What do shoppers want?

Paco Underhill’s new book What Women Want, examines our lives as shoppers and is definitely worth a look. Underhill has taken observations and anecdotes, facts and statistics and made them relevant and applicable to those of us who earn our living from creating and selling things to people in retail. He also holds a mirror up to all of us who are shoppers… which is basically everybody not living in a Buddhist temple or on a compound within a sect. He allows us to see ourselves shopping through his observations of others.

Please don’t be scared off by the title. The book isn’t meant to be read only by women nor is it just about women shoppers. It’s written for all shoppers, and it’s written for business people who earn a living from shoppers. It moves between our physical and emotional habits in the store, and our communication and networking habits within the ether, from Facebook to LinkedIn. And it talks a lot about men, children and pets, so nobody is left out!

As a sharer of observations to retail marketers, Paco proposes themes and trends and makes observations that may have been captured in Menlyn Park in South Africa, Jumeriah in Dubai, our own Westfield Bondi Junction in Sydney or a tiny edgy store in New York city. Our professional opportunity lies in opening our minds and seeing not if, but how these shopper environments can fit into our stores or the path we manage from our factory to our target shopper.

As a shopper it’s also a really good read. He tells stories about “us” as we move through our daily lives as modern foragers of things we need to feed and clothe ourselves and our families. Hunting in small High Street stores, strip malls and dedicated shopping malls all over the world. Some of the things Paco writes about are amusing, right up until we realise that we actually do those ritualistic and habitual things when we go shopping, such as: slowing down or stopping dead in the decompression zone was we enter stores causing a shopper pile up; trying to “go in through the out door;” giving a suspired mumble in response to a welcome from a greeter. He’s describing our own strange traits that apparently aren’t that strange after all.

Let me share one of Paco’s observations with you about women shoppers within the hardware environment, a traditionally male environment. Is it? Well, the two largest hardware retailers in the world, Lowes and Home Depot, both sponsor NASCAR, the Australian V8 Super Cars’ very blokey big brother.

In the US women spend around $US50 billion a year in Lowes and Home Depot. Websites like Be Jane and home improvement cable TV channels dedicated to communicating home improvement techniques hosted by women talking to women have made it easier for women to shop in traditionally male dominated environments.

Paco talks of visiting a prototype Lowes store in the US and being met by 10 managers, of whom only one was female. He asked to be taken to the female washrooms, was met by a plain white commercial fit out. He asked what was on the other side of the wall in the female bathroom. “Bathroom fashion” was the answer. “Why isn’t it in here?” he asked.

Why doesn’t the store work with the suppliers and fit out the washrooms with toilets and sinks to let female shoppers see how fixtures look fully plumbed in?
Lowes is the joint venture partner of Woolworths in the new hardware offering.

The first store is underway just south of the Brisbane River, over the bridge from Eagle Farm and Brisbane airport in Tingalpa. I wonder if the ladies loos will be funky or white? I may need help with the research so as not to risk arrest on the opening day!

In his role as CEO of CROSSMARK, Kevin Moore looks at the world of retailing from grocery to pharmacy, bottle shops to car dealers, corner store to department stores. In this insightful blog, Kevin covers retail news, ideas, companies and emerging opportunities in Australia, NZ, the US and Europe. His international career in sales and marketing has seen him responsible for business in over 40 countries, which has earned him grey hair and a wealth of expertise in international retailers and brands. CROSSMARK Asia Pacific is Australasia’s largest provider of retail marketing services, consulting to and servicing some of Australasia’s biggest retailers and manufacturers.