Interesting comments over at Signal vs. Noise and their post on grocery store layout.
I've posted about this a few times, with reference to Liberty's of London, NYC Prada store (after Adam v2), record stores, and a layout of a London Sainsburys supermarket (which seems insanely popular with schoolteachers around the world - every few months I have to prune the comments from schoolkids looking to cut corners on their homework.) Much of my rationale for this blog is that we experience designers, interaction designers, and information architects can learn from these 'real-life' structures, flows, and lived experiences.
The supposed classic text on the way stores lay things out in order to achieve results is Paco Underhill's Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping [UK|US], which sure enough soon crops up in the comments at 37 Signals. I've resolved to read it sometime, but I read a different angle on the book the other day, courtesy of Abstract Dynamics, in which Underhill's findings are contextualised by a hidden sexist agenda. Intriguing.
37 Signals: Shopping Around the Edges
Abstract Dynamics: Sex Slave to the Dataset