15 Things Your Supermarket Doesn't Want You to Know

Your local grocery store has some tricks up its sleeve to inspire you to walk to the register with a full cart

Nicole Pajer,

AARP

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En español

Published June 03, 2025

a hand peels back the side of a grocery store shelf to reveal hundred dollar bills

Kyle Hilton

You see employees at your grocery store stocking displays with fresh produce and replacing items on the shelves. But have you ever stopped to think about what goes on behind the scenes?

A supermarket is a business with a whole corporate team focused on one goal: getting you to spend money — as much as possible. And grocery stores have some secrets, but they aren’t jumping at the chance to make them public.

“Grocery stores are expertly designed to boost spending,” says Melissa Cid, a consumer savings writer with MySavings.com. She notes that the level of money, detail and strategic planning that goes into designing grocery shopping environments is mind-blowing. “You're stepping into a meticulously crafted system built to extract as much money from you as possible,” she says. From the placement of items to the size of shopping carts to the music playing overhead, many elements are intentional.

Here are 15 things that will make you think differently during your next supermarket shopping experience — and could help you save money.

1. Those end-of-aisle items on sale are probably not saving you much money

“Items on endcaps aren't necessarily the best deal,” says Andrea Woroch, a consumer savings adviser in Bakersfield, California. These sales, she says, are designed to lure you, often with the illusion of a good deal.

“Endcaps capture your attention and often feature a deal on a name-brand product, such as cereal or a sports drink,” adds Woroch. While the products they feature may in fact be on sale, they may not be the cheapest option for that specific type of product, she says.

To make sure you’re getting a truly good deal, compare endcap product prices with similar products in the aisles, suggests Woroch — or just skip the item if it's not on your shopping list.

2. You go in with a grocery list, but your supermarket works hard to get you to deviate from it

Grocery stores make a lot of money off impulse purchases. A 2023 Slickdeals survey found that 36 percent of Americans say the majority of their purchases are unplanned. So supermarkets use tricks to make you buy what you didn’t intend to. These tactics include placing essentials like milk and eggs at the back of the store, forcing you to walk past a lot of other products to get to the staple goods, says Woroch.

“They also use tempting food displays to encourage you to buy, such as those common guacamole displays featuring avocados, limes, cilantro and tortilla chips,” she adds.

Strictly adhering to your grocery list — aided by eating before you shop so that you don’t browse the shelves hungry — or placing your grocery order online and picking it up at the store can help cut down on impulse buys.

3. The best deals? They’re often not at eye level

Oftentimes the first items you see in an aisle are not the cheapest. That’s because grocery shelves are typically designed so that you need to, inconveniently, look high or low to find less-expensive brands, says Woroch. “Pricey name brands are usually placed at the average shopper's eye level, since more people look left and right when shopping, while cheaper options, such as store brands and generics, are placed out of sight on higher and lower shelves,” she says. So instead of grabbing the container of name-brand sugar right in front of you, look up and down to compare prices. (If something is out of reach, ask a store employee to grab it for you.)

4. That loyalty program comes with a hidden agenda

Many grocery store chains have loyalty programs where customers can receive exclusive discounts on certain in-store purchases. But experts warn that these programs come at the expense of your data collection.

“Your shopping habits are being tracked and sometimes sold,” says Dan Bradley, vice president and general manager at CX Orlando, a retail consulting firm specializing in consumer behavior and in-store marketing strategy. He says that customers who sign up for supermarket loyalty programs may also receive offers that appear to be good deals but in fact are just tailored to look like deals on items that they would normally buy, with the purpose of getting shoppers in the door.

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Want to see how your data is being shared? Try this hack from Bradley: Gmail allows you to add a "+" symbol and a custom word to your email address to help track where your information is being used. So if you’re signing up for a Kroger account, use myaccount+kroger@gmail.com. “Emails sent to that address will still go to your inbox, but you'll be able to see exactly who is using or sharing your information based on the unique alias,” says Bradley. “So if you receive an unsolicited email from a fitness center and it was sent to your Kroger Gmail address, maybe Kroger let them know you were buying pounds of bacon every week.”

5. Supermarkets are not always the best place to buy nonfood items

Household products like sponges, plastic wrap or pots and pans are typically more expensive at grocery stores than at big-box retailers. That’s because many supermarkets don’t source these products directly — they often buy through a distributor with the added expense of a middleman, says Phil Lempert, a consumer behavior and food industry analyst known as the Supermarket Guru. Thus, you’re likely better off purchasing nonfood items at retailers that buy them directly, such as Costco, Target and Walmart.

6. Prewashed, chopped and cut fruits and veggies cost you more

Convenience comes at a price. “Precut and prepackaged produce often comes with a markup that can be two to three times the cost of buying whole fruits or vegetables,” says Laurie Hise, founder of Passionate Penny Pincher. You're not just paying for the produce itself — you're covering the labor costs for chopping, the packaging material costs and sometimes even the preservatives to keep everything fresh. “For example, a pound of presliced watermelon might set you back $6 or more, whereas buying a whole watermelon for around $6 could yield triple the amount of servings,” Hise says.

The same goes for store-prepared foods and meals. You might get a good deal on individual products at the seafood counter, says Benjamin Lorr, author of The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket, “but the second that you go to the stand and then you buy the catfish that's been marinated and has little cilantro slices on it and looks super delicious, you've just lost.”

7. People who use self-checkout tend to spend less

Do you prefer to check out with a cashier who asks, “Did you find everything OK?” and “Do you need a bag?” Research shows shoppers who use self-checkout lanes are more likely to stick to their shopping list and make fewer impulse purchases. One study found that women made around 32 percent fewer impulse purchases and men around 17 percent fewer impulse purchases when using self-checkout instead of staffed lanes.

Bottom line: Ring yourself up if you have time.

8. Those free samples? They’re meant to whet your appetite

“Food sampling might seem like a harmless activity, but it’s actually designed to activate your hunger,” says Martin Lindstrom, author of Buyology and Brandwashed. When offering you that tiny slice of pound cake from the bakery or a fresh strawberry from the produce section, your supermarket has a hidden agenda.

Once you eat a sample, you not only become hungrier and get the urge to buy more food but, surprisingly, you may also be inspired to buy more nonfood items, says Lindstrom. “It taps into the reptilian part of our brain, triggering a primal instinct to hoard in preparation for an imagined season of scarcity — a leftover survival mechanism,” he explains.

The main takeaway: Don’t shop on an empty stomach. (And, please, don’t hog the sample table!)

9. The background music is intentional

That song you hear in the supermarket while you shop? It’s playing for a reason. “Background music is a well-known tactic in retail,” says Lindstrom. One study found playing slower music (defined as 72 beats per minute or fewer) in a supermarket resulted in a 38 percent increase in average gross sales.

10. That misting system for the fresh produce could make you pay more

Many supermarkets spray water on certain fruits and vegetables to keep them fresh and make them look enticing. But all that H20 could be increasing your bill at checkout. “Sometimes we forget fresh produce is sold by the pound,” says Hise. “That water adds extra weight, which means more money out of your grocery budget.”

Her quick workaround: Give your produce a shake before bagging it.

11. Grocery stores often have a discount section — but you may need to hunt for it

Many supermarkets have sections in the store where they sell items in damaged packaging at a discount. If you can’t locate it on your own, ask an employee to show it to you — it might be tucked away.

12. The store layout and lighting are strategically designed

“You can think of a grocery store a little bit like a real estate game, and within that, every possible cue to make the product more appealing is taken,” says Lorr. Some of these techniques, he says, involve piling apples high on crates to make the produce look abundant.

Moreover, many grocery stores require you to walk through the produce department, enticing you with brightly colored fruits and sweet aromas that put you in a positive mood. “If you're in a better mood, you're going to stay in the store longer and you're going to shop longer,” says Lempert.

Lighting is used to create a certain vibe too. Lorr says that some grocery stores use special lighting to cast produce in certain hues, like lighting to make bananas look more yellow.

13. Good deals are often next to not-so-good deals

It’s no surprise that supermarkets advertise sales to attract customers to the store. But one thing you may not know is these discounted items are often placed, strategically, next to products that are expensive or marked up, says Lorr.

His advice: If you’re heading in for a deal on a certain item, try to resist the surrounding products.

14. Bigger grocery carts = bigger bills

“Larger shopping carts aren’t for your convenience — they’re for your wallet’s inconvenience,” says Mike from couponmike.com. One experiment found that shoppers buy more when using bigger carts since they’re often tempted to fill them.

Therefore, “try grabbing a basket instead, or only use a smaller cart to keep your spending in check,” Hise suggests.

15. The smell of freshly baked goods might not be so fresh

“More and more supermarkets are placing their bakeries at the front of the store not just for visual appeal — they are also strategically piping out the smell of freshly baked croissants toward the entrance,” says Lindstrom. And since many bakeries aren’t baking continuously, some are even piping in the artificial scent of baked goods to trigger cravings. (Who doesn’t love the smell of freshly made chocolate chip cookies?)

Heather Turner, a former buyer for a grocery store, can attest to that. She says some supermarkets even pipe the smell of freshly baked goods into the checkout lanes to increase last-minute impulse purchases at the register. The scent, she adds, can lead customers to think “subconsciously, ‘I’m hungry,’ [and] — bam! — impulse snack buy.”

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