“Le facteur bousculade.”  Why is it that everything sounds so much more romantic in French?  Paco Underhill’s seminal work Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping (Simon & Schuster) has just been published in France, and we can assume he will gain the same immediate fame there that he did here with his “Butt Brush Theory.” It’s a clever statement of the obvious: customers don’t like to be in such close proximity when they’re browsing that their derrieres come in contact with each other, or with a display.

Until Underhill “discovered” this theory in his work with chain stores, few of us gave much thought to this fact (and kept our aisles less cluttered as a result).  But it seems likely that shoppers who don’t want to brush butts with strangers in big stores also don’t want to do so in small ones, so we can definitely learn from Underhill’s work.

For example, we can benefit from knowing that most people turn to the right when they enter a store, and that the average American woman is 5’ 4”, so the “sweet spot” for merchandise is at her eye level.  So if you haven’t read Why We Buy, you really should.

“Part cultural anthropologist and part spy, Underhill has innovated commercial research with his scientific studies of purchasing behaviors. When he talks, everyone interested in consumer spending habits listens,” Scott Smith wrote in Entrepreneur. 

Underhill’s staff at Envirosell is hired by chain stores to observe consumer behavior, and while you may not have Underhill’s staff of professional “trackers” available to you, it could be very worthwhile to do your own study.  Try to determine:

•how long does the average customer spend in your store?

•what parts of the store get the most traffic? the least?

•which signs do you notice customers stopping to read?

•how often do customers have to bend down to examine an item?

•are there products too high up for customers to reach?

Once you’ve made these observations, it’s up to you to make changes to create a memorable experience for every customer — a goal that should be a key “raison d’être” for every specialty shop.

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder