 Making money is the primary goal of every business. How the business makes money is the constant preoccupation of many businesses. Resturants are not an exception. Let me start by saying that we don't always spend it because we need things. According to the credit platform Bamboo, even though we like to think of ourselves as rational, thoughtful creatures, the truth is most of the decisions we make about money are anything but rational. We all overspend. We all ignore our budgets and we all impose by. In fact, the way all humans make decisions, especially the decisions we make about money, isn't very rational at all. This is very accurate. Many people upgrade their phones and laptops every six months and their reasons hardly bothers on faulty devices. Some people have several subscriptions they don't even remember and the credit card they use without budgets. Businesses and businesses, including restaurants, have devised means to ensure people continue to buy from them and use their services. Their strategies usually center around the human default to follow emotions rather than logic. According to research from the University of Iowa, the Department of Neurology, people who cannot process emotions also struggle to make decisions suggesting that emotions play a key role in our decision-making abilities. In today's video, I'm going to share with you 17 psychological tricks that make you spend your money. Pay attention. If you're new here, subscribe for more awesome videos such as this one. 1. Creating Scarcity The most prominent example of this was seen during the COVID-19 pandemic. People were literally stocking up on food items. So most restaurants that had it in excess placed a few on display, creating the idea that people had really bought most of the item. Therefore, customers were mentally pressured to buy the remaining ones on display quickly to avoid not being able to find it elsewhere. This is a very effective psychological trick for making you spend money. 2. Social Pressure Imagine a scenario where you are in a college and everybody who is somebody seems to frequent this particular exotic restaurant in town except you. How will you feel? Probably not great. What restaurants typically do is to create the impression of class. Everything within their world seems to appeal to their high and mighty. So naturally, to belong, you are forced to do whatever it takes to eat out there. At least once a while, you are pressured to spend heavily on foods that cost little at an ordinary restaurant. The trick is to make you think you are missing out on something. 3. Large Sales Sign Restaurants use commercials that are sometimes placed on large banners that you see on your way to work every morning. You also see them in the evenings surrounded by a bright light that further attracts you to eat out, though you have food at home. Sales signs can sometimes stay up for months and the more you see it, the more you think about their foods, the more you wonder what they taste like and the faster you come to a purchasing decision. 4. Restaurants display food with special discounts and treats. It's only natural for food that have discounts to attract many people because people feel that they can save money by buying them. They hire the discount, they hire the likelihood that someone would buy. The funny thing is that the price can still be expensive. But then, because of a discount, say for example 40%, people would assume that it was much more expensive before. So the discount makes it easier to buy. 5. They remove one cent from each whole number of prices. This is perhaps the oldest trick in the book where business is usually put $99.9 for items worth $100 and restaurants are no exception. The psychological trick makes you believe that you are already spending less when the difference is really minute and doesn't really make any difference. Just imagine paying $999 for a $1,000 product and you realize that you really paid $1,000 but then seeing $999 will make you feel that it's cheaper than it actually is. So the idea is to create the impression that the food is cheap while still not really removing anything as a discount from the price of the product. 6. Restaurants place popular foods amid other unknown dishes. Now the thing is not only restaurants do this but even newspapers also do this where they put an interesting article in the front page and tell you to continue from page 22. Now the idea is that you have to flip through the rest of the pages to be able to get to page 22 and continue the article you were reading and as you are flipping through it means you get to see other contents that you may not have been interested in reading. In restaurants and practice, they put the essential food items amid other foods. So by the time you are trying to place others, you have seen other available dishes. They do this constantly knowing that there is a 50-50 chance that as you try to order your food, you want to know more about the other dishes. This increases the likelihood that you will buy something that you didn't plan to buy initially. This of course is a psychological trick to get you to spend more money. 7. Making people go through several foods on the menu in search of dishes. Restaurants typically prepare a long list of available dishes on their menu. This makes customers go through each item searching for a suitable dish. The more they do this, the more the likelihood they will end up spending on other items. Irrespective of the individual being a regular customer, they may, out of curiosity and habit formation, still go through the entire menu, hoping to stumble on something new even when they know what they want to eat. 8. The Create Sample Stations. Sample stations actually slow you down. They offer a free sample of the food and this makes you slow your pace. When you are calm and waiting in line for your free food, you may also sport other things you want to buy. This is besides the fact that the free sample too is targeted at getting you to consider purchasing a new dish next time. The free sample is targeted at changing your buying behavior to accommodate the new dishes available that you may clearly not be in need of. 9. The Play Music. Music has a very certain effect on people. It is not strange to hear music in restaurants during the day. The music will make you feel relaxed and perhaps encourage you to buy more. 10. The Place Food within your line of sight and display it attractively. If certain food are far from your sight, you would probably not notice them and hence not spend more. This strategy is always employed by restaurants. They garnish a particular dish and display it in a very attractive way, making you unavailable to control your appetite. The more you see it, the more you are likely to want to taste it. Most of them even allow you to take a bite. Imagine tasting a very delicious French toast or Greek yogurt. You would definitely order more. 11. They put lights and make their space comfortable. Restaurants are usually very organized and well-lighted. Someone who works into the place will want to identify with its superior taste and quality. People will hardly enter a major restaurant without buying something, no matter how small. This is why malls also put things that are not so expensive and essential like bread. 12. The Leverage Holidays for Sales. Restaurants know holidays are a time of rest, workers are happy and they leverage the period to organize sales events to maximize people's mood. Think about it, all the holidays, as far as you can remember, was there ever one where there wasn't a big sales? Probably not. Sell different kinds of exotic cultural and regular foods that people mostly don't need but will buy because they are in a good mood. 13. They give you loyalty points and keep you coming back. There is nothing quite as strong as the feeling of progress even in the absence of real progress itself. Restaurants have perfected the art of keeping customers over the years. They use different customer loyalty programs. Sometimes, it comes in the form of a card you are issued when you make a purchase. Every time you make a fresh purchase, you are given some points, each can be traded in for dishes when they get to a certain level. 14. They put candy, chocolates and magazines at checkouts. They know people may be unlikely to break bigger cash denominations to buy things like candy and so on. They are quite cheap. The other type of product people will think is exceptionally cheap. They wouldn't even notice they are spending. What restaurants do is place them at checkout points so that instead of worrying about change, they can simply deduct it from your card and give you the product. This sells a lot of magazines and candies. 15. They offer a bonus snack or side dish or giveaway. Many restaurants try to increase customer loyalty by offering a few packs and keep people coming back. Nothing feels good like buy days and get the other free or an outright giveaway. It makes their customers feel loved and appreciated. A lot of people look forward to these special packs. This is a psychological trick. 16. They make their product familiar. Restaurants achieve this by getting your favorite celebrities to eat at their restaurants in an art. They may get familiar people on TV ads to use hangouts or have business lunch at their restaurants. When they do this, they are saying our restaurants are so good that even the people you idolize come here too. 17. They display their dishes attractively and have packaged deliveries. Restaurants are exceptional at this. Great packaging and food display can make you feel the food tastes better than you can imagine. This works almost all the time.