Why We Buy, The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhill, 1999.
Tracking people is much more reliable than surveys, focus groups, anything else.
Example of a customer in a department store...she's touching the towels, petting 1, 2, 3, 4 of them...she's just checked the price tag on one...this is the lab (another troubled department store).
Everything is observed...racks, entrances, exits, tables, signs, brochures, directional aids, windows, walls, stairs, counters.
what do they see? fail to see? read and decline to read? Almost like being aware of this while teaching a class.
the precise anatomical mechanics of how they pull a sweater from a rack to examine it, or read a box of heartburn pills or a fast food restaurant menu or deploy a shopping basket or react to the sight of a line at the ATMs...then collating, digesting, tabulating.
broad: how many people enter the store on a sunday morning broken down by age, sex, and size of shopper group.
narrow: do more male supermarket shoppers under 35 who read the nutritional info on the side panel of a cereal box actually buy the cereal compared to those who just look at the picture on the front?
Track sheets are used...class group project and/or final project idea: in groups, develop one for your business.
trackers wait near the entrance...they do not track into dressing rooms (obviously) or restrooms.
best trackers are smart, creative people-artists, actors, writers, a puppeteer...whose professional skills are rooted in their ability to observe.
do not stand behind (the being watched feeling is the problem) but to the side where their peripheral vision "reads" you as just another customer-harmless in other words, and barely worth noticing.
there is a big big need in israel because of the ultra competitiveness due to the weaker economy.
one tracker can study up to 50 shoppers per day.
computer database systems unfortunately do not work because each project requires doing something a little differently-collect different kinds of data, or to devise new comparisons of facts we've uncovered.
they may have 10 cameras running 8 hours a day trained on specific areas-a doorway for example, or a particular shelf of products.
a video and stopwatch to time how long it takes a clerk to ring up a sale at 10am compared to 4pm (a study of how cash register design affects worker fatigue).
knowing how many males taking jeans into a fitting room wil buy them compared to how many females will (65 to 25%)...how many people in a corporate cafeteria read the nutritional info on a bag of corn chips before buying (18%) compared to those lunching at a local sandwich shop (2%).
how many browsers buy computers on a sunday before noon (4%) as opposed to after 5pm (21%)...how many shoppers in a mall housewares store use shopping baskets (8%) and how many of those who take baskets actually buy something (75%) compared to those who buy without using baskets (34%).
suggesting ways of increasing the number of shoppers who take baskets...the science of shopping is a highly practical discipline concerned with using research, comparison and analysis to make stores and products more amenable to shoppers.
the butt-brush effect discovered at a tie rack...shoppers, especially women don't like being brushed or touched from behind...sales at that tie rack were lower than expected from a fixture located on a main thoroughfare.
the rack is moved and sales go up quickly and substantially.
put the products where the people who buy them can reach them most easily...teen stuff way at the bottom (teens will find it no matter where it's stocked)...eye level for the elderly and children.
shopper #24, thirtysomething woman in yellow pants and white sweater, accompanied by a preschool girl who enters the health and beauty aisle of a supermarket at 10:37 am on a Wed morning. She has a handbasket, not a shopping cart and has already selected store-brand (Super Pharm?) vitamin C capsules, and a large container of Johnson's baby powder. She goes directly to the shampoo shelves and picks up a bottle of Pantene brand reads the front label, then reads the price tag on the store brand, and then puts the store brand in her basket. As the woman exits the section she is interviewed.
75% of clients who buy once return for more.
Student of social scientist William Whyte, The Organization Man, The Last Landscape, City-Rediscovering the Center, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Whyte's greatest contribution was his research into how people use public spaces-streets, parks, plazas. He used time lapse photography, hidden trackers and interviews...they would stake out some urban plaza or mini-park and study it minute by minute over the course of several days. This is another final project idea.
When they finished they could tell you everything about every bench, ledge, path, fountain, and shrub, especially how people interacted with them, using them as places to lunch, sun, socialize, people-watch, nap or just happily and peacefully loiter. They would measure everything-the ideal width of a ledge for sitting, how sunlight, shade and wind affect park use and how a public space's surroundings (office towers, construction sites, schools, neighborhoods) determine the quality of life there. Whyte was a scientist of the street.
What are the obvious solutions at the cash/wraps area? Have too many people there and displays are blocked...if the transactions aren't crisp, if the organization isn't clear at a glance, shoppers get frustrated or turned off...many times they won't even enter a store if the line looks long or chaotic. Are the logical and obvious things to you in a store insights to the store owners? There may be opportunities.
What could unusually low aspirin sales at a Super Pharm tell you? The aspirin was displayed on a main aisle of the store, on the path to some refrigerated cases of soft drinks, which draw many customers. You would thus think aspirin would sell well but the opposite was the case. The main customers for the cold drinks were Israeli teenagers. Many of the aspirin shoppers became so irritated and rattled by the teenagers that they would prematurely break off their browsing and walk away empty handed...kind of similar to the butt brush effect.
Note: stores have many constituencies...sometimes they exist in harmony, but other times-especially in stores selling diverse goods, like soft drinks and medicines-the functions clash.
A perfect example is a Harley Davidson dealership where a 3,000 square foot showroom has to make room for well off male menopause victims looking to recover their virility by buying bikes, blue collar gear heads who are there for spare parts and teenage dreamers interested in the Harley-logo fashions. All three groups want nothing to do with each other!
Population of stores is another study. See the banking example at the website....where people are drawn or not...when something about the architecture or the layout may be inhibiting shoppers from visiting certain areas...it shows how shoppers move (or fail to) through the premises.
If we went into stores only when we needed to buy something (me), and if once there we bought only what we needed (i try like hell), the economy would collapse...boom!
it's very gross but you can't avoid shopping today...stores, museums, restaurants, 24 hour internet shopping, home TV shopping...and stay away from all the catalogues in your mailbox.
We are very very dangerously overretailed today...too much is for sale, through too many outlets. Even at its strongest, the economy cannot keep up with retailing's growth...the US is generating stores considerably faster than producing new baby shoppers.
new stores are not being opened to serve new markets but to steal customers....also today compared to generations ago when there was only 3 TV networks, AM radio only, a handful of national magazines....today there are over a hundred TV channels, VCRs to skip the ads if you want to, FM radio, thousands of magazines, the web...it's harder than ever to reach consumers and convince them to buy something.
there is simultaneously the erosion of brands...a generation or two ago you chose your brand early and stuck loyally by it until your last shopping trip! If you were a Buick man, you bought Buicks. If you were a Marlboro woman, you smoked Marlboros. Today, more, every decision is a new one and noting can be taken for granted.
The standard tools of marketing do not work nearly as well as they used to. Many purchasing decisions are made, or can be heavily influenced, on the floor of the store itself. Shoppers are susceptible to impressions and information they acquire in stores, rather than just relying on brand-name loyalty or advertising to tell them what to buy. Speaking of stores that work and do not www.WebsitesThatSuck.com
How to design signs that shoppers will actually read and how to make sure each message is in the appropriate place. How to fashion displays that shoppers can examine comfortably and easily. How to ensure that shoppers can reach, and want to reach, every part of a store.
Finally, the longer a shopper stays in a store, the more he or she will buy. And, the amount of time a shopper spends in a store depends on how comfortable and enjoyable the experience is.