Your local Apple Store is home to a mysterious tractor beam that pulls in unwitting shoppers who venture less than 25 feet from its storefront, says Apple Insider. An anylst from Piper Jaffray spent 6 hours monitoring traffic in front of various Apple Stores and found that shoppers were inexplicably drawn to the big glowing Apple.

Specifically, analyst Gene Munster and his team found that 27 percent of people walking within 25-feet of an Apple store entrance wound up entering the store. Once in the stores, however, only a fraction of those shoppers actually purchased anything. But Munster in a note to clients early Monday morning said he believes the draw may be indicative of consumers’ future purchase decisions.

“The important point is this gravitational pull highlights that consumers’ future buying intentions could be shifting to Apple from PCs,” he explained. “If materialized, this shift should benefit Apple in 2008 and 2009.”

We don’t find this too surprising. Who wouldn’t want to mess around in the Apple Store without buying anything? It looks pretty fun in there.

Apple stores having ‘gravitational pull’ on mall shoppers – report [Apple Insider via Wired]
(Photo:mattloveskicks)

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