Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping

“If, in one day, we track a hundred shoppers in that store’s health and beauty aisle, it amounts to twenty-five hundred separate data entries. As the woman exits the section, we interview her, asking twenty questions in all. So each of the twenty-five data points has to be cross-tabulated with each of her twenty answers—a cross-tab challenge, take it from me. Until quite recently no university ever attempted such a study, and so it was left to the world’s businesses—its retailers, banks, restaurant chains, manufacturers and designers of displays and packaging—to underwrite the creation of this science, which they did and continue to do by hiring us and sending us out into the field.”

The science of shopping was invented by retailers and market-research companies, the groups that needed the information. The work is anthropological in nature—it’s the study of people’s behavior within the cultural context of shopping—and the information thus derived, to be useful, must be rigorously and scientifically obtained and vetted, not by scholars but by people in the field. Shopping science, then, is one social science that isn’t headquartered within the halls of academe. 

“If we went into stores only when we needed to buy something, and if once there we bought only what we needed, the economy would collapse—boom.”

People shop and buy for more reasons than simple need: There are other things we seek than utility. We want not so much things as good feelings. We'll buy what makes us feel good about ourselves or suggests an attractive lifestyle or evokes fond memories. Stores sell products, but more importantly, they sell experiences. 

“Finally, our studies prove that in general, the longer a shopper remains in a store, the more he or she will buy. And the amount of time a shopper spends in a store depends on how comfortable and enjoyable the experience is. Just as Holly Whyte’s labors improved urban parks and plazas, the science of shopping creates better retail environments—ultimately, I would argue we’re providing a form of consumer advocacy that benefits our clients as well.”

The growth of retail over the past several decades has paralleled the growth of marketing outlets—more TV and radio stations, endless websites, more and more brochures and catalogs—and the increasing variety of products and brands. A consumer has many more choices, and in all that confusion he or she needs help in deciding. This is where smart and elegant store layouts can come in, making purchases easier and more appealing. Shopping science is central to that process. 

“Remember that more than 60 percent of what we buy wasn’t on our list. And no, this isn’t the same as an impulse purchase. It’s triggered by something proposing the question ‘Don’t you need this? If not now, then maybe in the near future?’”

Beyond items shoppers plan to buy, stores will present possible purchases patrons hadn’t yet considered. People enter a grocery store to buy food and leave with food and flowers for a friend, or they go to an office-supply store for a ream of paper and leave with the paper and a battery charger and a couple of smart plugs. 

“The physical fact (most shoppers have two hands) is fairly well known. But the implications of that fact go unimagined, undetected, unconsidered, unaccommodated, unacknowledged. Ignored.”

Obvious facts about the shopping experience sometimes get overlooked. That people have only two hands is so basic that it can be forgotten, yet that limit, if not carefully thought through, can cause problems with shoppers’ retail experience. People also are limited as to height and width and many other factors of physiology; sellers overlook these simple facts at their peril. 

“For many stores, add-on and impulse sales mean the difference between black ink and red.”

Extra sales can keep a struggling retail establishment alive. Impulse buys tend to be high-profit items, which can help the bottom line. 

“You can’t know how much shoppers will buy until you’ve made the shopping experience as comfortable and easy and practical as possible.”

It's not possible to know for certain the upper limit to sales volume that an improved store environment might achieve. With the continuous evolution of products and marketing, there will always be ways to upgrade the customer experience. 

“Products now live or die by what happens on the selling floor. You can’t waste a chance to tell shoppers something you want them to know.”

The modern surge of new products makes branding less important, and more and more shopping decisions are made inside the store. Sales increasingly depend on information a patron gleans while shopping. Signage must be clear and simple, guiding customers toward their purchases without confusing, overloading, or boring them. The content of signs, and the order in which shoppers encounter them, must be scripted carefully, almost like a story. 

“Whenever you encounter shopper improvisation in the retail environment, you have found poignant evidence of one person’s failure to understand what another person requires.”

If retailers and manufacturers don’t provide what customers want, the customers will concoct solutions that suggest clearly what stores are doing wrong. Large-sized women bought men’s underwear for comfort; manufacturers eventually redesigned women’s undies with wider waistbands and other features of the men’s product. Men sometimes wait while their wives shop, and they want to sit, but chairs often are absent on the showroom floor, so the men convert tables and displays into seating. 

“Guys are genetically disposed to be hunters, so they walk to the woods and are unsuccessful unless they can kill something reasonably quickly and drag it back home and through the mudroom. Women are gatherers who get immense pleasure out of the act of looking. Thus, two women can spend the day at the mall, buy nothing and have a wonderful time.”

Men and women tend to behave in ways that betray their evolution as hunters and gatherers, Underhill argues. This affects how they shop, and retailers ignore the differences to the detriment of their bottom lines. 

“The great traditional arena for male shopping behavior has always been the supermarket. It’s here, with thousands of products all within easy reach, that you can witness the carefree abandon and restless lack of discipline for which the gender is known."

Men tend to spend more than their wives; they buy more treats when their kids tag along; they do the paying when they’re with their wives, which gives them a sense of control. Retailers have long memorized these traits. 

“[…] while the future of retailing will undoubtedly show the effects of more male energy in the marketplace, for the most part the big shifts will continue to reflect changes in the lives and tastes of women.”

Shopping has changed as women spend more time at work and divvy up the household chores with their male partners. Women still do most of the procuring, however, and retailers must continue to respond to their changing demands, even if they prefer it when men show up and overspend. 

“Future oldsters didn’t grow up in the Depression or slog through World War II; they came of age during the fat, self-indulgent ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. They weren’t force-fed the virtues of sacrifice, self-denial and delayed gratification, nor did they absorb the quaint notion that to be old is to accept infirmity and inability stoically, as one’s lot in life.”

The elderly population of the 2020s is made up of Baby Boomers who think of aging as an inconvenience to their youthful lifestyle. Even so, their older bodies have specific needs that retailers must accommodate if they want those shoppers to bring their ample pocketbooks to the store.

“The marketplace wants kids, needs kids, and kids are flattered by the invitation and happy to oblige. They idolize licensed TV characters the way their junior forebears once were taught to worship patron saints, and they manage to suss out the connection between brand name and status at a very early age. It’s just one more example of how capitalism brings about democratization—you no longer need to stay clear of the global marketplace just because you’re three and a half feet tall, have no income to speak of, and are not permitted to cross the street without Mom. You’re an economic force, now and in the future, and that’s what counts.”

Working parents often bring their children on shopping expeditions. Retailers need to cater to those kids’ needs or lose the parents’ patronage. Stores must provide wide aisles for baby strollers; items of interest to children should be stocked at their eye level; in some stores, areas can be set aside where kids can play safely. 

“We buy things today more than ever based on trial and touch.”

Shoppers use their senses—sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste—to choose what to buy. More than 60% of purchases are made on the fly because an item just looks or feels or smells or sounds or tastes right. Retailers must present their merchandise in ways that most appeal to human senses. 

“Retailing 101 starts with the notion that a store has three distinct aspects: design (meaning the premises), merchandising (whatever you put in them) and operations (whatever employees do). These Big Three, while seemingly separate, are in fact completely and totally intertwined, interrelated and interdependent, meaning that when somebody makes a decision regarding one, a decision has been made about the other two as well.”

Reducing the checkout counter area to make room for more displays may cause employees to struggle when processing customer payments. Changing the wall color may adversely affect store lighting; replacing staff with computerized kiosks may cause customer frustration. Any change made in one of the Big Three retailing factors will impact the other two, causing sales to drop unless implemented carefully. 

“In study after study, we’ve seen that the single most important factor in determining a shopper’s opinion of the service he or she receives is waiting time. If they think the wait wasn’t too bad, they feel as though they were treated capably and well. If the wait went on too long, they feel as though the service was poor and inept. Quite simply, a short wait enhances the entire shopping experience and a long one poisons it.”

It’s hard to overestimate the damage caused by wait times. A long line at checkout can ruin a shopper’s experience. A lengthy search for a store clerk who can answer a question can cause a patron to lose patience. Items in a locked cabinet require an employee key for access, and more shoppers likely give up and leave than ever would have stolen the items from a regular shelf. 

“Anybody can sell furniture to people looking for furniture; it takes a little ingenuity to sell it to people who aren’t. I’d wager that more than one doily shopper has gone home with a new maple dresser.”

Adjacencies—positioning related products next to each other—can add to total sales by making connections in the minds of shoppers, inspiring them to buy combinations of things even if they were at first shopping for only one item. 

“Just imagine it—no crowds. No malls. No snaking lines. No young moms blocking the aisles with their gray Bugaboo Cameleon strollers. It’s the wireless equivalent of paging through Vogue—the ultimate fantasy maker and time killer. It gives women instant access to boutiques and high-end baubles they might not otherwise feel comfortable shopping for. In this case, there are no Hermès clerks giving them the once-over. No saleswomen with attitude. Online, they can stroll into Harry Winston, duck into Louis Vuitton and check out the Canyon Ranch in Tucson, the Ritz in Paris or the Mandarin Oriental in Singapore. It’s like being invisible and having wings. They can even do it naked, exhausted, in need of a shower or while simultaneously watching a rerun of their favorite TV show.”

The Internet makes shopping more convenient and gives more power to the shopper. The drawbacks of going to the store or guessing about a faraway destination are removed, and shoppers can scan product descriptions and pricing to their hearts’ content. 

“Online, they can point, click, add to cart, checkout and boom, a bonsai tree is on its way to a nephew, a red sweater to a niece, and two quarts of Legal Sea Foods’ clam chowder overnighted to an uncle in Florida […]”

The convenience of the online world has made shopping so easy and impulsive that people can buy much more than they need. This problem is largely solved with sites like eBay, where people with too many things can sell them. 

“In cities like Dublin, Moscow and São Paulo, among others, the retail world belongs to people under the age of forty who have just come into their money, and they’re spending it on stuff left and right.”

Much of the world’s recent economic growth has centered on developing countries, where vibrant, youth-oriented cultures fueled by rising prosperity have led to innovative shopping experiences and a wealth of merchandise and entertainment options. 

“Successful retail experiences are run by placemakers, not landlords. Whether it’s peacocks, a strolling Dixieland jazz band or mermaids, they have to find a way to make their locations exciting.”

Landlords can design and finance new buildings, but it takes the retailers themselves, with their fingers on the pulse of popular culture, to create improved environments for shoppers and find new and enticing merchandise to attract buyers. Street stores must compete with the growing threat posed by online shopping; to succeed, they’ll have to create experiences people can’t find on the Internet. 

“The science of shopping is a hybrid discipline—part physical science, part social science, and only part science at all, for it is also partly an art. But it is a practical field, concerned with providing information that can improve a merchant’s or marketer’s edge and cut the odds of making a wrong decision. Our value lies in our ability to go beyond merely collecting data to make good educated guesses about what it means and how to respond.”

The modern science of shopping uses sophisticated observation and analysis to remedy the sales problems of today’s stores, but the basic techniques of the retail trade are an ancient art. The fundamentals are the same everywhere; it's the application of that wisdom that must vary with each unique situation.