7 Retail Secrets Stores Don’t Want You To Know

It seems simple enough. You walk into a store, pick out something you like, pay for it, and then leave. But behind this simple exchange, there's a whole fleet of minds trying to figure out why you picked what you did, why you didn't pick something else, how to get you to pick more and spend more, and whether you're actually here for more nefarious reasons. And you can bet that these minds have some interesting techniques to figure it out.

Although most of these tactics are innocuous enough at face value, it's good to be informed of what personal privacies you're giving up when you choose to shop, and whether or not your shopping decisions are based on true facts. And since buying clothes is something that we're guessing most human beings do, these surveillance and merchandising methods affect us all.

We (obviously) aren't here to tell you to not shop — that's silly, and robs us of something that inspires a lion's share of our happy-making moments. But it's good to be informed and thoughtful about the process of shopping, just like you're aware of the ethics behind how your clothes are made and where certain trends are borrowed from. The more you know...