To the left or to the right?

I was interested in this article in today's Guardian about fridge doors in supermarkets http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2009/oct/01/greenwash-supermarkets-fridges. Only this week I posed the question to my first year students about freezer cabinet doors: "Are the doors hinged on the right or on the left?"



My observation of customers opening freezer cabinet doors is that there is a difference in the way people hold open the door and in some cases may prop the door open against their backs. If they have to open the door with their stronger right hand and try to grab goods with their weaker left hand they sometimes prop the door against their backs and end up with a cold back. Alternatively they cannot grasp as many goods with their weaker left hand.



It is clear that cabinet doors do create a barrier between customer and product, and can sometimes get a bit steamy. So it's a classic trade-off between sales and costs. As The Guardian article points out the doors are fairly cheap and would lower the carbon footprint but at what cost to sales given my rudimentary observations?