Shopping Smart

1) Gladwell makes not only many interesting but many important points throughout this piece. The different theories that he explains such as the Butt-Brush Theory and the Decompression Zone are interesting to the reader, but to a designer or to an engineer would be very useful towards increasing sales for the store. Another important point is the subconscious efforts of the customer. He explains that if your store is next to a boring and bland building like a bank, customers will not notice it because they have already deterred their vision from the plain looking bank. He also talks about how items on the right hand side are more examined than items on the left. The reasoning behind this is the left side of the brain is where the processing of this object takes place, he also offers the reasoning that it’s because most customers are right handed. Also a very important point reiterated that the designers should tailor their stores to the customers, and the customer should not have to deal with a poorly designed store. There are also large differences between sexes and demographics that should be addressed by each designer, without sacrificing sales from another demographic.

2) After reading this article, I realized how much I fall for the design of the store. I am a shopper who wants to get in and out and like most males, and as explained in the article, I don’t try on half of the clothes I buy. However when shopping with females, they take much longer than me, trying on and basically modeling every item they pick up. Also I have bought many clothes, displayed on tables, for the way they feel, how soft they are and how their potential comfort level. Gladwell explains that this is a natural tendency of many shoppers and thus, they put the comfortable sweaters out on the tables. However, advertisements and the placement of merchandise does not effect me as much as it may other customers. I usually go into the store with not only a set price but also a set list in mind, so it’s exceptionally hard to convince me to buy something I didn’t want to buy before I entered the store.

3) My checklist would consist of:

1) Is the merchandise approximately placed in the store?

2) Do the surrounding stores “turn off” potential customers attention due to their own blandness?

3) What things will drive customers away? Will they be intimidated like Norman spoke of when he discussed Diesel stores?

4) How can we get customers to purchase more items? Not how can we draw more customers to the store, but the ones that do come in need to buy more.