Apparel merchandising principles and practices

Apparel Mechanizing Book Review: Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping

Go shopping and see the malls through the gaze of Paco Underhill. You may feel so manipulated you never anything again -- what a saving! The author's name may sound like that of an exclusive men's clothing retailer but actually, he is a professional merchandising consultant who advises sellers how to draw consumers into their stores and more importantly, make them buy what is within. Firstly, the book makes an important distinction between marketing, which is increasing the number of people who come to the door with interest, in contrast to merchandising, which is everything you do after the consumer enters the store/

Being 'let in' on the tricky little secrets of merchants resonates with readers, who gaze upon New Jersey teenage girls shopping at California-style surfing shops to buy fashionable board shorts that the young ladies will never wear in the ocean, and women who enter stores like J. Jill for the experience and image it provides them of comfort and artistry, even though this image is manufactured as the faux Victorian nightgowns they will purchase later at Victoria's Secret. In other words, the selling of merchandise is an exercise in psychology as much as advertising.

This is true even of male shoppers. As part of his work and research for the book, Underhill has studied men who take jeans into fitting rooms and noted that they are more likely to buy than female counterparts, for example, that men prefer to 'get over' with the act of shopping, unlike women. However, despite the fact they spend less time in stores, men are beginning to shop like women, looking for a better fit and a better image, rather than simply buying the same clothing item year after year. Also, men are making more impulse purchases, once the main province of women, who tend to shop more, and to shop hungry, either in the food store for articles of consumption, or for clothing in the hour of need (rather than renting a tux for an event several months ahead.)

Underhill focuses not just on advertising and image but store design, noting the circulation patterns of how shoppers move throughout a store. He provides insight why the 'grab and go' things in the supermarket, like milk, are located in the depths of the store and why stores like the Gap puts its own 'bread and butter' items like jeans and sale merchandize in the back of the store, while pricier merchandise or new merchandise (like fragrance at the Gap, or purses) takes the forefront space of the store. The reason such stores are organized in this fashion is that merchandiser hope that consumers will go to the back of the store, for what they really need, but make an impulse purchase on the way out. Consumer covetousness and desire is stimulated in the store by the sight of luxury and unnecessary goods -- one reason that many merchandisers hate the Internet, because it allows for point-and-click specific shopping.

Underhill even comes clean that merchandizing specialists have quantified the importance of shopping baskets in certain types of stores. Baskets make it more difficult to move through the store, which is negative, as it makes shopping a more unpleasant shopping experience, particularly for space-sensitive women, and may drive them more quickly from the store and result in less merchandise being purchased. But on the upside for retailers with large aisles, the existence empty basket space encourage consumers to fill the cart, is one reason why the relatively larger clothing areas of stores like Target and Wal-Mart now provide carts.

Underhill offers important advice to retail store owners, like to make sure to design the store for customer convenience, in terms of seeing the merchandise, rather than giving predominance to cash registers. The presence of registers, and worse, long lines, makes the shopper think of the uncomfortable fact that he or she will have to pay for all of the nice things on display and wait for the privilege of doing it.