Product Description Revolutionary retail guru Paco Underhill is back with a completely revised edition of his classic, witty bestselling book on our ever-evolving consumer culture -- full of fresh observations and important lessons from the cutting edge of retail, which is taking place in the world's emerging markets. New material includes:
• The latest trends in online retail -- what retailers are doing right and what they're doing wrong -- and how nearly every Internet retailer from iTunes to Amazon can drastically improve how it serves its customers.
• A guided tour of the most innovative stores, malls and retail environments around the world -- almost all of which are springing up in countries where prosperity is new. An enormous indoor ski slope attracts shoppers to a mall in Dubai; an uber luxurious Sao Paolo department store provides its customers with personal shoppers; a mall in South Africa has a wave pool for surfing.
The new Why We Buy is an essential guide -- it offers advice on how to keep your changing customers and entice new and eager ones.
No Longer So RelevantFebruary 7, 2010 Jiang Xueqin(Toronto, Canada) 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In 1996 Malcolm Gladwell published an article in the "New Yorker" called the "Science of Shopping," and that made Paco Underhill, a market researcher who applied anthropological technique to revolutionize how the study of shopping, into an instant celebrity, prompting him to publish "Why We Buy" in 1999. In this ten-year "updated and revised" edition Mr. Underhill writes about how he revolutionized market research, the growth and triumph of his company Envirosell, and his thoughts about the brave new globally-connected world we live in today.
The first half of the book is written easily and assuredly by an expert so versed and knowledgeable about his craft. Mr. Underhill's researchers and their video cameras completely changed the way that retailers saw and understood their business. Instead of just looking at the cash receipts Mr. Underhill demonstrated to retailers how the store was an organic and dynamic place where individuals with different needs and desires came into the store. Why did they come into the store? Who did they came in with? What did they see when they first entered the store? How long did it take them to find and buy what they wanted? How long did it take them to purchase and wrap the item? Mr. Underhill minutely and meticulously analyzes the consumer's entire experience (even though it may be only a minute, the number of variables in play are immense), and offers useful insight to retailers that have been widely and religiously implemented today.
My favorite insight was how a retailer of home furnishings learned to deal with their male customers. Usually the men are bored and stressed and annoyed as their wives shop for china and dinnerware, but Mr. Underhill discovered that men like to converge to the glassware. At dinner parties, men are responsible for pouring the drinks, and so it's obvious that men would be interested in glassware, and at Mr. Underhill's suggestions, the retailer created a mini-bar for the men to play with.
Unfortunately, insights are only insights if they're not known, and the book is a victim of its own success. Today retailers are so good at identifying and anticipating the thinking and behavior of consumers, and have implemented it so throughly into their retail outlets that Mr. Underhill's insights are now obvious. Mr. Underhill tries to update his book by discussing global retail shopping and the Internet, but he's clearly not as well-versed in these areas, and the last half of the book comes across as redundant and pointless.
Still, Mr. Underhill did create the science of shopping, and his words and works will continue to live on in marketing classes. Another small consolation is that he did grew insanely rich because of his research and insights.
Great read but does not explain why people buy.February 2, 2010 R. Blanchard 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a beautifully-written book but it does not explain why people buy. It talks anecdotally about how merchants can create a more pleasant and informative buying environment for shoppers. This is an important subject and is where Underhill's has considerable experience and expertise. He makes a lot of suggestions about further improvements he would like to see in the consumer's shopping experience. He seems to really struggle to explain the Internet's impact on shopping. The later part of the book, which appears to have been written about a decade after the original publication, has an end-of-career feel to it with lots of retrospective comments and bouquets tossed in all directions. Again, terrific writing and some interesting personal observations, philosophies and travel experiences but not a full-bodied explanation as to why people buy.
Oh, the irony...January 22, 2010 EllenE.(Chandler, AZ USA) I read the first version of this book a few years ago, and would highly recommend it. In fact, I was recommending it on a message board, and saw the updated version. "Oh, cool! I'm going to get it to read on my Kindle!" Oh, wait. It's not available on the Kindle. I guess Mr. Underhill and his publishers aren't quite hip to the new technologies.
Great book, interesting insights but terrible final 2 chaptersJanuary 21, 2010 Rups(Pennsylvania, USA) 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the first edition of the book I have read based on a recommendation. In large part it provides many fascinating, amusing insights into how retailers inadvertently miss out on sales as a direct result of how they position things, layout etc. A lot of his observations are based on solid common sense ie making the text on medicine bottles large font so seniors can read it, and many of his stories based on solid research data from many years experience stand up well. Some of the case studies he provides are pretty funny, and you can see examples when you're out next.
The final two chapters are the problem, and why this star rating has been given. The chapter on the Internet is just terrible - and seems to be written by someone who just doesn't "get it". He pooh poohs the idea of review sites without understanding the huge value they add to a shopping experience.
His understanding of Internet security and electronic cash is poor - he says "once you start putting cash into electronic form, crime plummets." This is clearly not the case with all the cyber scams happening on a regular basis, and increasing exponentially as more and more financial transactions are purely electronic.
He is condescending about Facebook and social networking sites "From my cynical standpoint, Facebook users are triangulating through the social network because they lack the courage, opportunity and geographical proximity to come face-to-face with an actual living, breathing human being". In so doing, he completely dismisses the value of having a tool which connects people - social networking does not need to be a substitute for "real" relationships; it can simply offer an additional way to enhance the friendships we already have. On that basis, he could easily dismiss the invention of the telephone, email etc as poor substitutes for the real thing! This seems a little out of character from someone who professes to have been at the forefront of cell phone and PDA technology.
If Underhill and his organization are to remain relevant to the way retailers are evolving, they would benefit from becoming deeply familiar with how shoppers often delight in using the Internet as a worthy substitute to pounding the malls. There is an art to shopping online - working out which review sites are truly useful, being a savvy shopper, having access to a whole range of goods which we wouldn't usually have within geographical proximity, using a combination of Internet/conventional methods to get the best research and the best deals. And Underhill's approach of focusing on what the shopper actually does, rather than what the retailer/software designers expect them to do is the correct one. They just need to find a way of applying those methods to Internet shopping. The difficulty with this is being able to mimic the experience of being able to observe Internet shoppers without their knowledge to record "real behavior" - a dilemna I acknowledge!
The only worthy suggestions in the Internet chapter are the availability of online experts when buying and convergence - as appliances become more Internet-enabled.
The "Come Fly with Me" chapter is also poor with a detailed explanation of how he expanded his business. Strangely I don't care - I would rather have heard about the subtle nuances of how shopping habits differ across the globe in key markets - eg China, India, Latin America. There are a few references to this, but the majority of this chapter focuses on him meeting people at various parties and events, and his hiring decisions, and how it's all working out so well - quite irrelevant to the book.
It's a pity that Underhill felt the need to update this book which was already a classic with these chapters as I think he did it a disservice overall. I would still recommend the book as I think it has some useful insights to share - if you avoid the last two chapters, it's an enjoyable read.
An eye opening experienceDecember 4, 2009 Gustavas Jankauskas(Lithuania) By far the most in-depth analysis of our buying decisions in POS. Although at first it seems that some of the details described are not worth any interest, the author quickly provides a solid rationale behind any single one of them. By reading the book you get the feeling "yes, exactly - why hasn't anyone thought of that?!" as well as eye-opening moments. Strongly recommended to all the retailers as well as ones, who are proposing various POS activities for the retailers. Only one negative thing - the font is very small and text is crowded so sometimes it's too much tiring to read it for a long time.
