In light of the all-embracing holiday season, it seems a fitting time to reflect on the strategies retailers most successfully employ to get consumers wandering in their midst to stop and scrutinize, to caress and consider, to ponder and, at last, to purchase.

Here are four of the more successful.

• They use happy lighting. Display lighting is not, as some retailers erroneously believe, an extraneous extra. Lighting your displays effectively can transform a tire-kicker into a bona-fide purchaser. Displays shouldn’t be lit from overhead, or long, dark shadows will result. Instead, direct your lighting from the front in a slightly off-kilter angle to enhance the three-dimensionality of its focus. Ideally, products can be highlighted with lighting that comes from more than one source. Apple stores employ 100 or more different lighting fixtures to make their products look more appealing.

• They dress up the windows. No matter how modest your store, the windows that separate it from the curious eyes of the world offer valuable insight into what you’re all about. An eye-catching display is the all-important first impression, after all. Make the most of it with a clean, uncluttered celebration of the store’s sweetest contents. Pick a simple colour scheme and stick with it.

• They steer customers to the right. Studies indicate that customers typically enter a store, look to the left and then walk to the right. If your layout naturally supports this inclination, then you’ll mutely be buying into their preferences, and thus stoking their shopping juices. While you’re at it, load up the front right side of your real estate with a whack of appealing, profitable treats to mentally reward your customers’ right-leaning predisposition.

• They provide retail relief. Studies have demonstrated that people are prone to get overwhelmed by endless aisles of buy-me merchandise that never give them a chance to catch their breath. Breaking up such long stretches with signs or arresting displays. That way, shoppers get a break to recalibrate their resources before moving on with fresh energy.