Beware items splashed on the covers of weekly store circulars at super cheap prices. Retailers take great pains to carefully, scientifically select these items—because when they’re on sale, there’s often a dramatic increase in shoppers buying related items at full price. If laundry detergent is on sale at a dollar store, for example, a lot of detergent is sold, naturally, but there’s also a spike in the sale of fabric softener, which you could probably find elsewhere at a much better price.
How much more likely are you to buy a related non-discounted item when you go to a store to buy something that’s on sale? As much as 14 times more likely.
From a recent WSJ story about Family Dollar stores (which, sorry, I can’t seem to find a link to):
Family Dollar has learned that featuring laundry may be twice as valuable as featuring underwear because other items, like fabric softener, bleach, shampoo and paper towels can be often made with laundry purchases.
In fact, transactions containing laundry detergent that was advertised on a circular were 14 times more likely to include fabric softener, which wasn’t advertised, than an average transaction.