If you find that your Target trips always end up longer than you expect, you should know that the stores are strategically designed to lure in customers, encouraging them to spend more time inside and buy more merchandise. Urban Dictionary refers to this phenomenon as The Target Effect, and this is how the company achieves it.

The front of a Target store typically features a greeter, a colorful display of seasonal items, and a Starbucks coffee location. This makes the front of the store feel welcoming and encourages guests to stick around, and the bright lighting and wide aisles allow you to move seamlessly from one department to the next.

A typical Target has a wide main aisle that runs perpendicular to the grocery aisles, and this large aisle has inviting displays of non-food items on one side. Target places these non-food items here to encourage cross-buying, in the hopes that customers who come for groceries will see and buy extra items on impulse.

According to Time, the longer a customer spends in a store, the likelier they are to spend more money. More often than not, you'll end up leaving Target with more goods than you planned, because unlike some other stores, Target offers cosmetics, home goods, clothing, and other tempting items to be distracted by.