I loathe malls. They exhaust me. I'm not a low-energy guy, but an hour or so in my local commercial wonderland and I'm ready to hit up some hibernation. Which is why I was interested to hear a friend tell me that it was all intentional. Apparently, the demon familiars designing these things have laid hands on some data connecting blink rates to shopping behavior: as it turns out, the sleepier you get, the more likely you are to simply spring for some big ticket items and hightail it home to bed. So the lights, the layout, the sounds, the scent -- it's all designed to drain the life force right out of you.
The reason aisles, for instance, are widest in a mall's center is that the wider the aisle, the slower the walk. The slower the walk, the sleepier the pedestrian. The sleepier the pedestrian, the more likely s/he is to interrupt their slumber-inducing stroll and make a purchase. Discount racks, conversely, are often in the back of the store, with narrower aisles. Apparently, a shopper who gets brushed in the back has a 70 percent chance of turning from what they were looking at. Smaller aisles means more jostling, more jostling means fewer discount items sold.
So what do you guys think? All this stuff makes sense, but it doesn't quite jibe with the malls/megastores I know of, all of which tend to place discount items towards the front (loss leaders) and lack a defined middle. I would, however, be surprised if I wasn't being lulled into a sleepy daze somehow and for some purpose, so anyone know of relevant research or publications on this stuff?
