The supermarket is designed to lure customers into spending as much time as possible within its doors. The reason for this is simple: The longer you stay in the store, the more stuff you’ll see, and the more stuff you see, the more you’ll buy. And supermarkets contain a lot of stuff. The average supermarket, according to the Food Marketing Institute, carries some 44,000 different items, and many carry tens of thousands more. The sheer volume of available choice is enough to send shoppers into a state of information overload. According to brain-scan experiments, the demands of so much decision-making quickly become too much for us. After about 40 minutes of shopping, most people stop struggling to be rationally selective, and instead began shopping emotionally—which is the point at which we accumulate the 50 percent of stuff in our cart that we never intended buying.

逐句对照译文：

The supermarket is designed to lure customers into spending as much time as possible within its doors.

超市旨在吸引顾客在店里停留尽量长的时间。

The reason for this is simple: The longer you stay in the store, the more stuff you’ll see, and the more stuff you see, the more you’ll buy.

原因非常简单：顾客在店里停留的时间越长，看到的商品越多;看到的商品越多，买的越多。

And supermarkets contain a lot of stuff.

超市陈列了大量的商品。

The average supermarket, according to the Food Marketing Institute, carries some 44,000 different items, and many carry tens of thousands more.

根据食品推广协会的调查，一般超市里有约44000种不同的商品;大多数超市都有上万种。

The sheer volume of available choice is enough to send shoppers into a state of information overload.

如此众多的选择足以使顾客面对的信息过于繁杂。

According to brain-scan experiments, the demands of so much decision-making quickly become too much for us.

根据脑部扫描实验，需要快速的做这么多的决定就会使我们太累。

After about 40 minutes of shopping, most people stop struggling to be rationally selective, and instead began shopping emotionally—which is the point at which we accumulate the 50 percent of stuff in our cart that we never intended buying.

大约购物40分钟以后，大多人就不会拼命去做出理性的选择，取而代之的是冲动购物——此时，在购物车里我们已经装了一半根本没想买的东西。