In an effort to determine why people buy, Paco Underhill and his detailed-oriented band of retail researchers have camped out in stores over the course of 20 years, dedicating their lives to the “science of shopping.” Armed with an array of video equipment, store maps, and customer-profile sheets, Underhill and his consulting firm, Envirosell, have observed over 900 aspects of interaction between shopper and store. They’ve discovered that men who take jeans into fitting rooms are more likely to buy than females (65 percent vs. 25 percent). They’ve learned how the “butt-brush factor” (bumped from behind, shoppers become irritated and move elsewhere) makes women avoid narrow aisles. They’ve quantified the importance of shopping baskets; contact between employees and shoppers; the “transition zone” (the area just inside the store’s entrance); and “circulation patterns” (how shoppers move throughout a store). And they’ve explored the relationship between a customer’s amenability and profitability, learning how good stores capitalize on a shopper’s unspoken inclinations and desires.
Underhill, whose clients include McDonald’s, Starbucks, Estée Lauder, and Blockbuster, stocks Why We Buy with a wealth of retail insights, showing how men are beginning to shop like women, and how women have changed the way supermarkets are laid out. He also looks to the future, projecting massive retail opportunities with an aging baby-boom population and predicting how online retailing will affect shopping malls. This lighthearted look at shopping is highly recommended to anyone who buys or sells. –Rob McDonald
Customer Reviews
Interesting:
Interesting and insightful with some good tips for people setting up an interactive environment like a shop or a library. It seemed more like an ad for his services and/or his other books but it was a good introduction to the principles behind his business.
Good Retail Intro…:
A good read if you are a marketing or advertising professional who wants to get some insight into the retail psychology and its operations. However, there is no magic formula or scientific methodology given in this book.
Besides making a lot of publicity for his company, Paco Underhill gives a lot of very interesting & practical examples of the consumer’s shopping psychology and how it all translates in the retail environment. Paco will tell you why shoppers intuitively steer to the right upon entering a store and how retail managers can use that information to increase their revenues. Overall, not an extraordinary book by any means, but full of interesting examples and stories that could come in handy for any business professional.
Excellent Example of Observational Market Research:
Not only is this book interesting to the lay reader, it is a must read for retailers, marketers, and market researchers. There are gems within the pages!
Why We Buy is a must buy for retailers.:
This book gives you concrete suggestions for increasing sales.
Interesting Findings:
It was a really easy book to read and it gives you insides on strategies to set a retailing space, having a lot of things in mind, that might seem obvious when you read it, but they really aren’t. It was a great; I highly recommend it for people on the retiling industry.
