Impulse Purchases

     If I am shopping alone I feel like I do pretty good about avoiding impulse buys at the checkout counter. I have been guilty of it though, on occasion. Who doesn't want a candy bar and a soda from time to time? My oldest son, however, can not wait to start asking for everything he sees while we're checking out. By the time I have shopped all over a store with two young children my resistance is usually pretty low and I tell him to grab something and throw it up there. I think that our kids make us spend more money all over a store that we usually intend to when we get started. 

     Retailers hire people to design the layout of their stores to help make you want to buy more. The checkout counter is that last stop on the way out and they usually try to make it count. Most of the items you see at the checkout are lower priced items, so we do not feel like it's a big deal to tack them on to that already full belt of items. The racks are full of magazines with interesting stories and big pictures of celebrities to catch your attention. I'm sure the internet has hurt magazine sales since there is so much information at our fingertips, so impulse buys are a good strategy. Retailers also like to put things at the checkout that someone may have forgotten while shopping. Unfortunately, I will forget the stuff that is at the very back of a department store and have to go all the way back to get it. Which only gives me more opportunities to come across something that I may add to my cart. You would like to think that if we were aware of these strategies it would make us resolve to not fall prey, but I do not think it will. We are just aware that they got us to spend again.