Read Online Why We Buy by Paco Underhill - Free Book Online Page B

electronic sculpture. The store gave up on them right away, but I’m certain they could have worked just fine—maybe a third of the way into the store, at about the point where customers really do realize they’re lost.
    What can you do with the decompression zone? You can greet customers—not necessarily to steer them anywhere but to say hello, remind them where they are, start the seduction. Security experts say that the easiest way to discourage shoplifting is to make sure staffers acknowledge the presence of every shopper with a simple hello. Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton’s homespun advice to retailers was that if you hire a sweet old lady just to say hello to incoming customers, none of them will dare steal.
    You can offer a basket or a map or a coupon. There’s a fancy store in Manhattan, Takashimaya, where the uniformed doorman proffers a handsomely printed pocket-size store directory as he ushers you in.Just to the right of the entrance, within the transition zone, is the store’s flower department. As you enter, you see it from the corner of your eye, but you don’t usually stop in—instead, you think, “Hmm, flowers, good idea, I’ll get them on my way out.” Which makes perfect sense, because you wouldn’t want to shop the rest of the store carrying a bouquet of damp daisies.
    Right inside the door of an H&M, Gap or Wal-Mart, there’s what’s known as a “power display”—a huge horizontal bank of sweaters, or jeans or cans of Coke, 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 say, “Shop me.” It says, “Just consider the idea.” It serves as a suggestion, plain and simple, and it also gets you in the mood for the rest of the store. You can catch up with the product later, at another time, typically in another section of the floor. Remember that more than 60 percent of what we buy wasn’t on our list. And no, this isn’t the same as an impulse purchase. It’s triggered by something proposing the question “Don’t you need this? If not now, then maybe in the near future?” The power display of beverages may remind you of who’s coming home from college next Tuesday, the sweater of fall coming or the chilly weather in Maine, where you’re planning a getaway weekend—and lo and behold, you leave the store with two six-packs of ginger ale and a new fleece.
    Another solution to the decompression zone problem, which I saw at Filene’s Basement, is to totally break the rule. Not just break it, but smash it. There, just inside the entrance, they’ve placed a large bin of merchandise that’s been deeply discounted, a deal so good it stops shoppers in their tracks. That teaches us something about rules—you have to either follow them or break them with gusto. Just ignoring a rule, or bending it a little, is usually the worst thing you can do.
    I’d love to see someone try this out-of-the-box strategy: Instead of pulling back from the entrance, push the store out beyond it—start the selling space out in the parking lot. After all, football fans make elaborate use of parking lots even in the worst weather, barbecuing and eating and drinking and socializing on asphalt. Drive-in movies everywhere are turned over to flea markets during daylight hours, proof that people will comfortably shop al fresco. Some supermarkets bring seasonalmerchandise out into the parking lot during summer; I visited one at a seashore resort that had all barbecue supplies, beach toys, suntan lotion and rubber sandals in a tent outfitted with a clerk and a cash register—allowing beachgoers to pull up, grab a few necessities and drive away, all without having to drag their wet, sandy selves through the food aisles and long checkout lines.
    Pushing the store outside also begins to address an interesting situation in America,