Why We Buy

by Paco Underhill

  Another related way to bend time is to tell shoppers their wait will be finite and controlled rather than open-ended and subject to the vagaries of fate and chance. Some banks do this by posting an electronic sign that announces how many minutes the wait for a teller should last. These signs are never accurate, but that’s OK—just being told that your patience must last for only two minutes makes the four minutes you actually wait go faster. I recently called a computer manufacturer’s telephone technical help hotline. A recorded voice informed me that my wait for a human being would last “an estimated one to five minutes.” Which is a hell of a long span, when you think about it, but they were placating my time anxiety while playing it safe, a smart move.

  Orderliness: European shoppers don’t seem to mind queuing up in a great, heaving mass of humanity, but Americans like their lines single-file, crisp and fair. Making people guess about where to stand frustrates them. Allowing chaos to reign causes anxiety. If customers see that they’re being helped in the exact order they arrived, they relax, and the time spent waiting seems shorter. This is the secret to bending time: get rid of the uncertainty and you cut the perceived wait.

  The organization of cashier lines is still one of the great ongoing quandaries in the world of shopping. Without question, the fastest, most equitable system places customers in a single checkout line. This way guarantees that shoppers are taken in the order they arrive, and there’s no angst about whether they’ve chosen the swiftest line. There’s just one problem: You will sometimes have one very long line—a worrisome sight for a shopper in a hurry. Somehow, three lines of five customers each promise less of an ordeal than a single line of fifteen people. It’s irrational but true, and such is the difference between perception and reality.

  Just as important is the fact that when the cashier is positioned near the front door, a single long line drives incoming customers away. A common sight in our work is the shopper who enters a store (or merely peers in through a window), sees a long line at the checkout, takes that as a sign that the entire place is mobbed, turns on a dime and exits. In fact, the store may be empty past that checkout line, but who can tell? (And this, as we say elsewhere in these pages, is a good argument for not positioning cashiers within sight of the outside world.)

  Two major American merchants changed their line system in the hope of making it more efficient and less daunting: Best Buy, the consumer electronics chain, and Whole Foods, the grocery store chain. Best Buy runs you through a maze where the walls are high enough so you have no idea as you enter how many people may be waiting in front of you, and those walls are merchandised with batteries, cheap video games and office and computer supplies. It works remarkably well. Whole Foods has been rolling out their new queuing system, a series of minilines with flat-screen televisions above them indicating which numbered cash/wrap the first person in each line should go to. What’s good about this system is you’re breaking up a big, snaky, short-tempered line. And it’s clear that a technological system is overseeing the whole thing. With the knowledge that someone is minding the store, and maybe even paying attention, customers’ anxiety levels drop off. Is it a terrific system? No, but it’s a system, and an obvious improvement over the old chaos.

  Companionship: The wait seems shorter if you’ve got someone to talk to, no surprise. A store can’t do much about that, except to recognize that the lone waiters are the ones who need employee contact most.

  Diversion: Almost anything will suffice. One bank we studied used a TV tuned to soap operas to entertain the line—a bad idea, we thought, because to enjoy a soap you need to see the entire half hour. A much better solution was used by another bank, in California, where a big-screen TV played old Keystone Kops shorts during the afternoon, when most customers were retirees. Everybody’s considering video systems these days, but some low-tech entertainments work just as well. Many food stores serve free samples, a good time-killer that promotes new products. Positioning racks of impulse items so they can be shopped from the cashier line is smart merchandising, but it’s also good time-bending. Also keep in mind that the first person in line doesn’t require much diversion—he or she is in the on-deck circle, just waiting for the sign that they’re up. Merchandising materials, signage, shoppable racks and anything else should be positioned for the second person in line and back.

  The racks of sleazy tabloids at the supermarket checkout are a great use of diverting merchandise, allowing you to absorb all the trashy news you need without having to watch Jerry Springer. Another popular form of shopper diversion is, believe it or not, signage. Customers perceive waiting time as shorter if there are signs to read, our research shows. In fact, smart retailers view waiting time as a kind of intangible asset—it’s one of the few opportunities when you have your customers standing in one spot, facing in one direction, with nothing much else to do. This is when bad times can be turned into good times: Waiting may be a necessary evil, but you can use it to communicate some message and, at the same time, shorten how shoppers perceive it.

  Even away from the cashiers, waiting time is a problem in stores today. Retailers typically cut costs by cutting back on labor, which means that shoppers now spend more time than ever searching for a clerk who can answer a question. This is a particularly deadly form of waiting time; we’ve watched countless shoppers dart back and forth in stores looking for help or directions. After they’ve wandered in vain for a minute or so, you can see the steam coming out of their ears. Male shoppers are particularly vulnerable to this—if they can’t get an answer fast, they give up and go home (or to another store). We studied a department store that had just made a change in staffing policy: Instead of keeping cashiers stationed throughout the place, in the various departments, the registers were consolidated in front. (Fewer registers, naturally.) As a result, waiting time in line instantly became quite a bit longer. Plus, it suddenly was very hard to find an employee on the sales floor. Plus, the mob of impatient-looking shoppers lined up to pay just inside the front door gave entering customers the impression that the store was packed. In all, saving on a few salaries created a lot of expensive new disadvantages to overcome.

  This equation pops up all the time in retailing today: At what point does saving money on labor end up costing money in shopper frustration? Banks in particular are vulnerable. They tend to hire part-timers for minimum wage, meaning they’re not getting workers with seasoned math or people skills. As a result, wait time increases. At some point, customer dread will take its toll. We studied two businesses—a bank and an electronics store—that, mainly for security reasons, used a single cash drawer. At the bank, tellers had to run back and forth from their windows to the drawer for even the simplest transactions. At the store, shoppers beheld the spectacle of salesclerks jostling each other out of the way to get at the register. Neither setup did much for consumer confidence, and the effect on waiting time was just what you’d expect.

  We’ve studied quite a few stores where time-consuming antishoplifting policies ended up costing sales, we felt sure. In each example, the merchandise was small in size but not inexpensive: prestige perfumes in one case; computer printer ink cartridges in another; video game players in a third. All three stores decided to display the items in locked glass cases, meaning that shoppers had to make their selection without being able to touch their choice or see it up close. That alone guarantees that purchasers are being discouraged. Shoppers then had to track down an employee, praying they had found one who was permitted to carry the magic key in question. In all those instances, we watched customers search in vain for help, then give up on the purchase altogether. Did fewer thefts make up for the loss in sales? Probably not.

  There’s no question that shrinkage issues (meaning products that can’t be accounted for) are serious. But they tend to be focused in select stores, rather than in all stores. If you’re a chain like Staples you’ll have a few with huge shrinkage problems, others with minor and many with none. Shrinkage comes in three forms:
It can be a product that walks out the back door (employee theft); a product that’s stolen by pros whose intent when they woke up that day was to rip you off; and theft by amateurs, who are writing their own discount programs. Wal-Mart claims a less than 1 percent shrink rate. But that can add up to a lot of money where a chain that enormous is concerned.

  So the stores instituted security everywhere. On one hand, you have the little old lady perched at the entrance, cheerily greeting customers, on the assumption that you’re less likely to swipe a sweater or a pair of barbells if someone has acknowledged your existence. Another deterrent some stores use is to blare over the store loudspeakers something like “Security to aisle six!” even though the store probably doesn’t have a manned security system in place. The stores with the biggest ongoing shrinkage problems need to bring in professionals.

  We once worked for a drugstore chain in South Carolina with a corporate return policy that was the very definition of generosity: They would refund the price of any return, no questions asked. While I was there, the manager took me to a section of the store that sold hair products and equipment for women. “This is the most expensive hair dryer I sell,” he told me, pointing to a swanky multivolt model. “I’ve taken four of them back as returns in the past month.” He paused dramatically. “Problem is, in the past month, I haven’t sold a single one.”

  Obviously, some devious souls had been stealing the same hair dryer over and over again, then returning it for cash. Unfortunately, the manager was handcuffed by the company fiat: “We accept all returns—no questions asked.”

  Which blows.

  Back to time. Restrained by corporate decree, the poor manager has to write up the return, refund money he shouldn’t be refunding, vet the item for damage and restock it. Part of what is painful is that the time expended here is so clearly bogus. The return policy costs valuable minutes at the register, and rather than creating goodwill, it’s actually poisonous to the staff. One instance where taking the time just isn’t worth it.

  FIFTEEN

  Cash/Wrap Blues

  The cruel reality is that most shopping leads to paying.

  It’s a necessary evil. Maybe someday it won’t even exist. Stores will all offer self-service options, as gas stations and toll booths and banks now do. Shoppers will feed their purchases into a computerized gizmo where a scanner will read the product code, total up the damage, add on the taxes, then swallow a credit or debit card, get the approval and emit a receipt, a bag of the appropriate size and a tinny “Thank-you-for-shopping-at-Paco’s-beep-please-accept-this-coupon-forten-percent-off-your-next-purchase-of-men’s-accessories-beep-have-a-life-affirming-day-beep-Thank-you-for…”

  Part of the technology is already in use—like the portable scanners used by FedEx and UPS drivers. Many supermarkets already depend on shoppers to perform the ritual debit card swipe. In Europe, some restaurants present the diner with a portable scanner instead of a check, so the credit card transaction can be done right there at the table. Here’s another rare example of innovation: ICA, a Swedish supermarket chain, has portable scanners you pick up at the door along with your shopping trolley. You scan your olive oil and your ice cream as you load them into your trolley or inside your shopping bags; swipe your credit card at the store exit, where an employee weighs your trolley to make sure the price and the weight of what you scanned match up; then you take off into the night. A pretty cool system, especially when you compare it to most other self-scan checkout systems.

  And let’s face it, for all the glamorization and glorification of the twenty-first-century shopping experience, for all the art and science that have been brought to bear by geniuses of commerce, nobody has found a way to make the cash/wrap lovable. Retailers try to exploit it by stocking high-profit, high-impulse merchandise there. They create distractions to take shoppers’ minds off the fact that they’re waiting in line for the privilege of handing over money. That’s ultimately what’s so frustrating about the cash/wrap: In theory, since it’s where the shopper is being separated from his or her dough, it should be where all the dazzle goes. Instead, it’s the dreariest part of the process. It’s also the source of most shopper anxiety. “Where do I stand? How long will this take?” The rest of the shop seems so well designed and user-friendly. Here, the illusions fall away and the true function of a store is revealed—it is a machine where goods are exchanged for money. If the machine is badly designed, or poorly built, or misunderstood by its operator, here is where it shows.

  As we’ve noted, the biggest single quandary in cash/wrap is where to put it. Up front, near the door, is the logical choice. You enter the store, make your way around, choose a few things, then return to the front, pay and leave. From the staffing perspective this also makes the most sense. A small store can be run during off-peak times with one employee if the register is near the door. If it’s not, then you need two employees, or a clerk and a guard at the very least. We once studied a shoe store where the misguided architect had placed the cash/wrap in the rear and the register itself facing the back wall. This guaranteed that during every transaction there was a moment when the clerk’s back was to the entire store and all the shoppers in it—a setup that practically guarantees theft.

  But it’s a mistake to position the cash/wrap so that it’s the first thing an incoming shopper sees. It’s like entering a restaurant through the kitchen. It just doesn’t do much to stoke your anticipation of the store. And if things are a little slow there, and shoppers are stacked up, it’s the kiss of death for incoming customers. Countless times we’ve watched shoppers peer into a store, see a line at the registers and just walk away. A cash/wrap is just the promise of misery—it says that even if you do find something you want, you’ll have to undergo a little bit of torture to get it.

  When pondering its location, you must also consider the effect of cash/wrap on the rest of the store. You’ll look at the blueprint for a new store, or the artist’s rendering or the architect’s model, and you’ll see a beautifully ordered, serene space. That’s how designers prefer to imagine their creations—devoid of human clutter. This is how every magazine devoted to architecture depicts stores: empty. But then the store opens, customers actually show up and suddenly you see that the lines at the register cut the space in two. The shoppers waiting to pay snake around in a direction the designer in his aerie never anticipated (his wife does all the shopping). And there you have it—a wall of shoppers that makes half the store difficult to see and inconvenient to reach. If those shoppers in line are pushing carts, you’ve really got an obstacle. Most incoming customers can’t even see over the line, meaning that if what they want is back there, they may never even know it. We measure shopper movement patterns in several ways, among them by department density. Every hour on the hour, we tour the entire floor and count how many shoppers are in each area. During busy times in stores where the cash/wrap has been badly positioned, the number of shoppers to be found in the rear of a store is low. The line of people waiting to pay acts like a human barricade.

  Ironically, crowding at the cash/wrap is often no indicator of the state of the rest of the store. In other words, a few time-consuming transactions can give the false impression that the store is crowded. So you’ve got a mob up front, behind which is total shopper paradise, if only someone were there to enjoy it.

  What causes problems at the cash/wrap? Mainly the fact that retailers fail to recognize how an efficient cashier system affects the overall shopping experience. That is a dangerous way for businesspeople to think, as you know if you’ve ever done a slow burn and vowed never to return to a store because the cash/wrap was so badly bungled. Retailers and the architects they hire stop trying to please shoppers when they design the cash/wrap area. They don’t give it enough space, they cut corners whenever possible, and too few employees are stationed there most of the time. I can think of two instances where management tried too much piggybacking at the register, to the ultimate misfortune of the store.


  One was at Hallmark, which does quite a bit of business at Christmas, you may be surprised to know. A large part of that business is in fancy, high-priced tree and other ornaments. Many of these are given as presents—so many that the stores end up gift-wrapping quite a few. The wrapping is done at the cash/wrap by the same clerks who ring up sales. Have you ever been in a card shop around the holidays? Can you imagine what happens when a clerk must stop ringing transactions for the two minutes required to wrap a box and tie a ribbon? It’s worse than the airspace over O’Hare on the night before Thanksgiving. Meltdown. Gift-wrapping should be done from its own site, but every year fewer stores do it that logical, old-fashioned way. Instead they try to save on a clerk’s wage and create gridlock at the register. One truly efficient way to handle gift-wrapping is to set up a do-it-yourself station, complete with paper and ribbons and tissue and scissors and tape but no employees at all.

  The second instance was at RadioShack. There, the cash/wrap shared a counter with repairs and returns. This meant, of course, that there would be lots of extraneous traffic slowing down shoppers who wanted only to buy something and be on their way. But it also meant that happy shoppers who were about to acquire a camera, say, or a computer monitor had to stand elbow to elbow with unhappy shoppers who had some complaint about cameras and computer monitors—the very same cameras and monitors, sometimes. This setup did not do wonders for consumer confidence. Put repairs and returns somewhere else, we counseled—somewhere in back, away from the main flow of shoppers.

  I have a personal stake in at least one little corner of the world of cash/wrap—hotel check-in and checkout counters. Like lots of people these days, I spend roughly half my life on the road. The hospitality industry is booming as a result of the peripatetic nature of modern business. Yet the most problematic part of the hotel experience has remained more or less unchanged. The scenario is always the same: you arrive late, tired, jet-lagged and looking forward to the shortest possible transition from the road to your room, where you can begin e-mailing or reading or writing or phoning or just ordering room service and a movie. Instead, you spend eternity standing in a line when all you really need is your key, the rest of the transaction having been managed in advance over the phone or the Internet or through a travel agent.