Money to burn?

This morning I went in to a charity shop to donate some items. It was a bitterly cold day yet the charity shop door was open wide. Thinking a previous customer had left it open I pulled it shut behind me, only to be told by a member of staff to please open it again! When I asked why, as the massive over-door heater was struggling to keep the shop warm, I was told it had to be kept open for public safety in case of fire.. Walking down the high street I noticed they were not alone, four out of the seven charity shops in the town had their doors wedged open with heaters going full blast...
Al.

I take it that the other three had more sense?

Frank

My wife used to work in a charity shop, they kept the door open so that 'customers' wouldn't think the shop was closed!!

There may be some logic there, but I can't see any...

Retail sales psychology is not my field by any stretch of the imagination, but I'd be prepared to bet that there's a link between whether a shop door is open or closed and how many people will walk in and look around. Whether that increase would compensate for the extra cost of heating probably depends on a lot of factors...

Probably spot on Mojo. 

Similar to what can often be observed when there are several cafes near to each other. People stream into the one which already has customers, and if the others are more or less empty they are ignored. Then if a few customers do go into an empty cafe, it also soon begins to fill up.

I suppose we (consciously or sub consciously) think the empty places must be rubbish, and the people in the fuller ones wouldn't be there if the food wasn't good.

Pub car parks are the same. Empty and you drive on, but if there's a good few cars parked you think it must be OK.

Having spent 26 years in retail management (before my taxi-ing years), you're spot on. When we opened a new store with perfectly filled shelves, before we opened the doors for the first time, we would go round the store taking off packets/tins to make it look that people had grabbed stuff as soon as they walked in. Sales psychology as Mojo says.