Retailing Expert Paco Underhill on the Science of Bookselling

Paco Underhill, bestselling author, urban geographer, retail anthropologist, and founder of Envirosell, an international research and consulting firm, will be the featured speaker at the plenary session, "The Science of Independent Bookselling: Catching and Keeping Customers," at ABA's Thursday Day of Education at BookExpo America. Underhill has spent more than 25 years researching various characteristics of shopping behavior and is a leading expert and pioneer in the field. His research shows how today's retail world is governed by factors such as gender, "trial and touch," and human anatomy. He is an insightful and entertaining speaker, who often lectures about the methods and findings of his research.

A regular contributor to NPR and BBC Radio, his columns and editorials have appeared in the New York Times, London Times, Wall Street Journal, and Christian Science Monitor. His first book, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping (S&S), has been published in 30 languages. Simon & Schuster published his second book, entitled Call of the Mall: The Geography of Shopping, in February 2004.

Underhill recently spoke to BTW about the science of shopping and about some of the mistakes commonly made by retailers.

BTW: During your many years of studying shopping behavior, have you seen one or two major mistakes commonly made by most retailers?

Paco Underhill: One classic mistake that everyone makes is they plaster their doors and hallways with information and do not recognize that that's not the place people are going to stop and read anything. They are making the transition from the parking lot to the indoors, they may have somebody coming behind them. Historically, we do not linger in a doorway.

One of the most important things that a book merchant can do is train customers to visit one spot in the store that is designated as a community information point. The reason why the bookstore left the shopping mall -- the equity that the independent bookstore has over the chain -- is the ability to generate a sense of community. If you want to generate some sense of community, then you need to create a focal point to do it. And the focal point isn't in your doorway.

In terms of the survival of a bookseller, you have to remember that you're selling not books, but that you're selling to booklovers. Therefore, accessorizing your store [with gift items] is a smart way of building margin and equity with your customers. There's a sense I get when I talk with some booksellers that by selling a branded chocolate bar or a literary-focused potholder somehow you are whoring yourself, and I think that is just downright foolish.

Many booksellers spend much of their working days in their stores, yet sometimes important things about how customers relate to their businesses are invisible to them. Why is that?

I think it's "forest for the trees" or "trees for the forest," as the case may be. Part of what happens to many merchants is they start getting lazy. And one of the things about being a merchant is that you have to reinvent yourself constantly. I was in [one independent bookstore], and, as I walked through it, I got the distinct sense that the store was coasting. Posters were 20 years old. I smelled the staleness.

This is in contrast with BookPeople in Austin. When you walk in, there's a palpable feeling of energy, and you know that someone's having a good time every day running that store. In the cooking section, Steve [Bercu] sticks a stove as visual merchandising. When he puts out a variety of chairs, there's not just a sofa and a rocking chair, but also a barber chair. And Steve keeps reinventing categories within the context of the store. There's a "Chick Lit" section ... Why not just call a spade a spade? You have to recognize that we as a species change and evolve, and the retail community has to evolve too.

Also, why not commingle used and new product? If Amazon is doing it, why isn't the local bookstore? If booksellers are hungry for margin and publishers are only giving whatever margin they'll give, why not put new and used books all in the same place?

In your experience, do consumers follow similar shopping behaviors regardless of the type of retail environment they're in?

No. There are a number of biological constants that are governed by right-handedness, the ways our eyes work, the shopping clusters we tend to move in.... But once having gone through that list of constants, somebody relates differently to a bookstore than to a grocery store.... Books, for many of us, aren't about reading, they aren't about knowledge, they are a religion. I like having books in every corner of my house. A bookstore is the one place where I give myself permission to buy whatever I want.

In Why We Buy you say that the majority of advice Envirosell gives to retailers "involves ways of getting shoppers to shop longer." What are a few of the ways that retailers can influence consumers to do that?

Be honest and let them know if they want to get in and out quickly, you will help them do that. Other ways of doing it are by giving them a sense of community. Recognizing them in some way, manner, or form. Give them ways to deal with their accessories, like husbands and children. Keep an environment that is both familiar and fresh each time they come in.

Do you think consumers are more inclined to shop at an independent retailer because they are "independent" than they were in previous years?

I think there are three words that govern where we shop. The first is convenience. The second is value.... The third one is significance -- that is, we'd like to think that wherever I am and whatever I'm purchasing is somehow special.

Do you have a new book in the works?

I'd like to think so. I'm slowly working on the impact of the changing status of women in the world as we know it. But I have to slow down enough to churn it out. I have no idea when it will be finished. --Interviewed by Karen Schechner