Safeway: Persuasion and Consumption

When I walk into the the Safeway at John and 15th, I feel like I am five and deserve to be sitting in the cart with my mom pushing me around the store. This was the first grocery store that I ever went to and had to find everything on her shopping list, ALONE, one day when she sent me off with a list of errands to complete. I always get overwhelmed walking into big grocery stores like this one, mostly because there are infinite amounts of unnecessary items that I tend to want to buy while shopping for things I actually need. I must be the ideal Safeway consumer- I get distracted by all of the sale signs, the specials they are running, and the items they leave out on all the aisle corners.

First, you hit the flowers- they look pretty and smell nice, so who wouldn’t want to take a dozen or three home? I’ve learned that shopping on the perimeter of the store not only gives you the healthy food (as all the health gurus say, the processed and “bad” food is all in the inner aisles) but you get to skip all of the enticing advertising. Knowing in the back of my head of my busy schedule, and then coming across a Kraft mac and cheese 10 for $10 deal popping out in the aisle on a bright yellow piece of paper certainly makes eating ten boxes of mac and cheese enticing because it saves me time and money. The way that Safeway advertises their “Safeway Select” brand and the money a consumer will save with their Safeway card certainly works in their favor in persuading consumers to buy their product over a more expensive name brand. The store also persuades consumers to buy more by advertising sales or member rewards on more general items like Gatorade, water, pop, pastas, and even more than just their own brand. I’ll pick up two boxes of spaghetti instead of just one if there’s a 2 for 1 deal, even though I have no idea when I’ll actually eat spaghetti twice- it’s the notion of getting it for less is what I think is so appealing.


The check out stand is the worst part of grocery shopping. Like I said, I get overwhelmed at the grocery store, so I tend to stretch out trips as much as possible, which means I never get to use the express checkout. Instead, I wait to unload, looking at the delicious candy and scandalous gossip magazines, staring at the Starbucks booth, which of course causes me to crave some coffee and a croissant. It’s a good day if I make it through the checkout without adding a magazine or a pack of gum. I must be Safeway’s dream consumer- they both directly advertise and persuade consumption with their brightly colored sale signs, or their strategic placement of items that are easy impulse buys... and somehow I am always tempted to buy what they advertise, often doing so. How is it that without saying “BUY ME,” advertising successfully persuades consumers to purchase products? Apparently being the ultimate consumer, at least at Safeway, that is one question who’s answer has eluded me.