How big retailers are playing with your mind
Step into a store and you become a psychological target
Steven Spielberg's futuristic crime thriller of the early Noughties, Minority Report, portrayed numerous technologies that have proved prescient. In one scene, the main character, played by Tom Cruise, walks into a Gap store and is greeted by a 3-D hologram that scans his eyes and mines data about his previous purchases. While retailers and manufacturers may not be this advanced yet, the data collected on consumers is making it easier to determine how and where people are willing to spend their money. When walking into a store, customers are faced with a host of subtle elements working in unison to appeal to their psychological needs. It is often the unconscious aspects of the consumer decision-making process that influence how people spend their money. Lessons in neuroscience "Retailers apply many principles of psychology ... and, of late, even more so through lessons provided in neuroscience," said Liezel Jonkheid, director of the Consumer Psychology Lab. There is no doubt that re...
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