For most of us, shopping for essentials has turned us into creatures of habit; we frequent those supermarkets that suit our style and offer us convenience; almost to the point we become students in apathy when it comes to purchasing groceries and other food and basic household products.

Tactical marketing is geared towards both encouraging us to come back for more as well as trying to tempt us out of our apathy and to embrace a change. Special promotions abound and constantly change; where and how stores engage us says a lot about us as individual consumers as well.

The big boys
It would be a very strange occurrence if we were to step inside the likes of Carrefour, Géant, its sister Le Marché or Lulu hypermarket and not be confronted with special promotions. For these supermarkets volume is the name of the game; margins come from selling as many products as possible.

Special promotions, raffle prize draws — usually linked to an event such as Ramadan — and loyalty schemes all act as magnets. Promotions are, of course, also opportunities to shift stocks; a recent TV promotion at Géant, for example, saw more than 3,000 television sets sold in less than four hours!

What sets these players apart from other supermarkets is their ownership; invariably part of an international, they use their worldwide purchasing power to keep down prices to the consumer. It’s also not unusual to see these operators selling their own branded products.