Observations at QuanLian

By Steve Wang

When you enter QuanLian, the first thing that catches your eye is the display of fresh fruits directly in front of you. To the left of the entrance, you will see the section for vegetables, while the right side houses the cashiers. On the far right, you'll find a selection of alcohol and drinks. Next to the other cashier, you'll see a range of bread, dried foods, snacks, more snacks, and frozen foods. This arrangement would be the second column of the supermarket if the first column was on the right. Beyond the fruit section is the third column, which houses household items and dairy products. Finally, you will find vegetables and meat on the last column. The placement of vegetables and meat near the front of the store is deliberate to showcase the freshness of the supermarket's products.

It is also important to note that in some sections, there may be a few items that do not belong there. For example, sometimes there may be a few snacks next to some household goods. By mixing up the organization of the items, they are trying to draw attention to the items that are not in their usual place. Another trick they use to draw attention is the color of the price tags. Some price tags might be yellow because they are on sale or have a discount. Inside that specific supermarket, they have a few different types of discounts, such as “buy 1 get 1 free,” “buy a second one to get a discount,” or “buy more save more.” These might make shoppers think that they will gain more if they spend more money, which might lead to more spending. With this, QuanLian is manipulating the interpretation part of the perception process. Buyers might interpret it as them gaining more if they spend more money.

Another thing QuanLian pays attention to is the shopping environment. They color the shelves and floors in bland colors to not draw attention away from the products. They also categorize the items by shape because humans like to organize things into patterns that they think are meaningful. One clear example of this is in the section where the products are in bottles. They try to put bottles that are similar in shape together. Furthermore, they scent the air in the supermarket with the smell of fruits. By doing this, they can affect the organization stage of human perception. When the sensory inputs get colorful colors, fruits, vegetables, and flower smell, they might associate it with freshness. This can be seen not only in supermarkets but also in restaurants like Subway. To make the area even more comfortable, they play cheerful tunes in the store when they are not playing ads. By doing this, they provide extra sensory input, which might make customers more comfortable. Feeling more comfortable, customers might stay longer and hopefully buy more stuff. Another trick to get shoppers to spend more is ads. They put their ads all over the walls in the form of posters or things hanging from the ceiling. They also play ads through the speaker system in their store. Additionally, they have monitors playing ads for them. By doing this, they are trying to provide as much information to the human sensory input as possible.