Some interior design and architecture experts have called some malls “forests” or “mazes”. Various users reported their bad experience on Twitter When it comes to finding outlets in department stores like El Corte Inglés or Ikea. All this leads us to talk green effectpsychological phenomenon in which people make them impulsively susceptible to buying, and deliberately caused for years.

A low chin, slightly glowing eyes, and confusion are some signs that someone is experiencing this: zombiesAs this mood settles, we begin to walk more slowly. Some psychologists describe it as an almost paralyzed condition. Mind stops working because it logs a lot of information at the same time and gets exhausted.

Gruen influence is very common in shopping mall design. In fact, it is named after the architect Victor Gruen, who designed one of the first establishments. Gruen didn’t like the level of manipulation required to create this mood and tried to create a mall. to surprise consumers to buy things they don’t need.

A number of factors come together to create the effect, almost all activating our senses: use of specific lighting and sound cues, ambient noise and spatial design of shops and displays. Even temperature and humidity are important, as are mirrors and windows.

Designers of modern stores and malls are aware of this phenomenon and, as many mall visitors have noted, consciously create spaces designed to trigger this mood. That’s why they have hard-to-find exits or complex paths to follow so that when consumers want to leave, they switch to another section.

How we orient ourselves (and how not) in stores

In shops in England in the 1950s, the shopkeeper would stand behind the counter and cut a piece of meat if a person wanted meat. Then I would pack and get the money or write a note and the person would bring the purchase to the cashier. When the supermarket was born, they had to train their customers on how to navigate the store and get items off the shelf without anyone’s help. For this they use library examplewith different sections and corridors.

They found ways to get people through the store to sell more products. For example, placing commonly used items such as milk, at the other end of the store. Research shows, for example, that most people tend to turn right after crossing a store’s threshold. This influences when choosing where to place items with greater profit margins.

A labyrinth with no exit

Alann Penn, professor of architecture and urban computing at University College London, did some research on IKEA after describing his first stay at the store as “lost in the woods”: He went to the store to buy a mattress for the bed. A few hours later, went with a mattress and more I don’t plan to buy.

As you’ve discussed in your research, the way a store is laid out affects the way people shop. And so he decided to study how humans interact with space by looking at models in virtual reality to learn how the environment affects behavior. And that just didn’t explain how people get lost in storesbut also why they chose to do so.

“They don’t want you to go through the store efficiently,” he explained. An IKEA store has three basic areas: showroom, shopping area and warehouse. According to his research, the first goal in the showroom is to surprise a customer to deliver it to the store: “They’ll catch you losing.” You can’t go until you’re full, you’ve already filled your basket with unnecessary things.

And impulse purchases are important to retailers: 60% of purchases at IKEA aren’t what’s on people’s shopping lists. Store design is the core component of customer experience strategy, guiding shoppers down a detour in every department and close to every product:To further mislead buyersThe road is constantly rocking and there is no window through which direction or time can be felt.”

Customer heatmap at Ikea.

Also, you don’t really need a store map this way, and that’s what most shoppers appreciate. They are happy to walk the path the store gave them. The long walk usually takes at least an hour, and usually an hour or two more, depending on how many people shop in the aisle.

When they arrive at the store, shoppers are tired and many just want to pay and leave, making them much more susceptible to impulse buying. Decision fatigue drives people to make worse decisions. Because getting them takes energy, and by the time customers get to the checkout line, their neural reserves are already depleted. “Thank you for your purchase and see you soon.”