Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping

People have many differences—tall, short, young, old, male, female, slim, stout—but they share fundamental qualities that affect their shopping behavior. Retailers ignore these basics at their peril. Anatomically, humans are more similar than different. Most adults are between five and six feet tall, walk on two feet, have two hands, and use six senses, including eyes that can take in a great amount of detail but that are connected to brains that tire easily from too much information. If a store doesn’t respect these qualities, its sales will suffer.

For example, signs with too many words tend to be ignored because shoppers enter a store looking for merchandise and want simple and easy directions to those items, not fancy or complicated ones. Package designers, eager to provide as much information as possible about their products, often use very small print to cram all the facts onto the box, and such print is hard for older shoppers to read. Narrow aisles can discourage many patrons, especially in America, where customers tend to prefer a bit of distance as they shop. Young patrons are highly desired, and stores place products of interest to them within easy reach on middle shelves, while less popular items languish on bottom or top shelves, where older, shorter, and heavier customers must struggle to reach them.