Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping
Author: Paco Underhill
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, Paco Underhill lays bare the struggle among merchants, marketers, and increasingly knowledgeable consumers for control.
CBS News's 48 Hours - Dan Rather
Meet a man who probably knows more than you do about the urge to splurge.
Todd Pruzan
By the fourth chapter of Paco Underhill's engrossing new study of our shopping behavior, Why We Buy, you'll have noticed that the author is something of a semiotics master, and probably a bit off his nut. Underhill describes a "eureka moment" that occurred on a sultry August night as he listened to a Yanks game while screening hours of silent, grainy videotape from a drugstore's wall-mounted camera: "I was...witnessing a shopper trying to juggle several small bottles and boxes without dropping one. That's when it dawned on me: The poor guy needed a basket."
Underhill's taste for shopping porn comes in handy at Envirosell, his Manhattan retail-design consultancy, where he's spent more than 20 years interviewing customers (and scrutinizing them from behind potted plants) in order to teach stores, both real and virtual, how to be nicer to us so we'll buy more, and with more pleasure. And his first book -- probably the first book -- on the sociology and psychology of shopping comes as a revelation. Underhill does for the American store what Jane Jacobs did for the American city: He tells us not how retail spaces manipulate us so much as how they fail and succeed at stimulating us.
Why We Buy divulges more about your behavior than you may know yourself: How you ignore items shoved onto the bottom shelf. How you like touching the merchandise, whether it's paperbacks or underwear. How you vacate a store after getting bumped in a narrow aisle (the "butt-brush" factor). But if you think you'll feel silly upon learning that Underhill may have trained a camera on your consumerist ass as you tried to cram it into a pair of Gap khakis, take heart: It's the retailers and product marketers who really look ridiculous. For his research usually yields deceptively simple results -- the kind of thing that should make store planners clap their palms to their foreheads -- and Why We Buy documents their sins with gleeful astonishment. There's the maternity store with aisles too small to handle baby strollers, so its stock doesn't sell. There's the supermarket that shelves its kiddie popcorn at adult-eye level, so it doesn't sell. There's the pound-foolish mattress outlet displaying a $2,000 model without sheets or pillows, so customers can't test-drive it...and it doesn't sell.
Underhill has an inquisitive worldview and a winning voice that reinforces his irrefutable logic. For a book categorized as "psychology/business," Why We Buy is surprisingly well written, even weaving in wry cinema verite: "Stand over here. Behind the underwear. What do you see? A couple?...Hold on -- what's he saying?" The author treads thin ice just once, when he complains that entertainment media "do a fairly poor job of creating packages with the merchandising function in mind." But books and CDs have more emotional value than vacuum cleaners or Big Macs; yes, covers are hard to read from across the store, but we keep these "packages" forever. (Such disappointing logic seems to inform the book's drab but easy-to-read jacket design. Would we really enjoy shopping more if all books looked this dull?)
Still, Why We Buy is immensely valuable for its numerous lessons, which seem obvious only once we understand what we want out of shopping. It's great that someone has explained our habits to us. Now, if only the stores would pay more attention.
&151; Salon
Fortune
...[S]crupulously maps the familiar realm of retail...
The New York Times Book Review - Patricia T. O'Conner
...Here is a book that gives smart shopping the respect it deserves....Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping is a testament to the nobility, the courage...of the average shopper....In the end, we learn, there's more to the retail experience than trading money for goods.
Paula Dempsey, DePaul University Library, Chicago - Library Journal
The title for this treatment of marketing research in the retail setting is misleading. Underhill, founder of the behavioral research company Envirosell, summarizes some of the firm's conclusions about the interaction between consumers and products and consumers and commercial spaces. He lays claim to the research techniques of urban anthropology, but his casual, self-congratulatory tone and loose organization make the book inappropriate for academic use. Underhill breezes through anecdotes about how observing the mundane details of shopping improves retail sales, but there is limited grounding in the framework of his "science." Given the lack of recent titles on the topic, this is recommended for large collections with an emphasis on retailing.
Fortune
...[S]crupulously maps the familiar realm of retail...
The New York Times Book Review - Patricia T. O'Conner
...[H]ere is a book that gives [smart shopping] the respect it deserves....Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping is a testament to the nobility, the courage...of the average shopper....In the end, we learn, there's more to the retail experience than trading money for goods.
Business Week - Green
Why We Buy is useful as a how-to for retailers, but shoppers will discover a Vance Packard for our times, on the trail of our century's hidden persuaders.
Kirkus Reviews
Shopping is one of the defining qualities of modern civilization, but this author convincingly argues that consumers may have a greater impact on the act of shopping than shopping has on them. Just as social scientists study people in natural conditions, Underhill studies consumers in retail environments. He's no academic, however, but a "real-world" consultant with such clients as McDonald's, General Mills, and the US Postal Service. Although Underhill's work involves a certain amount of intuition and creative thinking, it's primarily based on hard evidence: the measurements accumulated by teams of trackers working on the floors and behind the scenes of retail establishments. Details gathered from observation of consumers pinpoint problems with products, shelving, signage, register lines, and other factors. Such monitoring prompted one of the author's key insights—that any space in which people are likely to be jostled from behind can lead to shopper discomfort (dubbed "butt sensitivity"). The solution: wider aisles. Underhill explores both similarities and differentiating features in the shopping experiences of varied groups, including the distinctive ways in which men and women browse and make purchasing decisions. His dissection of the retail industry finds much to criticize, but the book also dignifies shopping as a central focus of human activity. The author's company, whose work is cited throughout, has earned its way by spotting flaws and advising retail owners on how to fix them, not merely to boost profits, but because the profits come from improving the quality of the shopping experience for customers. Underhill also analyzes the emerging arena of onlineshopping, offering tips for improved performance. Sales here will accelerate, the author believes, but they don't fundamentally threaten the future of old-fashioned human sales interactions. A strong portrait of consumers as the most efficient arbiters of what to sell and how to sell it. (Author tour)
What People Are Saying
Faith Popcorn
The Dalai Lama said, `Shopping is the museum of the twentieth century.' Paco Underhill explains why. Brilliantly.
— (Faith Popcorn, author and future forecaster)
M. G. Lord
In Why We Buy, Paco Underhill, who invented the science of shopping, turns state's evidence, alerting consumers to the traps retailers set for them. The book is always eye-opening, sometimes chilling, often funny and never dull. It will change the way you experience department stores, supermarkets, even racks of men's underwear — behind which one of Underhill's researchers may be taking notes on your behavior.
— (M. G. Lord, author of Forever Barbie)
Michael Gould
Why We Buy is a funny and insightful book for people on both sides of the retail counter.
— (Michael Gould, CEO, Bloomingdales)
Robin Lewis
Paco Underhill has turned the retail store into a very enlightening entertaining theater where all the customers are actors. Paco's work is brilliant, fun, and informative.
— (Robin Lewis, vice president and group executive editor, Fairchild Publications)
Marc Winkelman Read also Internet Guide to Food Safety and Security or James Beards Poultry Author: Stephen M R Covey In the riveting style of The Tipping Point, Stephen M. R. Covey uncovers the overlooked and underestimated power of trust in a gripping look into what he calls "the one thing that changes everything." Groundbreaking and paradigm-shifting, The Speed of Trust demonstrates that trust is a hard-edged, economic driver—a learnable and measurable skill that makes organizations more profitable, people more promotable, and relationships more energizing. The former CEO of Covey Leadership Center (founded by his father, Dr. Stephen R. Covey), Covey draws on his experience leading a $100 million enterprise to explain how trust can help you create unparalleled success and sustainable prosperity in every dimension of life. He reveals the 13 Behaviors common to high-trust leaders and persuasively demonstrates actionable insights that will enable you to increase and inspire trust in all of your important relationships. The Speed of Trust presents a road map to establish trust on every level, build character and competence, enhance credibility, and create leadership that inspires confidence. Trust is so integral to our relationships that we often take it for granted, yet in an era marked by business scandals and a desire for accountability this book by leadership expert Covey is a welcome guide to nurturing trust in our professional and personal lives. Drawing on anecdotes and business cases from his years as CEO of the Covey Leadership Center (which was worth $160 million when he orchestrated its 1997 merger with Franklin Quest to form Franklin Covey), the author effectively reminds us that there's plenty of room for improvement on this virtue. Following a touching foreword by father Stephen R. Covey (author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and related books), the junior Covey outlines 13 behaviors of trust-inspiring leaders, such as demonstrating respect, creating transparency, righting wrongs, delivering results and practicing accountability. Covey's down-to-earth approach and disarming personal stories go a long way to establish rapport with his reader, though the book's length and occasional lack of focus sometimes obscure its good advice. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. In his first book, Covey (CEO, CoveyLink Worldwide), son of Stephen R. Covey of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People fame, explores the concept of trust and its positive impact on personal and professional success. He introduces the image of ever-widening concentric ripples of water, which he defines as the "Five Waves of Trust": Self-Trust, Relationship Trust, Organizational Trust, Market Trust, and Societal Trust. The degree and magnitude of trust one develops at each wave impacts the effectiveness of interactions at the next highest level, and the stronger the trust involved at each level, the more efficiently and quickly the desired outputs of that level can be achieved. Covey has an engaging style and uses many anecdotes and quotes from famous people to illustrate his points. The book's organization into waves, behaviors of High Trust Leaders, and Cores of Credibility makes the prose easy to digest and reminiscent of the format of the leadership seminars from which Covey got his start. This book would be of interest to public libraries and universities with self-help, psychology, or popular business collections. Crystal Renfro, Lib. and Information Ctr., Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information. There is one thing that is common to every individual, relationship, team, family, organization, nation, economy and civilization throughout the world - one thing which, if removed, will destroy the most powerful government, the most successful business, the most thriving economy, the most influential leadership, the greatest friendship, the strongest character, the deepest love. On the other hand, if developed and leveraged, that one thing has the potential to create unparalleled success and prosperity in every dimension of life. That one thing is trust. The Five Waves of Trust model serves as a metaphor for how trust operates in our lives. This summary will cover these forms as the structure for understanding and making trust actionable, including a look at the Four Cores of credibility and the 13 Behaviors of high trust leaders. Nothing Is as Fast as the Speed of Trust You don't need to look far to realize that, as a global society, we have a crisis of trust on our hands. Low trust is everywhere. On the organizational level, trust within companies has sharply declined. But relationships of all kinds are built on and sustained by trust. They can also be broken down and destroyed by a lack of trust. Society, organizations and relationships aside, there's an even more fundamental and powerful dimension to self trust. If we can't trust ourselves, we'll have a hard time trusting others. Personal incongruence is often the source of our suspicions of others. Economics of Trust The serious practical impact of the economics of trust is that we are paying a hidden low-trust tax right off the top - and we don't even know it! A company can have an excellent strategy and a strong ability to execute; but the net result can be torpedoed by a low-trust tax or multiplied by a high-trust dividend. This makes a powerful business case for trust, assuring that it is not a soft, "nice to have" quality. One of the reasons this hidden variable is so significant in today's world is that we have entered a global, knowledge worker economy that revolves around partnering and relationships. The ability to establish, grow, extend and restore trust with all stakeholders - customers, suppliers and co-workers - is the key leadership competency of the new, global economy. Inspiring Trust You may still be hesitant or fearful when it comes to actually extending trust, but leaders who extend trust become mentors, models and heroes. Inspiring trust is the prime differentiator between a manager and a leader and the prime motivator of successful enterprises and relationships. Companies that choose to extend trust to their employees become great places to work. Children develop character and competence in the care of parents who love them, believe in them and trust them. Most people respond well to trust and do not abuse it. We are all born with a propensity to trust and choosing to retain or restore that propensity is key to our ability to forgive. We have countless opportunities to extend and inspire trust to others, but it also makes a difference in our own lives. Trust is reciprocal. Copyright © 2006 Soundview Executive Book Summaries
As The Hidden Persuaders did for the 1950s, Why We Buy, defines the American consumer entering the twenty-first century.
The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything
Publishers Weekly
Library Journal
Soundview Summary</p> - Soundview Executive Book Summaries
Simply put, trust means confidence. The opposite of trust - distrust - is suspicion. The difference between a high and low trust relationship is palpable. Take communication. In a high trust relationship, you can say the wrong thing, and people will still get your meaning. In a low trust relationship, you can be very measured, even precise, and they'll still misinterpret you.
Trust always affects two outcomes: speed and cost. When trust goes down, speed goes down and cost goes up. Consider the time and cost of airport security after 9/11, or costs for Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance, passed in the U.S. in response to Enron, WorldCom and other corporate scandals. When trust goes up, speed goes up and cost goes down. Warren Buffet completed the acquisition of McLane Distribution from Wal-Mart on the basis of a two-hour meeting. Because of high trust between the parties, the merger took less than a month and avoided the usual months and millions for due diligence and attorneys.
Trust is a whole life choice, and until you are actually in a front line situation, you will not even see the full power of the Cores and Behaviors on speed, cost and trust. Look immediately for ways to apply them and find opportunities to teach them to others. You will see how the of speed of trust; the profits of the economics of trust; the relevance of the pervasive impact of trust; and the dividends of trust can significantly enhance the quality of every relationship on every level of your life.
Table of Contents:
Foreword Dr. Stephen R. Covey xxiii
The One Thing That Changes Everything 1
Nothing Is as Fast as the Speed of Trust 3
You Can Do Something About This! 27
The First Wave-Self Trust: The Principle of Credibility 41
The 4 Cores of Credibility 43
Integrity Are You Congruent? 59
Intent What's Your Agenda? 73
Capabilities Are You Relevant? 91
Results What's Your Track Record? 109
The Second Wave-Relationship Trust: The Principle of Behavior 125
The 13 Behaviors 127
Talk Straight 136
Demonstrate Respect 144
Create Transparency 152
Right Wrongs 158
Show Loyalty 165
Deliver Results 172
Get Better 177
Confront Reality 185
Clarify Expectations 192
Practice Accountability 200
Listen First 208
Keep Commitments 215
Extend Trust 222
Creating an Action Plan 230
The Third, Fourth, and Fifth Waves-Stakeholder Trust 233
The ThirdWave-Organizational Trust The Principle of Alignment 236
The Fourth Wave-Market Trust The Principle of Reputation 261
The Fifth Wave-Societal Trust The Principle of Contribution 272
Inspiring Trust 285
Extending "Smart Trust" 287
Restoring Trust When It Has Been Lost 300
A Propensity to Trust 316
Notes and References 325
Index 339
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