so in a festive season you often get cheerful Christmas music because then people think it's fun to be in there.
"It's hard to make supermarkets fun because of their very nature, so by making it fun, customers get a bit of an adrenaline rush."
This rush gives us a "feelgood factor" which could encourage you to keep on shopping in order to keep the feeling going. However, Dr Jansson-Boyd admits this isn't the case in all supermarkets as music is a tricky thing to get right.
"Music isn't common in all stores anymore because it's hard to get the pace right for all customers," she said. "If it's too fast they might walk too fast as we tend to subconsciously walk at the pace of the music in stores. And again, if it's too slow people might drag their feet and it will be unbearable.
"You often have to find some middle-paced music that doesn't really represent anything so it doesn't distract from the products. Where I live I've noticed it's very clear, Waitrose has an older clientele and older customers tend to get quite annoyed by music so they don't play any, but Sainsbury's and Tesco have more of a family sort of focus and do sometimes play music."
As well as using sounds, supermarkets may also use certain aromas to encourage you to buy more, pumping out artificial scents into the store, such as the smell of fresh bread around the bakery. The latter is the most 'traditional trick of all', Dr. Jannson-Boyd says, going on to add how it evokes a feeling of nostalgia for many of us.
"It's so often an artificial scent because it doesn't smell in the bakery as often the bread is pre-manufactured but they still pump out a smell of fresh bread, as shoppers have childhood associations with the smell. It's homely, it's nice and it's fresh.
"You want to believe that everything in the store is made from scratch and is amazing, but of course, it isn't. However, we sniff it and we're quite easily duped, we buy into it and we think it's all very fresh."
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