In this post-consumer era, it’s not about needs any more. We all have pretty much everything we need.

Beyond the basics – food, clothing, shelter – many people have lots of stuff they don’t really need, like multiple iPods. (Guilty as charged.)

So these days, for retail to be successful, it must be about creating and satisfying wants - in other words stimulating desire.

Poster child for the want generation is Apple, of course. The way Steve Jobs and his cohorts stage manage product releases and control supply of our shiny new electronic playthings is a wonder to behold.

Zara also knows a thing or two about creating demand. Buy now, they say, because that must-have dress might not be there in a couple of week’s time.

In the back streets of Barcelona last month, I came across a great example of how to turn jaded consumers into salivating customers. What I saw was a store called Happy Pills, introduced to me by Howard Saunders, British retail trend-tracker.

Stripped to its bare basics, Happy Pills is just a lolly shop, a pick and mix. Not much new there.

Sweet shops have been around since God was a boy. But it’s the way a basic concept has been taken and re-packaged and re-merchandised for the smart set today that makes it noteworthy.

The proposition behind Happy Pills is pseudo-pharmaceutical – sugar as therapy for a variety of ills.

So it looks pharmacy-like; white and clinical with a pink cross as part of the logo over the door.

Inside, the customer simply helps themselves to a selection of sweets, and then chooses a pill bottle (or pill dispenser, or emergency kit) to contain the loot, and a label to go on the container.

Here’s where the fun starts. There is an endless variety of witty labels prescribing cures for a number of ailments.

They range from Happy Pills for a bad hair day to pills for sexual involuntary abstinence to a universal remedy for everything. Instructions on the back include the dosage advice: Consume Cheerfully.

It’s a lot of fun and before you know it, you have snapped up an armful of Happy Pills as they make great gifts.

The learning here is simple. In retail today the concept is as important as the content. A regular sweet shop could easily be passed by on the street.

Happy Pills is a unique idea that stops and engages customers, and gets them to buy.

So consider the question: Just how good are you at creating desire?