Article: Anneliese King from True Love
Image: Ablestock

Next time you're looking for an ATM and realise you have to walk halfway across a shopping centre to find one, understand this is entirely intentional. The further you have to walk, the further you are drawn into the mall, the more you see and the more you might be enticed to buy.

Retailing is an art, consumer habits a science, and you, the person behind the trolley, the most valuable commodity of all. Shopping centres and stores across the world have tuned in to the fact that shopping, like any human activity, is ripe for manipulation and that with the right approach, shoppers can be enticed to want more, buy more and spend more. Products are grouped, displayed and hung to make you want to touch, feel and buy.

The music you hear, the colours you see grouped together and the width of the aisles are all designed to change you from browser to buyer. Nothing is left to chance. Some shops even choose their cleaning products carefully so that they leave no chemical odours, as this (research has found) turns people off.

Knowing how people tick
In Japan, smell is deemed so powerful that some shops pipe fragrance through the air conditioning system to induce the right ambience. Paco Underhill is the guru of American retail. For the past 30 years he has researched the field of consumer habits. Using small cameras mounted in shops throughout America, he has watched how thousands of people inside the shopping environment act. He knows their likes and dislikes inside out.

His company, Envirosell, consults to some of the world's biggest names; from McDonalds to Levi's, from Coca-Cola to Nestl&eacte; Paco Underhill is the voice to which companies listen. His philosophies are so powerful and so well researched that many have become standard retail practice across the world.

Bertha Jacobs, of the Department of Consumer Sciences at Pretoria University, says that South Africa largely mirrors the American consumer experience. "There are obviously some differences, like for instance that Americans like to buy in big volumes whereas South Africans go for what they perceive to be quality, rather than a large amount of something. But in general, the American trends very much play themselves out here in South Africa," she says.

Knowledge is power, and knowing how people tick is the first step to making them buy more stuff. "Human beings walk the way they drive," says Underhill. This means that South Africans will tend to walk down the left side of a mall. Retailers who understand this will tilt shop window displays in such a way that they are visible to people walking towards the window and not just to those right in front of it. Bertha Jacobs says the same goes for the way consumers move through a shop: "We read from left to right and we shop from left to right.

Prime goods are always placed on the left. "As they step into a shop, consumers will first adjust to the change in light and atmosphere. Underhill calls this the "de-compression zone" and says that for the first 15 paces, a shopper will gear down to adjust to the new environment. He advises retailers to not display anything of value in this area as people simply don't notice what's going on around them at this point. Their attention only becomes focused once they are some way inside. And then, the aim should be to draw them in further, keep them circulating and make them stay for as long as possible.

Tailor shopping experiences
One way is to display stock in such a way that it invites people to linger and sample. Women, in particular, like to pet and touch. That's why, in clothing stores across the world, the display table has become a standard fixture. This allows consumers to touch and feel sweaters and T-shirts, for instance, and will, according to Underhill, lead them to buy into the product far more readily than if they were only shopping with their eyes. This, he argues, is the main reason why online shopping will never replace the real shopping experience.

These insights allow retailers to tailor their shopping experience to the specific needs of their clients, and this will ultimately make them sell more successfully. They argue that it's not about manipulating clients, but rather about giving them the shopping environment they want. Men and women shop differently. Women spend more time in shops, have more patience, and are more inclined to use lists.

Men are more easily distracted, more prone to "impulse shop" and more open to what is called "advocacy" – or what most parents will recognise as "the nag factor". Men want solutions and clarity. Their capacity for confusion is much greater than women's. But as women account for 70% of sales, so retailers gravitate towards keeping them happy, if they have to choose, Underhill says. The trend, according to him, is to further feminise the shopping environment.

The placing of products is a hot retail topic. Eye-level shelf space is the best because the eye is naturally drawn to products at that level. Lower shelf space is often valuable for another reason – it's at eye level for children. So products such as cookies, sweets, cereals and toys are often placed in such a way that they attract the attention of kids, who will then, by virtue of "the nag factor", influence "the wallet" to buy something they had not intended to.

The same goes for the check-out shelves; the hot spot for impulse shopping. As you wait to pay, you realise you still "need" a chocolate, this razor, those batteries, the latest magazines... and some chewing gum. Oh, and then some shopping bags, and throw in a cooler bag – yours is in the car... In a matter of minutes, you could have added close to a R100 to your shopping bill, and all with products you had no intention of buying until you hit the check-out queue.

Getting shoppers to move through the shop is another trick. This allows for greater exposure to more merchandise and increases the chances of impulse buying. Clever store design means that "destination items" are always put at the farthest end, ensuring that consumers have to walk through the shop to get to those basics everyone needs – denim, underwear, loo paper, food. That's why you'll usually find your Woollies food section at the back of the store.

The same goes for the layout of supermarkets. "Vegetables, butchery and dairy" are usually placed in such a way that you need to walk a circuit in order to stock up – past the flowers, past the deli items and the expensive, prepared meals. Understanding what people want is one thing, but understanding what they don't want is just as crucial.

The turn-off
According to Underhill, the No 1 turn-off for women is being bumped or jostled in a shop. Women, he says, hate the "butt-brush" so much that most will actually leave a shop rather than continue shopping in an environment where they are being bumped in the bottom. Strange but true. His research bears this out over and over again. Long queues, small changing rooms and products that are too high to reach are other no-nos, as are intimidating service, out-of-stock merchandise and hard-to-find price tags.

Bertha Jacobs has done research on what South African women specifically want from a shopping experience. "Most people with money are time poor. They reward shops that respect their time. They hate queues and want an easy return policy. Increasingly, women want to try on clothes at home in their own time and then return what they don't want quickly and easily. They hate clutter but want variety and choice. They go for reputation, quality and previous good experiences," she observes.

Cosmetic and make-up sales are big money-spinners and are undergoing massive changes across the world. The old-fashioned way is the glass counter with the sales assistant and the products you need to ask for. The new approach breaks down these barriers and uses open-plan design that encourages shoppers to feel, touch and use products in testing stations and "play areas".

South Africans are experiencing this fresh approach in the new generation cosmetic hubs in Woolworths flagship stores. Brightly-lit, spotlessly clean, open-plan white spaces form the backdrop for sparsely displayed cosmetic lines. All products have testers and prices are clearly marked. The on-site express spa injects a sense of adventure. Underhill says that allowing consumers to sample products – even expensive ones – always pays off.

Not only does it allow consumers to test-drive a product, it also introduces an element of exploration to which consumers respond. An interesting fact from the University of Pretoria research is that women do not see shopping as an unpleasant chore, but rather as "an outlet". According to Jacobs, shopping affects women emotionally, and this is where the aesthetics of the shopping experience comes in – the surroundings influence women on that level and, if done correctly, affect sales positively.

This is clearly understood by the homeware market in South Africa – the very rapid growth of this sector in itself a testament to the trend towards "all things lifestyle". The designer of one of South Africa's leading homeware stores says he tries to create a calming atmosphere that fits the seasons. "We place less product on the floor and focus on display. A beautiful armoire loosely filled with exquisite linen will achieve far more that densely packed shelves with lots of sheets, for instance.

We know that the consumer needs to make an emotional connection with a product. It's all about ambience. The customer needs to feel comfortable, as if she is in a home away from home. If the way something is displayed allows her to covet it for her own home, then we are getting it right. The customer needs to feel good, then she will be more inclined to buy. If you create a destination, rather than just a shop, you start changing the customer from an impulse shopper to someone who has a relationship with your store. This, in the long run, is far more valuable," he explains.

But if this "ambience argument" holds true, then why do so many shops with the opposite approach survive? The ear-splitting in-store radio station pumping through the speakers, the rails stuffed with merchandise, the aisles too narrow for a shopping trolley, where you bump things off at every turn... The constant intercom announcements, the badly trained sales staff, the long queues. The indifferent cashier, the cluttered shelves, the missing price tags.

Raising the bar
Why do consumers not desert in their droves, if everything Underhill says is true? The answer, in South Africa, might lie in one single dirty word: credit. The stores with the tired interior, the bad lighting, the stuffed rails are often also generous extenders of credit and, once hooked in to the credit cycle, their customers become a captive audience, returning for more credit rather than ambience or experience. And the hectic music might also not be all that incidental.

Some consumer analysts argue that certain music raises the heart, inducing consumers into a low-level state of anxiety which encourages "irrational shopping behaviour". To the layperson, this means buying stuff you don't really want – bad for your bank balance, but good for shop's bottom line.

Retailers are cottoning on to the fact that to sell more successfully they need to understand their consumers' habits and preferences, and this has given rise to a whole new industry in intelligence gathering. In America, this is a multi-billion dollar industry with some companies even doing research on household garbage to understand consumer habits better.

In South Africa, these extremes have not been reached, but the new trend for in-store cards is about generating information. Every time a consumer swipes his or her in-store card, it allows retailers a glimpse into their world and use that information to figure out consumer profiles and sales trends.

But with all the increasing sophistication in the science of shopping, focusing on getting the basics remains as important as ever. According to Bertha Jacobs, too many retailers still don't understand the damage done by a single bad experience. According to the "2-11 rule" consumers will, on average, tell two other people about a good experience but up to 11 people about a bad one.

The oldest trick in the book is about keeping customers happy, and it still remains the No 1 rule. No amount of white space, no in-store music or fancy display is going to make consumers come back for more if they don't like they way they are treated. "People have choices, and they exercise them," says Bertha Jacobs. Paco Underhill agrees.

"It's all about the consumer. If the 20th century was about marketers being leaders, then the 21st century is about marketers being followers".

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