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The Science Of Shopping, By George Orwell

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In a world perceived in a state of constant surveillance much like the dystopian setting of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ novel, it is expected to view the practices that Malcolm Gladwell introduced in his article, The Science of Shopping, as frightening. However, the main intentions of these remarkable tactics are greatly misunderstood and Gladwell does an excellent job of clearing up many misconceptions around this topic. For instance, he introduces Paco Underhill, a self-proclaimed urban geographer who is a professional in the field of retail planning and posses a lengthy list of credentials. He also identifies and illustrates the concepts of decompression zone, invariant right, petting, “butt-brush” theory in his article and breaks down their …show more content…

In fact, he can be classified as a scientist that is benefiting both the producer and consumer simultaneously as opposed to this image of an eerie ‘spy’. He’s literally providing his standout talent of extreme insight as a weapon that retailing industries can use to conquer the business world. His renowned theory of the Decompression Zone is most certainly not a concept that can be compared to rocket science. It’s merely just a simple technique that acknowledges the predictability of the human mind and how it can be easily manipulated when switching from different environments. A majority of human subconsciously falls to these tactics and Paco Underhill didn’t develop it from thin air; he merely discovered by carefully examining how people shop.
As stated before, the human mind subconsciously falls to traps and it’s programmed to follow patterns. With this being said, Underhill is also credited with discovering the theory of Invariant Right which states that consumers who enter stores are more likely to move to the right side. From a personal standpoint, I can verify that his theory is, in fact, legitimate because based on the C-Town supermarket that I have visited, a deli was placed as a simple access for customers that are either in a rush or on lunch breaks to take advantage of. Furthermore, like a scientist, Paco Underhill believes that

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