You walked in for a serving bowl.
Forty minutes later you are standing in front of a fully arranged dining room, mentally rearranging your own house, wondering whether that rug would work.
That did not happen by accident.
Crate and Barrel does not sell furniture. It sells assembled rooms and lets you buy the pieces.
It is one of the most effective merchandising strategies in retail, and it works on almost everybody, including people who know exactly what is being done to them.
Which makes it worth understanding, because the same technique shapes how you feel about your own home, and occasionally how much you spend on it.
Let me break it down.