Atmospheric Pressure?

Have you ever felt like a rat in a maze?

I have. It often happens in a supermarket. I enter the store, and upon grabbing a shopping cart, am funneled through a narrow aisle into an elaborate display of fruits and vegetables. And after this comes a quick tour through the bakery and deli areas. It is only after navigating these sections that I can finally gain access to the departments in which I wish to shop.

Or perhaps you've been hit with the smell of baking bread or cookies, not just inside the supermarket, but even outside in the parking lot. And no matter your resolve, you find yourself tasting these delicacies. Your stomach begins to growl, and you realize you're getting hungry.

Welcome to the world of retail atmospherics. It's all a carefully constructed plot to woo customers into a web of tantalizing products. And if you're not real careful, you will become the spider's next meal.

Two of my favorite stores are Sony Style and the Apple store. Located normally in upscale malls in large towns, these two stores leverage atmospherics in ways that most customers would never imagine. Their tactics are so low under the radar that their marketing slips in beneath our perceptual defenses.

To wit: Both stores use aromatherapy (or is it retailtherapy?) to set people at ease. Each store has a designer scent that is unique to the chain. Sony, for example, has a custom blend of vanilla and mandarin orange, creating an aroma that will be instantly recognizable to anyone who has been more than once. Apple's stores, too, use a unique scent (and for the life of me, I cannot pin it down, but I know it when I smell it).

Again, both stores rely heavily on presentation and touchability. Expensive, high-margin items are up front to lure people in. Every item in the store is a floor demo, and customers are invited to manhandle them. In the case of Sony, lifestyle rooms at the rear of the store illustrate how a widescreen LCD television would look in your own home theater. A customer could conceivably take his or her interior designer with them and say, "There...that's the look I want. Now do it."

Apple has a somewhat different approach, mostly because they only sell computers and iPods. Everything is trademark "Apple white," including not just the products, but the walls and ceiling. The sexiness of Apple's computers screams "look at me, look at me!" There's a certain smug "in" feeling among the shoppers there, with loyal Mac users emitting an air of intellectual superiority for their tastes in computers.

Truth be known, about 50% of the computers sold in Apple stores are to PC converts (or is that defectors?).

The atmosphere that these two stores create is so compelling that it is almost impossible to say "no" and simply walk out empty-handed. I know from experience: my wife dreads my visiting the Apple store even more than when I wander into a bike shop. And all I have purchased thus far is an iPod and every accessory known to man. A MiniMac is next on my list, to run my home entertainment center.

But atmospheric creation is not limited to these electronic giants. Department stores, boutiques, and nearly every large retail chain employ subtle techniques and tools to put you in a buying mood. There's a reason why all those cosmetics are front and center when you enter a big department store. They literally suck the women in. And there's also a reason why the men's department is usually tucked away by a side entrance: Men want to be able to get in and out, and will usually do so from a parking lot doorway.

Even the racetrack design in department stores is by design. Once you get on the "track," it becomes easier to traverse the store and all of its various little "stores within a store." Check it out the next time you go to Dillard's or Macy's.

Specialty stores also employ the same tricks. The hands-on opportunities at an REI store (think hardcore sporting goods) invite people to linger, try things out, and spend money. How many stores do you know of that have a 3-story climbing wall? The REI store in downtown Denver does.

The next time you're feeling like a lab rat while shopping, you can thank the marketing geniuses. Now if only the weather guessers could get a better handle on all this atmopsheric stuff.

Dr "Hang On To Your Wallet" Gerlich