The New York Times Magazine has a really interesting article this week on people’s buying habits and how retailers attempt to influence this. The article describes how most people habitually buy certain products at the same stores (e.g., milk and bread from regular visits to the supermarket, paper towels from a less frequent visit to Target or Walmart). Target of course wants people to buy more stuff at their stores, but these habits are hard to overcome. But they realize that when a woman is having a baby, her habits tend to change. But marketing to a new mother is too late, as she is bombarded by many companies, so they set about trying to determine which of their customers are early in their pregnancies. Surprisingly, they can tell with a good deal of certainty that a woman is pregnant based on innocuous sounding things she is purchasing (vitamin supplements, unscented soap and lotion, etc.). The article includes this story:
Scary, but kind of awesome. And BTW, the article and the book on which it’s based goes more into detail on how one can influence one’s own habits.