Wider aisles may be visually appealing but they may not spur shoppers to try out new products. (iStock)

Find it hard sticking to a strict shopping list when pushing a cart through an overstuffed store? New research suggests standing in a cramped, confining aisle may spur consumers to overlook their tried-and-true favourites and opt for new and different products.

"When consumers are confined, either through a narrow aisle or crowding, they feel like their freedom is being constrained," said Rui Zhu, a marketing professor at the University of British Columbia, in an email interview. Consumers in tight spaces seek to reassert themselves through the power of choice, she suggests.

"One such demonstration is choosing more varied options, such as different flavoured yogurt or candies, as opposed to the typical flavour they always choose," Zhu said, noting this reaction occurs at an unconscious level.

The findings of this study could prove illuminating for manufacturers and retailers shuffling shelf space, the authors say.

"If a chain store … has some stores that are more crowded than others, it might be better to try out new products in those crowded stores first," she said.

Bigger not necessarily better

In recent years, a growing number of retailers in recent years have renovated their stores, raising ceilings, improving lighting and widening aisles in a bid to improve the consumer shopping experience. Many stores such as Walmart and Shopper's Drug Mart have also beefed up their new product offerings, adding groceries to their stores.

But the move to renovate and refurbish stores hasn't always paid off. Canadian Tire said in its first-quarter report released in May that their older, smaller stores outsold their newer, larger stores in average sales per square foot. In traditional stores, average sales per square foot totalled $491 from April 2008 to April 2009. By comparison, expanded stores recorded average sales of $413 per square foot in the same time period.

Canadian Tire noted however that its larger stores generated higher total sales.

Fetishizing freedom of choice

Zhu along with Jonathan Levav, a Columbia University business professor, conducted a series of experiments testing how space affects consumers' choices. In one experiment, participants were instructed to choose three candy bars. Half of the participants stood in a narrow aisle measuring about one metre while the other half stood in an aisle measuring two metres. People in the narrow aisle were more likely to choose a variety of candy bars over those in the wider aisle.

Levav notes that being in a narrow or wide space doesn't necessarily compel a person to buy or not buy a product. Instead, the study explores how a store environment influences a consumer who plans to make a purchase.

"It's not that I made you buy chocolate," he explained. "It's that if I put you in a narrow aisle, I made you buy different kinds of chocolates."

'In the U.S., we practically fetishize freedom of choice. I can take whatever I want because we're totally free people. We're not Communists, we don't have to just eat potatoes.'—Jonathan Levav, researcher

In another experiment, participants were divided into confining and open spaces and asked how likely they were to donate to a select group of charities. The researchers presented participants with a list of options, including three well-known charities (the Canadian Red Cross, Aids.org, and the National Breast Cancer Foundation) and three lesser-known charities (the Arthritis Foundation, Children Awaiting Parents, and Sjorgeren's Syndrome Foundation).

People in the narrow aisle were more likely to give to the lesser-known charities, Levav said. This group also tended to give larger amounts of money compared with those in the open aisles.

Again, Levav attributes this response to being placed in a crowded space.

"[If you] put people in these narrow places, they look for ways to assert that they're free — and the way they do it is through their choices," said Levav.

"That's [common] in Western cultures. In the U.S., we practically fetishize freedom of choice. I can take whatever I want because we're totally free people. We're not Communists, we don't have to just eat potatoes."