WHY are supermarkets so successful? What is it that lures the shoppers… the bright lights, the embracing warmth, the background music…?

Or is it a belief that supermarket goods are cheaper than those in ordinary shops?

These are the kind of questions World in Action will be investigating on Monday.

Background facts to the programme are that there are now over 1,000 supermarkets up and down the country: takings are going up all the time (one group exceeds £9,000,000 [£158m in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed] a year).

What’s the secret, then? I have seen both sides of a supermarket — as a shopper and as editor of a supermarket magazine, and I’m sure that one of the most important factors is the time saved by supermarket shopping.

Self service so obviously speeds things up.

Price reductions are an added inducement to shoppers, but not, I think, a primary one.

But I doubt if any of the points I’ve mentioned weigh as heavily as the fact that the supermarket offers more choice of food from every part of the world, under one roof, and more variety of pricing in similar foodstuffs.

That background music — how much is it worth in terms of winning your hard cash? Recent criticism that sexy music was being played to encourage buying hardly makes sense.

It seems so obvious that nostalgic melody is a better tranquilliser than the Twist, and a blanketing of shoppers’ problems by soft music must make buying easier.

Colour is another vital persuader. Women’s magazines highlight “meals to a man’s heart” in colour, and a riot of gay packets and cans greets the eye on entering the supermarket.

Do women really miss that personal service and the friendly chat over the counter with the grocer “round the corner”? I made some inquiries.

Barbara Goalen says: “Yes. I support the small grocer because I hate everything being standardised, and the personal service at the small grocery is so much a part of England.”

Jan Holden, on the other hand, has “no option but to like the supermarket because my children so enjoy playing old-fashioned grocers there. The music doesn’t affect me either way.”

Barbara Kelly is divided about it. “I like the variety in the large supermarket but, because I also like the personal care, I use a very small personalised supermarket.

“I don’t like music when I’m shopping, and if it happened in my small supermarket I’d stop going!”

Barbara, perhaps unknowingly, echoes thousands of women shoppers — so much so that current management training courses are directed to impress the new supermarket manager with the fact that instead of seeing his customers as so many heads, he must know them as persons.

Other new trends in the supermarket also reflect the personal care angle. Hostesses are to be introduced in some of them — boys will take goods to the car park, from others.

There is to be more counter service for health and beauty products and generally a more personal element is to offset the criticism that the supermarket is too impartial.

Oddly enough, baby-sitting arrangements introduced in some supermarkets have not always been successful.

Most children prefer tn be roaming down the aisles, and in on the spending. The cute eye of a small child soon registers the fact that candies are lodged at the check-out counter, as a last-minute reminder to mother.

While money-saving and supermarketing cannot be said to go hand in hand, regular price reductions on specific items can cut the cost of living. I think no woman will deny that she spends more in the supermarket than she would at the small grocers.

Certainly the idea of returning goods to a supermarket needs thought.

It is a hazardous procedure to explain to the check-out girl, on going in, that you are taking goods in to exchange, and that they have already been paid for.

The National Union of Small Shopkeepers estimates that the grocer “round the corner” still holds his own.

In the fight for survival which exists between shopkeepers and supermarkets, it is thought the latter may well have to revise their policy and restrict themselves to city centres, rather than the outskirts where they meet the often keen competition of the backstreet shopkeeper.

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