Why We Buy by Paco Underhill

can mix in some pictures and images, all the better.
    We’ve done studies on fast-food restaurant drive-thrus and worked out the same equation. The speed of transactions is especially important at drive-thrus because the line of cars is so much more apparent to potential customers than the line inside the restaurant. Particularly in North America, where the steering wheel is on the left, we use our left hand to grab our burger and fries and pay at the payment and pickupwindow. A ten-second reduction in average transaction time during a busy lunch rush contributes almost immediately to the bottom line.
    That woman I began this chapter by describing could have been shopping at a big discount drugstore like Walgreens. It was during a study we did for one such chain that we thought of one simple but very effective solution to the hand shortage.
    The eureka moment came on a sultry August night in my office as I listened to the Yankees on the radio and watched videotape of people shopping in the drugstore. I was viewing footage from the camera we had trained on the checkout line, witnessing a shopper trying to juggle several small bottles and boxes without dropping any. That’s when it dawned on me: The poor guy needed a basket.
    Why hadn’t he taken one? The store had plenty of them, placed right inside the door. Maybe people don’t associate drugstores with shopping baskets. Perhaps they come in thinking they need just one or two items and only later do they realize they should pick up a few more things. The biggest culprit, of course, was the decompression zone—the baskets were so close to the entrance that incoming shoppers blew right by without even seeing them down there. I immediately began to scan all three days’ worth of checkout line video and saw that fewer than 10 percent of customers used baskets, meaning there were quite a few amateur jugglers shopping at the store. And I thought, If someone gave these people baskets, they’d probably buy more things! They wouldn’t buy fewer items, that’s certain. But here we were, allowing the arm and hand capacity of human beings to determine, ultimately, how much money they spent.
    We suggested that all drugstore employees be trained to offer baskets to any customer seen holding three or more items. My drugstore client gave it a shot. And because people tend to be gracious when someone tries to help, shoppers almost unanimously accepted the baskets. And as basket use rose instantly, so did sales, just like that.
    We’ve made a direct link over the years between the percentage of shoppers using a basket or a cart and the size of the average transaction. Want people to spend more money? Make sure more of them are using a shopping aid of some kind. For a while the merchant community gotthe message but didn’t quite grasp the subtext. What happened is the carts got bigger. From Wal-Mart and Target to Carrefour and Auchan in Europe, grocery carts swelled in size. In 2006, we noted that all across the world, whether in supermarkets, hypermarkets or mass merchant stores, the number of people using carts and baskets declined. “I’m just running in for a few things,” people told themselves. Not taking a cart or a basket became a way for the customer to define his or her mission. And if customers were just running in for a few things, they didn’t want to drive a Mack truck (read: large cart) up and down the aisles of the store. The problem was that shoppers picked up a few things, then found themselves face-to-face with the wine aisle, and look! there was their favorite pinot grigio on sale, two for one, and…now what do they do?
    Our answer? Give customers a shopping aid strategy right at the door, when they first come in. Cart or basket? Then place other shopping baskets at strategic locations throughout the store. If no one bites, try another location. (We also recommend getting away from those Little Red Riding Hood