Stores' Social Psychology

This article in the Telegraph is a wonderful look at the way retail stores manipulate (persuade? pick your verb: Wal-Mart manipulates, Target persuades) shoppers through straightforward social psychology: product placement, lighting, store layout, et cetera. (The new Apple Store in London is mentioned, too.)

Plus, since the writer's British, you get store names like "Topshop" and crazy word usages like "being rubbish at shopping" and sentences like "Some department stores lower the lighting in the lingerie department so people feel relaxed about flicking through pants." In public! Flicking through pants in public! Have they no shame?