Comments on: The Snickers trick

By: MJ Eddy

MJ Eddy — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 14:50:04 +0000

Perhaps “understocking” Snickers bars in vending machines is a misleading description. How about “they ran out” because the bars are the most popular items, so they sell out faster, and the restocker optimally comes when most of his products need replacing. If the margins on Snickers bars aren’t high enough to warrant a higher percentage of vending machine space, or the Snickers people haven’t paid more for space than their competitors, Snickers will run out simply because it’s popular. Restocker simply maintaining most efficient schedule for his truckload.

By: Weekend Entrepreneurial Reading – Valentine’s Day Edition

Weekend Entrepreneurial Reading – Valentine’s Day Edition — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:02:35 +0000

[...] The Snickers trick (this is a very interesting read about how snack machines are filled) – jsomers.net [...]

By: Max

Max — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:52:03 +0000

It’s called “bait-and-switch” and is a well known marketing technique employed by small to major retailers.

By: Max

Max — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:51:31 +0000

It’s called “bait-and-switch” and is a well known marketing technique employed by small to major retailers.

By: Flow » Blog Archive » Daily Digest for September 10th - The zeitgeist daily

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 08:29:51 +0000

[...] Shared The Snickers Trick [...]

By: Roridge

Roridge — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:32:09 +0000

So? Who cares?

It's basic commerce, it's the cornerstone of our entire economy.

Seems like the most pointless research and then write up I've ever encountered. The thousands of $ that professor is paid might be better spent on research into something useful... like... I dunno, the economy and how crap it is, and how to make it not crap.

By: Sharon T.

Sharon T. — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 06:04:34 +0000

I think saying that vending operators do this on purpose, at least knowingly, is a bit strong. This is something that my professor observed as occurring–i.e., people tend to substitute for higher margin goods and hence it might be good to purposely understock snickers. Now, that it occurs is not [at this point] necessarily intentional. However, like many economic concepts, often times businesses have unwittingly been putting into practice something that ‘worked’ without really thinking about it or realizing why it ‘worked.’ So, perhaps machine operators have been subconsciously not stocking enough snickers because it yields higher profits but they don’t really know why/notice it (perhaps those operators trying to meet demand actually yielded lower profits and couldn’t compete–an evolutionary model of an IO equilibrium (maybe)). As another example, advertisers have been heeding the advice of many behavioral economists for years before behavioral economists made this advice. That’s because to advertisers it wasn’t a peer-reviewed study that confirmed hypothesis X; rather, hypothesis X is a rule of thumb. That make sense?

Otherwise, really enjoyed it. Generally spot on and conceptually accurate. I am only a but anxious about your wording because I wouldn’t somehow want to be responsible for misquoting the professor.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:57:53 +0000

@Joel: What if they the operator lower the price of the snicker to $1.10 to lure in the people to buy other snack bar ?

By: christefano

christefano — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:30:17 +0000

What’s the name of this sales trick?

By: Joel

Joel — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:27:23 +0000

No, if they charged $1.50 for snickers, people wouldn’t get up from their desks because they would say that the snickers that they desire is too expensive. Once they have already lumbered down to the vending machine, however, they are much more likely to buy something, even if they snickers isn’t available.