Malcolm Gladwell's Essay: The Science Of Shopping

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Science of Shopping
Have you ever wondered the reason for flashy displays a few meters in front of large stores, just on the right-hand side? The answer dwells on the need to have customers easily spot the goods. The strategic location of goods on large stores and business premises is often aimed at drawing the attention of customers and having them drawn to purchase the goods. The science of shopping is increasingly becoming a significant subject in the current business paradigm. The ability to increase sales volume has become a core competitive strategy that many companies and sales stores are adopting. According to the articulation of Malcolm Gladwell studies have shown a particular trend of customers buying goods from a specific side …show more content…

Paco linked the decompression zone to the downshift factor that hypothesized that potential shoppers upon entering the business premises often takes five to fifteen paces before adjusting to the shopping stores environment and adopt the shopping speed. In Gladwell’s article, the issue of decompression zone is increasingly becoming important as it determines the likelihood of the potential shoppers seeing the goods and making purchases. The ability to spot the goods while walking at shopping pace increases the probability of shoppers purchasing the products rather than placing them at points where they would only be partially visible to the shoppers. Under such circumstances, the decompression zone should not have any product on its path to enable shoppers to have a proper and undisrupted view of the products. As Paco tells his customers, "Never, ever put anything of value in that zone…because no one is going to see it (Gladwell 94, par. 3)". Such thoughts express the inability of the customers to spot the items and therefore not being able to buy them. Image and reality factors in through the ability to provide shoppers with adequate visuals to enable them to realize the reality of the items. In most cases, images often magnify the impacts of a product on reality thereby creating a new perception of the product in serving the intended purpose. The ability to spot the …show more content…

This led to his insistence that moving products to the right-hand side towards the end edge increases the probability of having the customer spot them. In his analysis, Gladwell observed that “…customer interaction with any product or promotion in the decompression zone will increase by at least 30 percent once moved to the back edge especially on the right-hand side (Gladwell 95, par. 1).” this seems to provide a solution to the decompression zone effect. The display at the back edge on the right-hand side makes them easily visible to the customers and therefore enabling them to develop a clear image of the products and make decisions on whether to buy them. As such, the effectiveness of such advertisements or visual displays often increases the ability to provide sufficiently customers with sufficient images of the products in the

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