Inside the Mind of the Shopper

The Science of Retailing

Wharton School Publishing, 2009

15 min read

10 take-aways

Audio & text

What's inside?

Companies spend billions getting customers into the store, but what really goes on in the aisles?

1×

Editorial Rating

Qualities

Innovative
Applicable

Recommendation

Have you ever wondered why the milk is in the back of the grocery store, far away from the entrance? Supermarket managers put it there in hopes of enticing shoppers to buy some of the thousands of items they pass on their way to the dairy case. However, shopping behavioralist Herb Sorensen disagrees with this strategy. He suggests that it causes shoppers emotional distress and they will simply buy their milk elsewhere. This type of product placement tactic is the kind of “misconception” that Sorensen identifies as retailers’ and manufacturers’ biggest problem. They spend billions learning about their customers and then fail to understand how consumers behave in their stores. Sorensen proselytizes heavily about the virtues of shopper research, which is not surprising since it is his field of expertise. Given his intricate factual material, backed with research, charts, statistics and case histories, getAbstract believes that he will persuade most readers to accept his methods by the time they finish his book. This is a crucial read for retailers who aspire to increase sales by understanding what shoppers want and providing it.

Summary

“Inside the Mind of the Shopper”

Marketing’s goal is to get customers into stores. Companies carefully study their targeted demographic audiences, learning everything possible to polish their marketing efforts. However, they know little about what happens once a potential buyer enters a store. The weakness of modern retail strategy is that its marketing efforts ignore what the shopper does while shopping. For instance, most people spend around 80% of their time in a store simply moving from one spot to another. Moreover, retailers set up their stores for the convenience of the “stock-up” shopper, the one who is coming in to buy a lot of goods. Yet, more than 50% of shoppers go into stores to buy one to five items, and must walk by full shelves of products to find what they want.

Retailers’ lack of knowledge about a shopper’s thoughts and feelings presents a wonderful opportunity. With just a few adjustments, retailers can improve their profit margins by gaining a better understanding of shopping behavior and acting upon it.

One chain that does things right is Stew Leonard’s, a market in Connecticut and New York that generates around $100 million in sales every...

About the Author

Herb Sorensen, Ph.D., is president of TNS Sorensen, a company that specializes in shopping behavior research.

Comment on this summary

Sign in to share your opinion
A. C. 1 decade ago

Critical title

Herb Sorensen