The touch factor.

• Position: Buying things in a store - Survey - Brief article

Consumers love to touch products in stores, especially clothing: They like to feel the fabric and try things on. The problem for retailers is that people don't like buying things that other people have touched, as a recent study demonstrates. Researchers sent 261 students into the University of Alberta bookstore in Edmonton with instructions to try on a particular university-logo T-shirt and rate its quality. In some cases, the shirt was in the dressing room; in other instances, it was on the return rack near the dressing room. A third group of students got a shirt from the store's regular racks...