The Basics of Impulse Shopping
According to a creditcards.com poll, 5 in 6 Americans have said they have made impulse purchases. The survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates and suggests what we already had suspected: impulse buys are an important contributing factor to revenue. With self-checkout lanes becoming increasingly common in retail stores and even more popular with customers, it’s important to consider that self-checkout areas curb impulse buying from shoppers. Vertical drink coolers can help stem the bleeding for some of the losses this important convenience inevitably causes.
The psychology of impulse buying in retail rests primarily on placement and time spent in the store. Most retail stores make the majority of their impulse sales right at the checkout counter—a place where customers typically spend anywhere between 1-5 minutes (hopefully) dawdling around in the queue.
During this time, the customer has ample time to be tempted by drinks, candy, and other small items. As customers become increasingly comfortable with self-checkout lanes, you can be sure that the queue times for such lanes will continue to grow, despite them being quicker than traditional lanes with cashiers.
Shape Up with Beverage Coolers
The open spaces of a large row of self-checkout lanes can invoke a sense of agoraphobia in many people, an unpleasant lack of order that regimented traditional checkout lanes don’t have. You can use beverage coolers as a decorative but functional tool to create appealing rows that generate impulse buys. Having a string of mini fridges with appealing decals and clean glass that highlights the drinks inside the cooler can create an impressive display for customers.
The most important aspect of a cooler is ease of access. Since self-checkout lanes are fast-moving, it’s important for customers to be able to quickly access any of the display freezers so as to not be that person that clogs the line up (seriously, don’t be that person) The area leading up to and encasing the point of sale is often a great location for open-air coolers as customers have yet to approach the point of sale.
Of the three power categories that make up almost 80 percent of front end sales, beverages and confections make up 2 out of those 3—with beverages edging out the other two to be the most frequently purchased item. This is a key point to focus on as retailers are moving away from elaborate and complex displays to simple, elegant and streamlined checkouts that are neat and organized. Magazines—the third component of the power categories, are too messy to include within the self-checkout area and thus retailers rely on creating appealing displays using commercial display coolers instead.
Use Commercial Refrigerators to Recoup Losses
Self-checkout lanes are a relatively new convenience to shoppers and will only become more popular features in retail stores. An unexpected issue that has arisen is that self-checkout lanes reduce profits from impulse purchases. In other words, conventional layouts that worked before, are failing to meet par in light of technological innovations and trends. Investing in a few quality coolers to provide some order to otherwise open-ended self-checkout areas can help boost lagging sales in this important category of front-end retail.
As retailers continue to expand their self-checkout options available, the importance of beverages and coolers to fill out space and provide merchandising opportunities will become increasingly apparent as self-checkout queue times increase and unskilled shoppers fumble around at checkout. This can be taken advantage of by providing better accessibility to vertical glass beverage coolers.
Excellence Industries is a commercial refrigeration company that provides a variety of cooling solutions for brands such as Nestlé, Pepsi, Ben & Jerry’s and Healthy Choice. Reach out to us here to explore options for your commercial refrigeration needs.
