The Sneaky Tactics Target Uses To Get You To Spend More

Your friendly neighborhood Target is one of those rare places where you can go to with the intention of only buying a couple of necessities and end up getting stuck in there for hours. It's almost reminiscent of the story from Homer's Odyssey, "The Land of the Lotus-Eaters." If you're not familiar, this is a story where the protagonist Odysseus and company come upon an island where people live in peace and harmony eating a native lotus plant. Eating the lotus plant invokes a state of bliss that causes those who ingest it to be so carefree and happy that they keep eating the lotus plant and stay at the island forever. Now while this sounds wonderful at first glance, the problem with eating the lotus plant is that it makes Odysseus and company forget about their responsibilities and they get stuck at this island for far too long.

Similar to this myth, once you take a trip to Target and grab your Starbucks coffee at the front of the store, you very well could end up stuck there for hours filling your cart with an abundance of products that you never needed in the first place. But what exactly is it about Target that causes people to get stuck there for so long? Let's take a look at the sneaky tactics Target uses to get you to spend more in order to find out.

The main reason that Target keeps customers stuck there for so long, spending far more money than they originally planned to, is that the layout of the store is purposely designed for this. The advantage of a large enterprise store like Walmart or Target is that they have enough of a budget to stock pretty much every single product imaginable, from food items to television sets, all the way to clothing, bandaids, cooking supplies, and more.

This allows Target to do something called cross-selling, where the store places products you wouldn't naturally associate right next to each other. When put like this, it all kind of makes sense. This is because if you originally went to Target to buy body lotion, and once you reach the body lotion you see something like toilet paper next to it, you'll realize you're also running low on that, so you add it to your cart. This process inevitably goes on and on until you end up leaving the store spending $100 as opposed to $20. The brains behind Target have an abundance of data on items that they can cross-sell together which cater to your individual needs, and they implement that data for product placement within their stores. However, as if this strategy wasn't good enough to keep shoppers eating the hypothetical lotus plant for hours on end, Target has plenty more tricks up their sleeve to keep you stuck there even longer.

The placement of the different sections in Target is intentional. That's why most Target stores have a Starbucks in the front, so you can grab yourself a coffee and get caffeinated before you meander around the store in order to make your experience there more enjoyable. The massive and enticing layout of Target causes you to have to walk through numerous sections of the store containing items you don't necessarily need (but that are carefully designed by the marketing team to make you stop and take a look at them anyway) before you can get to the section of the store with the product you initially came there for.

The genius minds behind Target also made things like the LED lighting and bright red colors of the interior of the store intentionally, so that everything you may (or may not) be looking for within there is easy to find. This bright atmosphere within the store can potentially invoke a feeling of happiness inside people just like that lotus plant from The Odyssey, and when you're feeling good, you're more likely to spend more money. Certain Targets even have specially angled shelves that allow customers to spot products more easily while they peruse around the store. Target also has clearance items near the checkout area as a final means to trap you into spending more before you leave, as some of those deals are just too good to refuse.

At this point, you honestly can't even be mad at Target for its tactics, as the precision with which you're trapped in the store forces you to unintentionally spend more money than you initially planned — and this is truly impeccable. The layout of the store, the interior design, the product placement and cross-selling all truly makes Target a force to be reckoned with for consumers.

At the same time, now that you generally understand the methods with which Target uses to keep you stuck there and spending more money than you originally intended to, the next time you stop by there you can be more conscious of these tactics and potentially strong arm them with your own self-control. However, if you find yourself incapable of fighting back against the strength of the store's lotus plant-like tactics, you can instead try these clever tricks to save you money at Target instead.