Why We Buy by Paco Underhill Page B

exact moment a basket suddenly materialized—in plain sight and easy to reach without stooping —then she would probably take one, and then, perhaps, go on to buy books number three and four. Maybe even a bookmark.
    The lesson seems clear: Baskets should be scattered throughout the store, wherever shoppers might need them. In fact, if all the stacks of baskets in America were simply moved from the front of the store to the rear they would be instantly more effective, since many shoppers don’t begin seriously considering merchandise until they’ve browsed a bit of it. The stack should be no lower than five feet tall, to make sure the baskets are visible to all, yes, but also to ensure that no shopper need bend down to get one, since shoppers hate bending, especially when their hands are full. A good, simple test on placement is that if you have to keep restocking a pile of baskets through the day, it’s probably in a good place.
    The baskets themselves also need to be rethought. This bookstore uses shallow, hard plastic ones with hinged steel handles, the same as supermarkets and convenience stores offer. They’re perfect if you’re buying bottles, jars or crushable items but make no sense for books, office supplies or clothes. When the contents grow heavy the handles become uncomfortable in your hand, but you can’t sling the basket over your arm or shoulder, as common sense might wish you could. As a result, you don’t want to let that basket get too full. How do we usually carry books? In bags, tote bags especially. A rack of canvas or nylon tote bags would be much better here and would have the added advantage itself of being salable merchandise. The clerk could unload the bag, total up the damages, ask if the customer wants to buy the tote and then reload everything and save on plastic to boot.
    The cleverest use of baskets I’ve seen yet is at Old Navy on Seventeenth Street in Manhattan. While the Old Navy chain has had its ups and downs, whoever manages this particular store does a great job.I take visiting retailers there—it’s one of the liveliest, most energetic shopping experiences in the city. As soon as you step inside there’s a gregarious, smiling employee greeting you and proffering a black mesh tote bag to carry your purchases. The bags are cheaper, lighter and easier to store than plastic baskets, and they look a whole lot better, too. In fact, when you bring yours to the checkout, the cashier will ask if you want to buy the bag, and a fair number of people say yes, adding one final sale at the last possible moment.
    The least clever use of baskets was one I witnessed in a Southern department store during the Christmas season. There was a large rack of mesh totes perfectly positioned just inside the entrance. But some merchandising wizard decided to place in front of it an even larger display of stuffed Santas—rendering the bags totally invisible to entering shoppers. (Exiting shoppers saw them just fine.) I don’t know how many Santas were sold, but it couldn’t have been enough to offset that bad decision.
    When we studied its stores, the dinnerware maker and retailer Pfaltzgraff was already providing baskets as well as shopping carts to its customers. But at the checkout, we noticed that many of the carts were filled to capacity with dishes and bowls and so on. The supersizing of grocery carts was a retail trend Pfaltzgraff hadn’t yet acknowledged. The company immediately replaced the carts with new ones that were roughly 40 percent larger. Just as fast, the average sales per customer rose.
    One of my favorite stores in the world is Vinçon, a design store in Barcelona, Spain. Every season they redesign their shopping bags. They are often funny, edgy and filled with social commentary. I am convinced that a high percentage of people shop there just to get hold of that season’s shopping bag. How many times walking through Chicago