The Consumer Brain and Well-Organized shelves: The Bandwagon effect

When working in retail execution we instruct our merchandisers to have fully stocked shelves, displays and endcaps without even one facing blank or skewed. But is it a good driver of sales? Or is it something we ask just as a proof of satisfactory performance?

Our brain, which is 2% of our body uses 20% of our energy while resting, and more if we are pushing a wabbly shopping cart down an aisle filled with endless stimuli while catching up with social media and trying to get home in time for dinner. So, to manage energy our brain evolved to make decisions automatically by developing shortcuts called cognitive biases.

One of these shortcuts is The Bandwagon effect. It suggests that we might do something chiefly because other people are doing it and it goes back to the stone age. Our ancestors felt they would die if they were not part of the tribe (back then they did die if they were not part of the tribe). And being part of the tribe included following the crowd.

Fast forward to our present day, our tribes are a lot smaller, and chances are you will not die if you are not part of a large group; however, your brain still thinks you will and when you are not following the majority you feel unease.

Back to pushing our cart, when we see a neat, untouched brand shelf vs. another picked-off, facing-missing shelf some part of our unconscious brain might start wondering why no one is touching the neat one and ravaging through the other one. As they say in English “monkey see, monkey do” (in Spanish might be “a donde va Vicente ahí va la gente”).

So, the next time you are doing store checks for your brand, try and leave some holes in your shelves. We all love our brands and want them to look beautiful, the thing is, our shoppers’ brains might get the wrong impression.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.