Paco Underhill's Bookstore 'Self-Exam'
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Paco Underhill, bestselling author, urban geographer, retail anthropologist, and founder of Envirosell, an international research and consulting firm, will be the featured speaker at the plenary session, "The Science of Independent Bookselling: Catching and Keeping Customers," at ABA's Thursday Day of Education at BookExpo America. Underhill has spent more than 25 years researching various characteristics of shopping behavior and is a leading expert and pioneer in the field. His research shows how today's retail world is governed by factors such as gender, "trial and touch," and human anatomy. He is an insightful and entertaining speaker, who often lectures about the methods and findings of his research.
His first book, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping has been published in 30 languages. Simon & Schuster published his second book, entitled Call of the Mall: The Geography of Shopping, in February 2004.
Simon & Schuster has given permission to BTW to share with its readers an excerpt from Chapter 18 of Underhill's Why We Buy, "The Self-Exam":
| I sometimes turn our clients into amateur scientists by doing this: I'll force them to stand in one spot of a store with me for half an hour or so, just watching. It becomes a very Zen-like experience because if you simply look and don't move, you'll see things that are otherwise invisible. After five minutes you'll see things you missed after one minute, and after ten minutes you'll see things you missed after five. I'll stand with a client in the doorway, for instance, and ask, "Okay, what do you see now? What did that customer just do? How did that mother manage the door and her stroller? Why do you think that man looks so confused? What are those two people doing here -- who's the shopper and who's just along for the ride? How did that woman interact with that display? Is she shopping in the way you thought she would?" And we'll stand there until the answers begin to reveal themselves, and the client finally understands why we do so much watching, counting, timing, and videotaping. Read more (PDF format). |
From Why We Buy by Paco Underhill. Copyright (c) 1999 by Obat, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc.