Going to racks or Gruen
Published in The Advertiser.
Shopping is something we all do, albeit some more reluctantly than others. But whether your shopping experience is a child-free challenge done with fierce determination, or a more leisurely occurrence seemingly done on autopilot, every shopper is at the mercy of the purposely designed shopping landscape … or are they?
According to the pioneer of shopping malls, Victor Gruen, modern store layouts have been intentionally designed to confuse and bewilder shoppers. The aim is to shift shoppers’ movements from a determined stride (to a particular store) to an aimless wander in an almighty mall.
And with this, the Gruen transfer (the concept of impulse buying) was born. Of course, store owners like to think that by having the perfect shop window, they’re influencing customers to walk in and buy, but recent research shows otherwise.
Rather than luring customers in, store sales are actually affected by the number of people walking into the store, and that number depends on foot traffic outside.
And it’s a mathematical regularity that suggests the main driver of a store success is indeed its location. Some may claim this can’t be right, that it’s clever marketing and a shrewd customer purchases. But this is not the case, and this is why.
A typical supermarket stocks over 30,000 items, yet a typical household buys just 300 or so unique products each year. What this means is that an everyday shopper will walk past roughly 29,700 products on shelves without putting any of these in their basket.
And that’s assuming those shoppers actually walk past the shelves in the first place. And, despite a quarter of shoppers saying that they walk up and down every aisle on a shopping trip, fewer than 2 per cent do.
So, where do they all go? According to shopper scientist Herb Sorensen, shoppers are attracted to empty spaces, avoiding aisles that are stacked too high, or packed too heavily with other shoppers.
They’re looking for a wide path that lets them see far enough ahead and avoids others. In short, shoppers just don’t like standing where others may accidentally brush against them and, in some instances, will move away from products they want in order to avoid it.
Thus, the preferred route around a store is its perimeter, otherwise known as the “racetrack”. From this route, shoppers can see down each aisle, ducking in and out to get the items they need.
What this means is that shelves at the ends of aisles are the most valuable, simply because more people go past products that are placed there. These products get seen, and bought, by more people than products in the aisles.
So can mall and store environments influence shopper behaviour? Yes, to an extent. But, in most cases the best thing a retailer or marketer can do is just get out of the way and let shoppers do their thing.
