In Malcom Gladwell’s “The Science of Shopping,” he claims
that businesses and stores don’t just want to know behave in their store, they
have to know. Malcom Gladwell writes based off of the work of Paco Underhill, an
urban geographer who studies the habits of shoppers. Paco Underhill states that
people walk how they drive, on the right side. Therefore, when shoppers enter a
store, they tend to walk towards the right side of the store after they enter
in. Paco goes on to say that shoppers now spend less time in stores and want
more room to shop so they aren’t cramped in the aisles.
This was a strange article to me at first. All Paco Underhill
does is record shoppers, yet learns so much from videos with no audio. What I can
take from this is that when people shop, they glance quickly, and if they
intended on buying something then they will buy it. However, if they are just
browsing, they will glance for a couple minutes and leave the store. This tells
me that people want things now if they don’t see what they want, they won’t
bother wasting time. I can tie this in with my expansion essay saying that advertisers
are getting better at targeting consumers that even the quick shoppers pause to
examine ads, thus saying that ads are doing their job.
