The Neuroscience Behind ‘Shoppable’ Stores: What Your Brain Sees That You Don't

As marketers, we are constantly looking for ways to enhance the customer experience and achieve a sustainable revenue stream. But what if the key to success lies not in what customers tell us, but in what their brains reveal?

The Neuroscience Behind ‘Shoppable’ Stores: What Your Brain Sees That You Don't

A recent study from Cornerll University (NY, USA) used a combination of virtual reality and brain monitoring technology to discover new insights into how store layouts impact consumer behavior. While participants didn't consciously perceive differences in store layout complexity, their brains and behavior told a different story.

Wondering what is really going on in a shoppers’ minds as they navigate a store is not something new.The retail environment has always been quite competitive, even more so today. Buyers have a variety of purchase channels at their disposal, higher expectations and higher standard expectations from retailers. In other words, physical stores are judged in terms of ‘shoppability’. This is the term used to describe the ability of a retail environment to translate the needs and desires of a consumer into a purchase (Burke, 2005). There is a combination of various factors that determine the shoppability level: from shop atmosphere and ambience, customers service, design elements (layout, flow, lighting, visual complexity), to the the shopper’s emotional state in the moment, time spent in the store, and the shopping response (Mehrabian & Russell, 1974). 

It’s always been agreed upon that the more sensory stimulation, the more attention you attract from shoppers and you can differentiate yourself from the competition (Jang et al.,2018). It’s a strategy employed by famous retailers in the last two or three decades. Consider the clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch in the late 1990s to early 2010s. They were famous for dark, heavily scented stores with loud music and shirtless male greeters. This created a highly stimulating, although controversial, environment that was instantly recognizable. And I have to mention M&M's World: these branded stores offer a highly colorful, visually complex buying setting with numerous interactive elements, oversized displays, and a wide array of merchandise beyond just candy. I still remember the first time I visited New York, in 2009, and entered an M&M’s store: I felt like a Lilliputian in Gulliver’s Travels!

Photo inside the M&M’s World store in Times Square I visited in Nov 2009 

While these companies succeeded in creating memorable brand experiences, the trend in recent years has been toward cleaner, more minimalist store designs. This applies to both physical and online stores (Vrechopoulos et al., 2004). Each shopping environment is diverse and unique. Testing different tactics in the field will better support your marketing strategy.

The Human Brain Under the Microscope

The unique nature of this study from Cornell University is the combination of research methods used: participants’ subjective feedback, behavioral observation, and EEG data in a virtual environment that evaluate the impact of grocery store layouts on consumer responses.

Researchers employed some pretty cool tech to find out. They created virtual stores with different layouts. This allowed them to control every aspect of the environment - something that's nearly impossible to achieve in a real store. (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Three grocery store layout designs were evaluated. Condition A presented consumers with eight small shelves distributed across the floor space (the highest level of layout complexity), while Conditions B and C reduced the layout complexity by included fewer but larger shelves. (Source: Saleh Kalantari, Jesus Cruz-Garza, Tong Bill Xu, Armin Mostafavi & Elita Gao)

Fitted with a 128-channel active EEG cap and a VR headset (Fig. 2), participants shopped in these virtual stores while the researchers monitored their brain activity using EEG. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a non-invasive method used to measure electrical activity in the brain by attaching small electrodes on a person’s scalp. They record electrical impulses in the brain and the signals are amplified and recorded by a computer. In this particular study, the focus was on two key brain areas: ACC (the Anterior Cingulate Cortex, that acts like a brain's multitasking center); and RSC (the Retrosplenial Cortex, or what you might call your inner GPS system.) Traditional feedback was also collected on survey forms, as well as from behavior observation during the study.

Figure 2. Participants were asked to wear a high-density EEG cap along with the VR headset. (Source: Saleh Kalantari, Jesus Cruz-Garza, Tong Bill Xu, Armin Mostafavi & Elita Gao)

Three crucial moments defined the research and were cross-referenced with the results: 

1. when shoppers first saw the store;
2. as they explored and tried to memorize product locations;
3. when they were asked to find specific products.

It’s this combination of high-tech tools and traditional research methods that revealed how store design impacts shoppers' brains, their perception of the store attractiveness and their purchase behavior. This technique has the potential to transform how we think about creating retail spaces that are not just attractive, but also shopper-friendly and memorable.

What’s Inside Shoppers’ Brains

Let’s assume you operate or are in charge of marketing a physical store. How do you know if your store layout influences its visual complexity as assessed by your customers? And does this complexity influence how attractive they find the store? Can the store layout impact how well shoppers remember your products? Maybe different store layouts will trigger different brain responses when shoppers first see your store and when they're trying to find products?

These were the questions the research team tried to find a scientific answer to. The assumption was that having more aisles in the same space would make the store seem more visually complex, hence less attractive to shoppers. They also suspected that more complex stores might influence their memory and making it difficult for them to find products. They tested whether different brain activity patterns applied to varied store layouts. Looking at specific brain regions involved in visual perception, spatial navigation, and memory, new insights were revealed:

• Simpler is better: in more complex store layouts, participants found it harder to remember products they'd seen. This suggests that a cluttered or confusing layout might curb customers' ability to recall items, potentially impacting purchasing decisions.
• Cognitive overload: Navigating the more complex store environments, participants' brains showed increased activity in areas associated with visual and spatial processing. This indicates more mental effort from shoppers, which could lead to fatigue or frustration.
• Attractiveness: The study found a strong link between how visually complex a store appeared and how attractive customers found it. This relationship was influenced by two factors:
  • processing fluency: how easily customers could understand and navigate the layout (accounting for 78% of the effect)
  • pleasure: The enjoyment derived from the store environment (accounting for 22% of the effect)

Store Layout and Perceived Complexity

Surprisingly, there was no significant correlation between the number of aisles and perceived visual complexity. Shoppers reported on feedback forms that more or less shelves on the store floor didn’t make the store more difficult to explore.  In this particular study, this might be due to insufficient contrast between the virtual layout options.

As a marketer, it means you can have some flexibility in store design without necessarily making the store feel more complex to customers. Focus on creating intuitive, easy-to-navigate layouts. Prioritize clarity and simplicity over elaborate designs. Consider using clear signage, logical product groupings, and uncluttered spaces to enhance processing fluency. However, remember that perceived complexity does impact store attractiveness.

Product Recall and Store Layout

While they didn’t make a difference on perceived complexity, the three different layouts did affect product recall. This occurred at a subconscious level.

Marketers can therefore experiment with layouts that enhance product memorability. But also consider strategic product placement to improve recall, like repetition or unique display methods to make products stand out.

The EEG captured variances in consumers’ responses that they didn’t consciously perceive. Compared to self-reported feedback, this emphasizes the potential of using neuroscience techniques in retail design research for a more accurate assessment of buyer behavior. 

Overall Implications for Marketers, Store Designers/Builders and Retail Managers

It can be argued there’s significant value in combining traditional research methods with neuroscience techniques. If you want to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how store design affects shopping behavior and experience, this study is a good starting point. Consider more of these strategies:

• simplicity in store designs can potentially reduce mental effort and create a more pleasant experience for shoppers.
• easier-to-navigate stores make it easier for customers to find and remember products, which may lead to increasing sales and customer satisfaction. 
• continually test and measure using a combination of traditional research techniques and neuroscience tools to get a complete picture of how your store design guides buyer behavior.

Limitations and Future Research Needs

While the findings of this study are invaluable, we must acknowledge the need for further studies to confirm and project them across different retail contexts and consumer groups.

This research was conducted in a simulated and small retail space (corner market size), focused on ordinary household grocery items. The participants were mostly younger healthy adults. The results can’t easily be generalised to larger stores, luxury products, or different demographics. Findings could also be different in real-world environments even though virtual reality (VR) allows precise manipulation of variables and robust data collection.

The EEG analysis was limited to only two brain regions (ACC and RSC). Other relevant brain areas may provide additional insights. There’s also opportunity to examine shoppers' neural responses in a wider array of retail contexts too. 

More studies in recent times suggest a shift from using high product variety and visual complexity to applying simpler ways to display products (Deng et al., 2010; Hekkert et al., 2003; Im et al., 2010; Nadal et al., 2010; Orth & Wirtz, 2014; Reber et al., 2004; Tinio & Leder, 2009). The ultimate goal for marketers is to use research-based data to create retail environments that go beyond visually appeal. They must also be optimized for comfort, product recall, and ultimately, sales performance.