It's no secret that companies spend a lot of time and energy trying to get
every dollar they can out of you but most don't realize just how many
psychological mind tricks they use on you every day
from ways they're ripping you off by packaging your products
to little known psychology tricks they used to get you to spend
way more money french fries this one is kind of a basic trick but
it's something you should look out for next time you get some fast food
in 2017 someone on reddit asked what did your job want you to hide from the
customers on the thread someone said they used to
work at mcdonald's they explained that mcdonald's taught
him how to pinch the fry carton just right when putting the fries in
this was to make sure it looked full but it actually wasn't
basically they squashed the curtain so it looks like you're getting way more
fries but there's a whole lot of space where
they've pinched down where the fries won't go this may seem like a pretty
small saving for them but seeing as mcdonald's fries are sold
every second of every day all the time this adds up to a lot of money
mcdonald's got so much heat for this that a spokesperson had to step
in they said that they always try to appropriately fill the boxes and bags of
fries and they said that so customers can
enjoy their world famous fries to the fullest
but i think they'd enjoyed them a lot more if the carton was actually full
that explains why your fries don't stick out of a carton like in commercials
so watch out for this next time you order some mcdonald's fries
excessive use this is something to watch out for in advertisements
and it's a mind trick that consumers use to make you buy their product
over and over again in shampoo commercials you'll notice the actors and
models always use the product way more than they need to
for example instead of taking a small amount of shampoo or toothpaste
they will squeeze a ton out that is to encourage you to burn through their
product much more quickly they want you to emulate the exact same
thing that the models do on the adverts but this makes you run out of their
product very fast food commercials will also do this
showing the actors making gigantic meals and in drinks commercials they will
always pour out the entire bottle not just take a sip there are other ways
companies subtly send you a message about how to use
their products for example pay attention to wireless commercials
over the last few years you'll notice that they're using younger and younger
children in their abs of course they're not targeting young
kids but it sends a message to parents that it's
normal for kids to have smartphones of course years ago this was not the case
but commercials aren't simply just to make you buy a product straight away
they are trying to condition you to think about their product and their
brand in a totally different way even if it takes many months or years
for them to make a return on that investment
delivery tracking nowadays when you buy something you want it
straight away we've all been there where we order something and then sit for
hours staring out the delivery screen for things like amazon purchases this is
actually accurate information that's because your product is scanned
with barcodes at every single point where companies trick you however is
with food delivery tracking many people order a domino's pizza and
then sit for ages waiting for a tracking website to update
but all of those pizza delivery tracking websites are totally false
there isn't someone sitting there updating your pizza every single time
it's taken out of the oven or a piece of pepperonis put onto it
instead it simply relies on average wait times
the domino's pizza tracking technology was made in 2008 quite some time ago
and that animated bar on their website is simply based on average wait times
this actually backfires if the pizza is taking too long
that's because sometimes the tracking bar is going faster than the people
at least you know that there's not some domino's worker updating the progress of
every pizza they make otherwise i can't imagine how much
longer the pizzas would actually take to arrive at your
door call centers this is a very clever trick that most
companies do not want you to know have you ever called up a customer service
line and it's gone to somewhere across the world
most of the time the person is talking with a script and also a language
barrier this can make things very time consuming for you and also
annoying while on the phone to customer service i'm sure you thought why can't i
just speak to someone in my country well if you're in the usa there's a way
to do this if you call up and ask to speak to someone in english most of the
time they'll send you to an indian call center
but if you select the option for spanish you'll likely get transferred to a call
center in texas and from there you can simply just
speak english as those people speak both english and
spanish the reason why they do this is because there's way more calls that come
in for english speakers that's why it's way cheaper to outsource
those jobs to india but there's only a few people who need to speak to someone
in spanish so they can afford to do it in texas
this is the case for many companies support lines because it costs the
companies a bit of extra money it's something they don't want most people to
know but it's a pretty clever way to get around someone reading a script and who
doesn't speak the language perfectly decoy products in the beers this is
known as the asymmetric dominance effect it basically involves bringing in a
decoy product in order to make people buy more
let's imagine you're thinking about buying two different bottles of wine on
a shelf they're both pretty similar but one is
10 and the other is 30. this makes both bottles seem expensive
but if there was a decoy product a 50 bottle of wine which is way worse then
you'd think the others are reasonable the decoy product basically lowers your
expectations and makes the other products look way better this is done
most commonly with computers you may have two expensive computers
with similar specs and similar prices most people would think it's way too
expensive and not worth it but when you bring in a decoy with worse
specs and a higher price this makes the other two products seem way better
you're then much more likely to choose between one of them so if you've ever
been shopping and seen a product with way worse specs and way higher prices
then you've been a victim of a decoy product anthropomorphism
there's something in human brains which makes us love thinking of animals and
objects like humans many people give their boats
names they talk to their pets as if they can
talk back and even as kids we have stuffed animals with names
that we talk to companies know this odd thing about human brains and exploit it
to their hearts content that's why brands often have a mascot
it's because it attributes human characteristics to an object or brand
this makes us see the brand or product like a human and thus
empathize with it the anthropomorphization of brands makes us
trust them a lot more this cognitive bias creates an emotional connection
between you and a product or company researchers at elon
university found that if you have an anthropomorphic character your sales
will increase researchers at elon university found
that if you have an anthropomorphic character then your sales will increase
it's kind of surprising to think about but when you do you'll realize
almost every big brand has some form of anthropomorphism going on
gruen transfer have you ever been walking around a mall or ikea and got
lost because it's like a zigzagging maze well that's not a bad design flaw in
fact it's very much intentional it's known as the gruen transfer and is
named after the mall architect victor gruen victor gruen found that the
best way to get shoppers to spend more was to make it
impossible to escape his malls this is still used today and it's the reason why
malls and superstores are made in a maze-like way ironically a sense of
disorientation sways people into a false sense of security
this makes them feel very at home in your store and it also makes them cover
more ground meaning that they will see more products
and buy more too look around your local store and you'll see that it goes in a
counterclockwise route that's because 90 of people are
right-handed and will use their left hand to steer the card many stores also
won't have any clocks and won't use natural lighting
this suspends the sensation of time and it's a similar technique that casinos
use to make people stay there longer also stores will place basic items like
milk and bread at the back of the store this means if you go in to get something
basic you have to walk past a bunch of things you don't need
this will probably make you stop look at them and maybe buy them
the disorientating store layout also distracts you
this is done on purpose and it's thanks to a study from stanford university in
the usa the study found that when you're distracted you're much more likely to
take risks this would include things like impulse
buying so that's why stores keep you distracted
and disorientated price anchoring price anchoring is also known as
overpricing let's say that you pick up a menu in a restaurant
you see a dish for 100 so you go down and pick a cheaper option well if you've
done that before then you're a victim of price anchoring there's a cognitive bias
which means customers rely heavily on the first piece of
information they get so if the first price of a meal you see is a hundred
dollars then that is your baseline price anything
lower than that seems much cheaper even when it's not
car dealers also do this all the time by setting the standard price of the car
way higher than it should be this makes them seem like they're
cutting you a great deal when really they're still overcharging you
simply because it's the first price they see that means they think that cheaper
vehicles are a good deal you're much more willing to accept a high price
simply because it's lower than the first price you saw
size matters you may think that today humans are eating more than ever
but there's actually a secret growing trend in companies which is making food
portions smaller that would be fine only they're
not doing this with a reduced price to make their products seem more
competitive they'll simply reduce the size not the price
also many fast food places have been caught increasing the amount of ice
they're putting in their drinks that's so they can give you much less
drink one study from the daily mail found companies are reducing their
product sizes from six to twelve percent but now that you know these
psychological tricks companies are using it maybe you can get ahead of them
i don't know about you but i feel pretty dumb after knowing how much i've been
getting tricked by companies but now it's time to make your voice
heard comment below which was the sneakiest way companies are tricking you
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