This document discusses common techniques used in retail store design and product placement to subtly influence customer purchases and shopping behavior. Some key points made: - Stores often place special offers and selected products near the entrance to grab attention. They guide customers in a clockwise direction through the store. - Red is a attention-grabbing color often used to mark sales and encourage impulse buys, though prices may not actually be reduced. - Produce displays use appealing colors like green, orange, red and yellow to signal products are healthy. - Cash registers are often visible from outside to give the impression of a popular, busy store and entice new customers inside. In clothing stores they may be hidden to encourage extra browsing

1. Observation Lab
Crash Course on Creativity 2012
Professor Tina Seelig, Stanford University

2. The „temptation“
or the science of unnoticeably influencing our buying decisions
What do most shops have in common?
● Most stores display some special offers already at the gate of the store
● Once inside, a shelf with some selected articles is mostly one the first things you see
● Most shops are oriented to the right, meaning the customer is guided to start the
shopping tour clockwise
● Products are displayed functionally
● Red is a preferred color used by many stores and brands, especially from the „lower“
or „daily supply“ segments – like discounter, supermarkets or drugstores.
Red is a color that one cannot just „oversee. As „attention grabbing“
color it influences the way we react and acknowledge the presence
of the shop. When used inside, it is generally in relation to some
„special offers“, bargains and speed („get it now!“).
Red is used in logos and places which encourage us to take action, grab
a product, etc. Red is also used to mark „special offer“ price tags
(although, if you happen to know the usual price, you'll notice that
sometimes there is NO difference, so the „special offer“ price tag is
obviously just to make us believe we are dealing with a bargain).
The fact that discounter shops use red with predilection, points
to the same „bargain“ concept.

3. Beauty is yummy!
Food stores always push forward boxes where fruits, vegetables,
natural drinks are „artistically“ displayed and the colors of the
products are all in harmony, very pleasant and inviting. Green,
orange, red and yellow dominate in these arrangements,
inducing the pleasant feeling you are buying something healthy.

4. The Path
outside
entry
„bite“ display
Hmm, it smells
so nice here!
Last „bite“ while waiting in
line at the cashier

5. See? We are so popular!
Come check us out!
„OH, that's a shop – looks pretty crowded, look how many people
are waiting in line at the cash register! Maybe I should check it
out ?“
Cash registeres at many shops are located near the entry / exit,
and mostly very visible from outside (through the mostly large
windows). That way, the line of people waiting to pay is so visible
from outside, stressing the impression that the shop is popular (or
not!), influencing in this way new prospects and „convincing“ them
to get in and check it out.
In clothing / shoe stores however, I have observed that the cash
register is rather „hidden“ somwhere in the middle of the store,
obviously encouraging some „extra browsing“.

6. Come & Go
Shopping habits vary according to the type of shop we are in.
In supermarkets we mainly notice people in the 30+ age
group, mostly alone and mainly searching for pre-definied
items. Exception teens who tend to only come in groups,
mainly shopping for „junk food“ and drinks. Shop workers do
always wear some uniforms and do not engage in dialog with
shoppers unless asked.
Different is the situation in fashion shops for ex., where
people mainly „browse“ without a specific target and where
we notice the sales people getting into action. In these shops
the sales people do not wear a uniform, maybe just a tag.

7. As Peter M. Leschak once said …
All of us are watchers — of television, of time
clocks, of traffic on the freeway — but few are
observers.
Everyone is looking, not many are seeing.