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From shelf psychology to 'triangular balance', shoppers need to be wise to the tricks used to manipulate them during the sales, warns David Derbyshire

Karl pounces on a wall display of multicoloured handbags – each placed on its own shelf. "The effect here is to hide the fact that the same bag appears six or seven times. If you buy a handbag, you don't want something that everyone else has, so they have mixed them up to create the illusion of exclusivity."

Table tops positioned next to racks allow women to handle the trousers and tops. "Younger women like scruffed-up clothes displays – it suggests that these are popular. If the piles seem too neat, then obviously no one else is buying these items. Older women are more exacting in their standards."

Yet most of the high street stores are amateurs at shopping psychology compared to supermarkets. The supermarkets' key weapon is the use of the eye-level display. Experiments have shown that when we walk down an aisle, we often look only at the shelves that are level with our eyes.

That means that items with the biggest profit margins go at eye-level, while the cheap stuff – the nasty baked beans at tuppence a tin – go on the floor. If you want value brands, you'll find them eventually. But you won't buy them on impulse.

So who does it best? For Karl, it's a new store that has turned shopping for geek goods into a life-enhancing experience. Grown men don't drool in public. But at the door of the Apple Store on Regent Street, Karl comes close.

The doors are wide open – a signal to Karl that this is no ordinary computer shop. The store is large, but most of the stone floor space is empty. The trendy white computers and iPods are arranged on high beech tables. But the most noticeable thing – apart from a huge glass staircase leading up to a cinema – is the space.

"They are encouraging us to feel comfortable and confident with their products. If you go to an ordinary computer store, you feel inadequate. You feel you don't have enough information. But here, it's all about openness. The front of the store is light and airy, there are no barriers. It's more like Gucci than PC World.

"What's unique here is the luxury of the space – this is some of the most expensive retail space in Britain, yet they've dedicated huge swathes for access so customers can come in and wander around and have a play. It says that this is the best – we may not have as much out as other stores, but everything here is the best."

The Apple Store may appear more customer friendly than other shops, but the aim of the design is the same – to increase sales. Karl, who says he is a fan of Apple's honesty, doesn't see this as a problem.