This is the smart reason supermarkets are putting out Easter eggs now

If you've been in a supermarket recently, you may have noticed Easter eggs knocking about - even though Easter is months away.

Yes, while it lands on 9th April this year, many supermarkets have started selling the chocolate confectionary early, and there is a clever reason why.

Speaking tothe Mirror, Anglia Ruskin University, Dr Cathrine Jansson-Boyd, explained that some people will stock up early if they see a good deal.

"The reason why [supermarkets] do it is that often [the seasonal items] are on special offers.

"People are then thinking 'ooh but it's cheap now and if I buy them now, I can store them and keep buying things little by little, then I don't have to pay it all out at the point in time when perhaps I need to buy lots of it.

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"That's the reasoning for why they're doing it - in order to get the consumer to think it's practical for them. "However, that is not why they're doing it - if you start buying mince pies in October because you want to put them away for December, you think 'ooh I'll have one' and then you have two and then you've eaten them and then you go and buy a new packet.

"Then as it's coming up to the festive period, you'll buy another one.

"So it's not because the shops want to start Christmas in October or Easter in January, it's just purely to get people to buy more and little by little you'll spend twice as much."

"You want to give the people you love as many things as possible to show that you care, because the items are the equivalent of importance and caring," she said.

"We are conditioned, whether we like it or not, it's just the way life has gone and I think we need to become dematerialised and understand that material possessions are not important."

She added: "What's really tragic in psychology is that there are a lot of studies that show that social experience with others makes us much happier and is better for our mental health, than receiving a gift from someone."

So now you know.

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