Multi-sensory shopping

While on the mandatory monthly shopping trip (i.e. sit in a chair while your sweetie tries on shoes and makeup), I walked by Hollister and Co.. There was an interesting smell near the store, and as I walked by I noted that a sales associate was spraying perfume into the air.

This was an interesting ploy to get potential shoppers to come into the store, and it got me thinking about the multi-sensory experience that shopping in a mall is today. Sight, sounds and especially smells abound. And what do we do when we go "window" shopping? We compulsively touch the clothes or nicknacks or whatever that we are looking at.

Of course, I was on my way to a department store makeup counter, and those are notoriously overwhelming in the different perfumes that linger in the air!