Malcolm Gladwell's The Science Of Shopping, By Malcolm Gladwell

Have you ever wondered why it seems that we experience two different emotions when it comes to waiting? Why anticipation and impatience can come from waiting? Why they affect you the way they do? Writer, James Hamblin, in his business article, “Buy experiences, not things,” analyzes the differences between material possessions and experiences. The purpose of the article is to analyze the human psychology to discover the difference between impatience and anticipation. Hamblin gives many examples of different analysis from three psychologists including; Matthew Killingsworth, Thomas Gilovich, and Amit Kumar to further provide evidence supporting his argument. This sets a tone that both attracts and informs the readers.

Shopping, a common activity conducted by almost everyone at least once a month, is such a normal subject in our everyday life, one barely puts any thoughts into the potential semiotic explanations behind it. According to the two essays, “The Signs of Shopping” and “The Science of Shopping,” Shopping has significant impacts on one’s self-identification. It is a two way straight, the consumers’ shopping styles can also influence the economic status of the retails businesses.

Black Friday shopping is a controversial issue in the United States; while many believe the day after Thanksgiving is a part of holiday festivities, others view it as destructive. Throughout “Black Friday: Consumerism Minus Civilization,” Andrew Leonard argues that the chaos of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in which crowds of Americans shop all night for extremely low prices, lessens the sophistication of Americans and the true meaning of the holidays. People become so consumed in the idea of endless sale prices that they forget to embrace what they already have, such as family, food, and shelter. He believes that Black Friday shopping has become out of control and describes the negative effects of excessive consumerism. he explains how most consumers act completely insane while Black Friday shopping and how society encourages this behavior by creating commercials and advertisements. Furthermore, Leonard states that it hurts the economy and damages one’s mental health. While Leonard is probably wrong when he claims that Black Friday shopping is completely troublesome to America’s well-being, he is right that consumerism overpowers the true significance of Thanksgiving.

The phenomenon of consumerism is quiet powerful due to the impact on individual’s lives. Society has come to the point, happiness is associated with consumption. However, the way consumerism works, is if the items being purchased gives temporary happiness. There individuals are always buying the latest products to remain happy. In the text, “The Cult you’re in” Kalle Lasn, discusses a cult-like nature of consumer culture on Americans. Lasn uses the work ‘cult’ as a metaphor; he does not mean an actual cult but American consumers seem to be in a cult-like nature. The ideal example of Lasns argument is the text, “The man behind Abercrombie and Fitch”, Benoit Denizet-Lewis, goes in great depth of the life of the CEO, Mike Jeffries, of

The bizarre economy that we live in has affected us in many ways than our simple mind can fathom. After World War II there was massive push in innovation. Human were gifted with inventions like the Airplane, color T.V., polyvinyl cups, and precooked dinners. Nevertheless, these “gifts” came at an enormous cost. That cost was pushed onto the environment and people living in that environment. “The Market Economy” by Marge Piercy illustrates the movement in American aimed at bring attention to a global problem as well as an effort to save the planet along with the people living on it.

A famous writer for the New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell has written an article, “The Science of Shopping”, which is based on Paco Underhill’s study of retail anthropology. The intention of a retail store is obvious- that is to attract customers and convince them to perchance as much as they can. There is so much knowledge that we can study, such that how the environment affects people’s thinking. These are tiny details that we don’t usually think about. The reason of how Paco Underhill success is because he notices these details. Details determine success or failure. Paco Undnerhill—a talent and passion environmental psychologist, provides us a new point of view of the science of displaying products,

Whenever I go to Stop & Shop, I tend to take interest in the thousands of products that surround me as I walk down an aisle. The wafting aroma of freshly baked pastries and the sight of cold soft drinks are just some of the things that trigger my appetite for food. Most often, I find myself buying more than what I originally planned on. That’s exactly what the layout of a supermarket tries to make consumers do. Marion Nestle argues in her article, “The Supermarket: Prime Real Estate”, how supermarkets employ clever tactics such as product layout in order to make consumers spend as much money as possible. She covers fundamental rules that stores employ in order to keep customers in aisles for the longest time, a series of cognitive studies that stores perform on customers, and examples of how supermarkets encourage customers to buy more product. Overall, Nestle’s insight into how supermarkets manipulate people into spending extra money has made me a more savvy consumer and I feel if more people were to read her article, then they can avoid some of the supermarket’s marketing tactics as well.

Malcolm Gladwell is currently a non-fiction writer for The New Yorker. After college, he took a journalism position in Indiana and later took a position in Washington. In 1996, he moved to New York, where he is today. He has written five books and each has been on the New York Times best seller list (Famous Authors). In his first year of working as a journalist for The New Yorker, he wrote, “The Science of Shopping.” In this piece, Gladwell objectively evaluates Paco Underhill’s research within the business industry. Underhill “would have from a hundred to five hundred pages and pages of carefully annotated tracking sheets and anywhere from a hundred to five hundred hours of films” for each experiment that he conducts (99). With Underhill’s determination and research, and Gladwell’s journalistic qualities, this report changes the way anyone views shopping.

Shopping has become a daily activity which happens a billion times in America and around the world. We cannot imagine how our lives would be affected if shopping was suddenly stopped. Malcolm Gladwell and Anne Norton both write articles about two sides of modern day shopping: how consumers have impacted the retail industry and how the industry influences consumers. In the article " The Science of Shopping," Malcolm Gladwell, a well-known writer and journalist, analyzes the shopping behaviors of customers and how retailers can lure customers; while Anne Norton, a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, in

Everyday thousands of retail stores throughout the United States open up their stores in the morning for the sole purpose of attracting customers and selling them merchandise. For this assignment I decided to do a store analysis of the retail giant Wal-Mart. To begin with I will evaluate the store layout and design. Next I will explain the visual merchandising techniques used that Wal-Mart uses. Finally I will discuss the problems and recommendations that I have for Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has continually been a leader in the retail industry, and it all starts with the layout of the store.

Author Malcolm Gladwell in “Science of Shopping” argues about the study of shopping and how important position of advisement is to attract customers. Gladwell uses Paco Underhill as his claim. Underhill has five theories including downshift theory, Decompression zone, the butt brush, and “petting” Gladwell uses these Underhill’s theories in his writing to describe the customers. For example, downshift period is even customers are looking so fast they cannot even see the sign; this theory came about by studding people when walk fast and slow. This theory is important because this is why position of the advertisement is important.

For generations, Americans has been brainwashed by the media to believe that what is displayed on television is the ideal perception of what real beauty have manipulated American citizens of what style looks like. Furthermore, with their many brainwashing strategies, that means more and more consumers spending beyond their budget. Our perspectives have been heavily influenced by what they believe is nice, but can we afford it all? With unrealistic combination of goods in store, plazas, and mall, consuming has become a bad behavior of some. In support of my argument of the “Overspending”, author Gladwell’s article “The Science of Shopping” also argues that stores adjust to fit the needs and wants of the shopper are evidently presented. With that being said, we have no idea when we are being manipulated into unrealistic shopping behavior that is influenced by the way the advertisement is presented in visual sight. Author Gladwell gets a “retail anthropologist” and “urban geographer” named Paco Underhill to give breakdown points of how he helps brand name stores influence consumers into persuasion of buying more. However, most of us fall short of that discipline, while being persuaded to overspend during our store visits.

From an etic lenses, American society can be perceived as overly repetive and/or simplistic; with retails chains that seemingly defy state and even county boarders. From an emic lense; for the most part, these chains provide the American community with a sense of "comfort" ("In Praise of Chain Stores") but in turn can also act as catalyst for ill-advised hostility. Citizens in which hold misplaced sentiments towards the concept of retail chains believe that the store "really is all that matters", therefore, developing a sense of mistrust towards "what the chains sell". This widespread misconception can cause an upbringing of speciaility stores that shelves items that mimic "exactly what the chain sells" only without the brand name attached. It may also cause low-value stores to "stay empty" due to the chains placed conveniently on the other side of the street.

Consumers have certain behavioral tendencies when faced in certain situations. In Why We Buy, the author Paco Underhill details certain behavioral characteristics people tend to have in different types of retail stores. Many consumers don’t think about what their actions mean when checking out or buying products. But to Mr. Underhill, the gender of the person, the people they’re with, the amount of times the person touches an object, the amount of time spent on checking a particular product, the time they came in, and the time they leave, all factor into a database to determine different behavioral trend consumers have. It is these trends that they find in order to correct a problem a store or retailer didn’t know they have to increase sales and create a better flow in the store environment.

When individuals in contemporary society engage with products they are principally employing them as ‘signs’ rather than ‘things’, actively manipulating them in such a way as to communicate information about themselves to others. It is commonly assumed that these individuals, in their capacity as consumers, engage with products in order to achieve ‘self-construction’, the purpose of their subjectivity. Shopping is not merely the acquisition of things; it is the