Is there a method to our madness when it comes to shopping? Hailed by the "San Francisco Chronicle" as "a Sherlock Holmes for retailers," author and research company CEO Paco Underhill answers with a definitive "yes" in this witty, eye-opening report on our ever-evolving consumer culture. "Why We Buy" is based on hard data gleaned from thousands of hours of field research -- in shopping malls, department stores, and supermarkets across America. With his team of sleuths tracking our every move, from sweater displays at the mall to the beverage cooler at the drugstore, Paco Underhill lays bare the struggle among merchants, marketers, and increasingly knowledgeable consumers for control. In his quest to discover what makes the contemporary consumer tick, Underhill explains the shopping phenomena that often go unnoticed by retailers and shoppers alike

1. Why We Buy:
The Science of Shopping
Tirthankar Sutradhar

2. What is Shopping?

3. I don’t mean what is buying
It’s what we call the “grab and go”
I think Shopping is more than the simple dutiful
acquisition of whatever is absolutely necessary to one’s
life.

4. Shopping involves using our senses

6. 3 big things that stores alone can offer shoppers
a. Touch, trial or any other sensory stimuli
b. Immediate gratification
c. Social interaction

7. Butt-Brush Effect

8. Good Key Performance Indicators for Retail
• Conversion Rate: How many of your visitors are buying
• Time Spend Rate: The average time shoppers spend in the store
(more time = more sales)
• Interception Rate: The number of shoppers who have interaction with an
employee (more contact = more sales)
• Waiting time: Customers don't like that

9. There are certain physical and common anatomical
abilities, tendencies, limitations and needs to all
people, and the retail environment must be tailored to
these characteristics

10. Transition
Zone

12. In any section of a store, the first product customer
see isn’t always going to have an advantage.
Sometimes The opposite will happen.

13. You Need
Hands

14. Customers only has 2 hands. And if they carry a bag only 1:
Help them with providing baskets, so they can carry more
Bigger baskets, often means more sales
Right-handed takes products from the shelves with the right
hand: If you want to push a new product then set the topseller
in the middle and the new product to the right of it

15. What Retailers and Marketers don’t know

16. How to
avoid
Shoplifting

19. The Store Windows
• Conversion Rate: How many of your visitors are buying
• Time Spend Rate: The average time shoppers spend in the store
(more time = more sales)
• Interception Rate: The number of shoppers who have interaction with an
employee (more contact = more sales)
• Waiting time: Customers don't like that
The Store Windows

20. Change the window
decorations often, so
the people passing by
wants to come in and
browse
Customers have their
eyes in front of the head
and go forwards, not
sideways: That makes it
difficult to see
products/signs/windows
to the side

21. THE STORE ENTRANCE
• On the door to the store: The customer only has time to read 2-3 words
• The twilight zone: Don’t place anything important at the entrance. It takes some
time for the customers to orientate themselves when they enter a store
• The faster we walk, the less we see: Make the customer slow down as soon as
possible
• The best place in the store: To the right in the beginning of the store, just when the
customer has slowed down (in most western countries)

22. IN THE STORE
• No amount of merchandise can deter a shopper on his mission:
So we have to go along with it
• It is important that the customer in the store can orientate themselves:
Don’t put anything in the sight line
• Capture rate:
On shelves the customers primarily see what is a little over their eyes and down to their knees
• Boomerang rate:
Customers don’t see a whole aisle, often they go in and take the product they need and go back
• Packaging is often seen from a little distance and sometimes from the top or from the side:
That must be thought into the packaging design

23. McDonald's found that 75% of the customers
read the menu board after they order, while
they wait for their food - during the "meal prep"
period, which averages around 1min 40secs.
That's a perfect window for longer
message, something you would want
your customer to know the next time
they come.

24. INSTORE SIGNS
• Customers do not look for signs: Signs therefore has to get the customers attention
like other ads, e.g. billboards
• You enter a store because you have a task to perform: When the customers has a
task to perform they don’t read signs, but when the task is done they are more
open
• The signs must be where it is natural for the customer to look
• It is difficult to read a sign when you are walking: Keep the message simple
• When the customers stand still and is browsing: They are more open for signs and
also text
• When the customers is waiting with nothing else to do: Perfect timing for a sign
• Too many signs: The customers don’t see any of them

26. Table Tents

28. THE STORE ENTRANCE
• On the door to the store: The customer only has time to read 2-3 words
• The twilight zone: Don’t place anything important at the entrance. It takes some
time for the customers to orientate themselves when they enter a store
• The faster we walk, the less we see: Make the customer slow down as soon as
possible
• The best place in the store: To the right in the beginning of the store, just when the
customer has slowed down (in most western countries)

30. About of a stores
sales comes from
of the customer
80%
20%

31. What Women Want

32. Women
• Shopping is female
• Woman take pleasure in shopping and therefore demands more of
shopping environment
• Woman like to shop with friends
• Woman want more space around them when they look at products, so
they don’t feel they are in the way
• Women generally care that they do well in even the smallest act of
purchasing and take pride in their ability to select the perfect thing
• In fact its women, not men, who plumbs the metaphysics of shopping

33. • Shopping is still and always meant mostly for females. When men
shop, they are engaging in what is inherently a female activity
What makes women such heroic shoppers?
• Shopping was what got the housewife out of the house
• Shopping gave women a good excuse to sally forth, sometimes even
in blissful solitude, beyond the clutches of family

34. Woman: Time in Store
Longest time in store
Shortest time in store
• Woman with a female companion (8min 15 sec)
• Woman with children (7min 19sec)
• Woman alone (5min 2sec)
• Woman with a man (4min 41sec)

35. Shop Like a MAN

36. MAN
• Men has no apparent joy in shopping - finds what they want with a
minimum of looking and get out fast
• Men moves faster than woman through a store
• It is hard to get men to look at something they don't intend to buy
• They don't like to ask the staff – e.g. Tries to find the right section 1 or 2
times, then give up an leave
• The man almost always pays
• Men like to get there information about products from written sources
instead of asking in the store

39. BUYS ANYTHING THAT
GOES INSIDE THE HOUSE
BUYS ANYTHING THAT
GOES OUTSIDE THE HOUSE

40. Kids

41. KIDS
• Exuberant participants in the world of objects
• Children consume more mass media than adults do
• If a store is unwelcoming to kids the parents shoppers will get the
message and stay away
• Children can be enthusiastic shoppers (or co-shoppers)
• Objects placed below a certain point will be touched by
children only
• Store design should be kid-friendly
• Automatic doors , wide aisles and no steps
• Shelves should be low

43. Seniors

44. Seniors
• The demographic of many western countries change so there is more
seniors
• They want biggest text size on signs and products
• They needs more contrast on signs: yellowing of the sight makes it
difficult to differentiate yellow, blue and green
• They needs more light in the store

45. See Me, Touch Me, Feel Me, Buy Me
Close to 90% of all
new grocery
products fail, not
because people
didn't like them but
because people
never tried them

46. Shopper conversion rate increases by 50% when there is
a staff initiated contact and it jumps by 100% when there
is staff initiated contact and use of dressing room.
people who "buy" spend between one-quarter and one-
third of their total shopping time inside the dressing
room

47. Sensual Shopper
• We buy things today more than ever based on trial and touch
• Supermarkets are wisely trying to become more conducive to
sensual shopping
• Women want to test anything that will go against their skin
• Today's men would, too, if only someone gave them the
chance
THEY LOVE TRYING NEW PRODUCTS, GIVE THEM SAMPLE

48. Some infant apparel stores now pipe in baby powder
through the air ducts, to put shoppers in mind of the
sweet-sour smell of the new born baby
Of all the ethnic groups, Asian-American shoppers
were most aggressive about opening the packaging
and touching the lotions, soaps and shampoos.

49. WHAT SHOPPERS LOVE
• Touch - To be able to touch and investigate the products
• Mirrors - Especially when buying clothes
• Discovery - It is ok with a little adventure
• Talking - With friends, partners, staff about products
• Recognition - People like to shop where they are wanted
• Bargains - Four for $20 is better as compared to one for $5

50. WHAT SHOPPERS HATE
• Too many mirrors
• Lines - waiting time
• To ask dumb questions because of poor store design
• Goods out of stock
• Obscure price tags
• Bad service - intimidating, slow, rude, distracted, lazy

53. Magic Acts

55. Critique
• For those in retailing and marketing, "Why We Buy" is a remarkably
fresh guide, offering creative and insightful tips on how to adapt to
the changing customer. For the general public, "Why We Buy" is a
funny and sometimes disconcerting look at our favorite pastime.
• The whole book is pretty much a commercial for Underhill's company,
but it's still informative and fun reading.
• I would definitely recommend this book because after reading it you
will never enter a store and look at it the same way.

56. Thank
You
Presented by
Tirthankar Sutradhar