Why We Buy It Even If We Don’t Need It

Friday, May 2nd 2008 by Shanel Yang         Email this article to a friend

Going to the mall this weekend? Maybe you need to pick up a few things. Or, maybe you just plan to catch the latest movie. But, somehow you come home with bagsful of new stuff anyway. I know. I’ve been there. Many times.

But, it’s not all your fault. You probably have no idea how much manipulation you’re up against whenever you step foot inside any kind of retail store. People have literally made a “science” out of it.

Paco Underhill, founder and CEO of Envirosell, Inc., pioneered the “science of shopping” in the late 1970s. He and his team study shoppers in action and then recommend to the store owners ways to increase their sales by making the stores more “shopper” friendly, so to speak. His major corporate clients have included Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, The Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, L.L. Bean, Bath & Body Works, Petsmart, Payless, Adidas, Cole Haan, Bulgari, and Saks Fifth Avenue. They all paid Underhill for tips on how they could best influence you and me to buy more stuff than we normally would from them. But, even he admits in his book Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping (1999) that “smart merchandising” sometimes works “terrible magic.”

He wrote: “Here’s a good example of the terrible magic that smart merchandising can perform. I once heard a talk given by the vice president of merchandising for a national chain of young women’s clothing stores in which she deconstructed a particular display of T-shirts. ‘We buy them in Sri Lanka for $3 each,’ she began. ‘Then we bring them over here and sew in washing instructions, which are in French and English. Notice we don’t say the shirts are made in France. But you can infer that if you like. Then we merchandise the hell out of them—we fold them just right on a tasteful tabletop display, and on the wall behind it we hand a huge, gorgeous photograph of a beautiful woman in an exotic locale wearing the shirt. We shoot it so it looks like a million bucks. Then we call it an Expedition T-Shirt, and we sell it for $37. And we sell a lot of them, too.’ It was the most depressing valuable lesson I’ve ever had.”

(It sounds like Banana Republic to me.) Depressing, yes. But, valuable? To whom? To the corporate retailers or to the consumers? This national chain admittedly made a hefty profit from these sales. $37 for a T-shirt in 1999, or earlier, is like $50 for one now. Yikes! But, if I tried it on and it looked good on me, I’m sure I would have bought a few in my favorite colors. Who doesn’t want to feel like a gorgeous model in an exotic locale? It’s all about the fantasy. And, they, of course, know it.

The more useful question is, do you know it? Do you know why you buy? It helps to know this the next time you go to a mall, especially in these increasingly difficult economic times. Here is what Underhill knows about the science of shopping.

WHY WE BUY IT EVEN IF WE DON’T NEED IT

1. The longer we stay in a store, the more we will buy. This simple fact has department stores and malls around the world spending millions to make us feel so special inside their stores that we almost don’t want to leave. Think of Nordstrom, my once-favorite department store back in the days of my shopaholism. Live, cheerful piano music played on a grand piano; spacious, immaculate aisles; soft, yellow lighting; plush, elegant seating on the sales floors, by the escalators, in the dressing rooms, and in the restrooms, which, by the way, are called “lounges.” The one in the Westside Pavilion even has a restaurant inside the store and a gourmet coffee stand just outside the main entrance. The message is soothingly clear: “Stay as long as you want. Take a break from your shopping if you need to. No need to rush. Enjoy your stay, and please come back soon. Think of us as your home away from home.” When I tried on clothes in the women’s designer clothing section, the sales staff offered me Perrier and brought me little, chilled, individual-sized bottles, one after the other, just for the asking. It was better than home!

2. The “transition zone” is where the “seduction” begins. Underhill learned that people aren’t ready to observe anything in a store (normal signs or displays) immediately upon entering it because they are too busy “transitioning” from being outside to being inside. He advised store owners to shorten this zone to put shoppers in the mood more quickly and make the most use of that otherwise dead space: “What can you do with the transition zone? You can greet customers—not necessarily steer them anywhere but say hello, remind them where they are, start the seduction.” (Emphasis in original.) “You can offer a basket or a map or a coupon.” “Right inside the door at The Gap and its younger, trendier sibling, Old Navy, there’s what’s known as a power display—a huge, horizontal bank of sweaters, for instance, or jeans that acts as a barrier to slow shoppers down. Kind of like a speed bump. It also functions as a huge billboard. It doesn’t necessarily say, ‘Shop me.’ It says, ‘Pause a second to look at what you’re walking in on.’

3. We buy more if we use a basket. Underhill noticed customers in a drugstore juggling items they wanted because they didn’t pick up a basket near the entrance. (He guessed that they probably blew right past the baskets without noticing them because they were in the “transition zone.”) He suspected that if someone gave these customers baskets so they could shop more freely, they’d probably buy more stuff. He was right. “We suggested that all employees be trained to offer baskets to any customer seen holding three or more items. Management gave it a shot. And because people tend to be gracious when someone tries to help, shoppers almost unanimously accepted the baskets. And as basket use rose instantly, so did the size of the average sale—up just like that. In retail, the easiest way to make more money is to sell more stuff to your existing customer base.”

He also thought that an otherwise successful bookstore by his office shared the same problem: “Judging by where the baskets are kept here, you’d think that retailers think that shoppers enter bookstores saying to themselves, ‘Well, today I plan on buying four books, a box of arty greeting cards and a magazine, and so first thing I will take a basket to hold all my purchases.’ Whereas common sense tells us that people don’t work that way—more likely somebody walks in thinking about one book, finds it, then stumbles over another that looks worthwhile. In such moments the very heart of retailing lies, and if shoppers suddenly ceased to buy on impulse, believe me, our entire economy would collapse. For many stores, add-on and impulse sales mean the difference between black ink and red.”

He shared an example of how to do it right—and get every last sale out of the customers! “The cleverest use of baskets I’ve seen yet is at Old Navy in Manhattan. I always take visiting retailers to see that store—it’s one of the liveliest, most energetic shopping experiences in the city. As soon as you step inside there’s a gregarious, smiling employee greeting you and proffering a black mesh tot bag to carry your purchases. The bags are cheaper, lighter and easier to store than plastic baskets, and they look a whole lot better. In fact, when you bring yours to the checkout, the cashier will ask if you want to buy the bag, and a fair number of people say yes, adding one final sale at the last possible moment.”

Finally, he had a new idea: “There’s a rather elaborate way of keeping customers’ hands free that I’d love to see some retailer try. This plan would keep shoppers feeling 100 percent unburdened until it was too late—after they had reached the exits. [¶] The idea would be to create a combination coat check-package call system. Customers could unload all encumbrances as soon as they enter the store. And instead of carrying their selections around with them, they’d instruct salesclerks to dispatch the bags and boxes to the will-call desk near the exit. After a full session of vigorous, hands-free shopping, the customer would head for the door, pick up coat and hat and purchases, and be gone, into car or taxi or waiting limousine.” Hmm. Frightening. But, wait! There’s more: “My fullest vision of such a service was one I suggested to Bloomingdale’s. In the flagship store in Manhattan, the eighth floor is not terribly well suited to selling, owing to its hard-to-reach location. So I suggested that the floor be turned into a kind of semi-private retreat for better customers, complete with attended restrooms, ATMs, a cafe, a concierge and other similar amenities—including, of course, the coat check-will-call desk. If shoppers are just visiting New York, delivery could even be made to their hotels. In fact, I envisioned that membership to this semi-private club could be sold to hotels, which would then pass along the benefits to their guests. This kind of service would be most profitable on an even bigger scale. Someday soon a mall or shopping center developer will institute such a system to serve all tenants, doing his part to drive up sales—and, of course, his own take, too.”

CONCLUSION

There’s more in Why We Buy about the things we love that make us buy (e.g., touching, smelling, listening to, and tasting the merchandise; mirrors close to the merchandise; a sense of discovery; a chance to talk with others about the merchandise; and recognition and superb service from the sales staff) and how retailers use all that information to target men, women, children, and the elderly.

Now you can head out to the mall armed with at least some information about how the retailers are trying to make you part with your hard earned dollars. They say subliminal messages lose their effectiveness if the target audience is made aware of them. I don’t know if that’s true. But, I do know that after I read this book, I was less susceptible to massive impulsive shopping sprees and eventually was able to put a complete stop to them. You can, too. Be awesome! Be your own hero!

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