The left side of the human brain performs, among other things, story telling. Not just story telling to others, but story telling to ourselves.
When you look at that pretty red sports car, its the left side of your brain saying “It will impress your prospects. The fuel economy is surprisingly remarkable. It shows the world who that rebel stuffed inside of you is.”
The left side of your brain provides the story – the justification – for buying it. And since the left side of our brain controls the right side of our body (and vice versa), our right eye and ear are directly wired into that justifying voice.
So, Mr. or Mrs. Entrepreneur. . . the next time you setup a display, put the item you most want to sell on the right (from the prospects point of view, of course). If you have a comparison of your product versus your competitors, be sure yours is on the right and theirs is on the left. And if you are a car dealer, park the car you want to sell most to the right of where prospects enter.
When it’s on the right, it just feels right.
** Check out Dan Ariely’s book The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, pages 163 and 164, for the case study of how female subjects concluded nylon stockings on the right of a display as the best quality, even though the entire display had the identical stockings.