The road to the mall may be paved with good intentions, but retailers know just how to get inside that part of your brain that yells, 'Buy me!' And this holiday season, they're rolling out more tricky marketing strategies to encourage recession-scarred shoppers to spend. 'Shoppers are dealing with a whole new arsenal of tricks,' says Kit Yarrow, a professor of psychology and marketing and Golden Gate University in San Francisco.

Merchants have always used marketing tricks and rotating sales to encourageconsumers to open their wallets, but this year, they're pushing every psychologicalbutton they can, retail experts say. Competition for shoppers, plus a tepid holiday shopping outlook, means retailers are doing whatever they can to attract deal-hunting consumers' attention