NEW DELHI: Paco Underhill is the founder and managing director of Envirosell, a New York-based research and consulting firm that conducts research on different aspects of shopping behaviour.
In his over 25-year career, Mr Underhill has helped companies understand what motivates the behaviour of today’s consumers. His research shows how today’s retail world is ruled by factors such as gender, trial and touch, and human anatomy.
His first book, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping has been published in 31 languages, and has sold more copies than any other retail book in history. In a tête-à-tête with ET, Mr Underhill pinpoints where India fits in the changing retailscape and more.
Excerpts:
What brings you to India?
Launch of a joint-venture with Technopak. We have offices in Milan, Tokyo, Mexico, Sao Paolo, and Delhi will now be another office in our global business. It will allow our Indian partners (Technopak) to tap into our knowledge base. We’re hoping for an ideal mix of 50:50 consumer product companies and merchants two years down the line. Out here, what is most important is that retail is undergoing a transformation.
What does your firm Envirosell do, and how does it have an impact on the shopping experience?
We have been in the business for more than 20 years. Our client mix comprises half of the world’s 50-largest merchants. It’s important for me to build and nourish offshore experience. We impact on the shopping experience by looking at the interaction between people, spaces, products and services.
Given that you’ve been studying consumers for over 20 years, how would you categorise the changing nature of consumers?
Over the last 20 years, we’ve used over a 1,000 different measures — conversion ratios, interaction with sales people — different ways of taking alpha-numeric measurements and bringing them to the table. Today, the visual language is emerging faster than our written or spoken word. It’s important to understand that while the connect between our eyes and our brain has never been better, our eyes themselves are tired. You’re known to have coined the ‘butt-brush effect’.
Can you elaborate?
The likelihood of a woman’s being converted from a browser to a buyer is inversely proportional to the likelihood of her being brushed on her posterior while she’s examining merchandise. If a woman goes to a bazaar, she may not be very conscious of her self being violated, but if she goes into a mobile phone store (with men around), she may not have the same expectation.
In your second book, The Call Of The Mall, you talk of the importance of display windows in making a first impression. How will new technologies change your thoughts on where people may be developing first impressions — it may not be the store’s display windows at all?
The window has come back as a communication form. I can tell a story in a window. If you’re a brick-n-mortar store, windows are necessary. We even apply good retail logic to people’s online presence and we’ve had a good experience to de-geek them.
What would you recommend as the right mall format in India?
It’s important that India learns from other emerging markets such as Brazil, Mexico and Korea. The Korean consumer, for example, is so much better served through service, style, fashion and price. Even China has been able to manage the aspirations of its people. The mom-n-pop stores are not the best way to do business. India should transform very fast — from the 19th century to the 21st century. It’s India’s entrepreneurial spirit that’s interesting. In doing so, India has to ensure peace with its immediate neighbours and reduce its defence spending, narrow down economic disparities and create ecological awareness. But America already has an inflated defence budget? Look, we can afford to. Not you.
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