After seeing, touching is the second most important sensory experience that influences shoppers.

If a product is attractive visually but it does not feel good to touch it, it will not end up in the shopping basket. This is especially true for those goods (e.g. clothes) which get in direct contact with the skin. Touching can also be important in the case of food products and other FMCG items, most of the time implementing an effect via the product’s packaging. International trends are going in the direction of developing multi-sensory packaging solutions, in which touching plays an increasingly important role. A good example of these comes from Japanese designer Naoto Fukusawa: he created fruit juice boxes that visually and tactilely imitated the surface of fruits. Just like tasting, touching is a direct sensory experience unlike seeing, hearing and smelling which only transmit environmental stimuli to the central nervous system. It is very important to urge consumers to grab products and feel them. However, the importance of tactile sensation varies according to the given product category, individual or shopping situation. Research revealed that touching products affects what we think about their quality, especially when touching plays a functional role. Those consumers who touched a certain product had a more precise and positive opinion of its characteristics. It often happens that consumers touch goods just for the experience and not because they wan to buy them. Autotelic touching expresses an inner desire for sensory experiences, it is less controlled and does not aim at purchasing – but can be the staring point for impulse shopping. Women more often feel the urge to touch a product, no matter whether they intend to buy it or not. Retail can do a lot to bring shoppers closer to products. More and more retailers use the ‘marketplace’ concept in-store, where there are no high shelves, every product is visible and can be held in the hand. The Spar group’s City Spar stores were also created according to this concept. Signs and pictures placed at certain product groups urge shoppers to touch the goods. In the case of online retail there is no opportunity to touch the goods: written descriptions are used, which do not only contain functional characteristics but sensory information as well. Strong brands are also capable of mitigating the lack of sensory experiencing, because the brand name acts as a guarantee for quality. As a conclusion, we can say that sensory experiencing plays a vital role in making purchasing decisions. Consequently, when designing the packaging of products, manufacturers do not only have to keep visual factors in mind but tactile aspects as well – touching can evoke emotions, thereby making the shopping experience more memorable.