Why We Buy Paco Underhill Analysis

Why do you buy? It sounds almost silly to ask. We buy to acquire goods that we need or desire, right? As it turns out, the answer may not be that simple at all. As Paco Underhill explains in his book, Why We Buy, there is an entire intricate science behind how and why we buy what we do and how we go about doing so. Some of his claims sound far-fetched at first, but once I entered retail environments with this new found observing attitude I could see his research come to life. One night I went through Walmart in search of a birthday gift for my friend when everything Underhill wrote about started jumping out at me. It was easy to spot the things Underhill was talking about and to begin thinking like him in terms of constant improvement. …show more content…
Nobody likes waiting. We get especially frustrated when we see that our wait could be avoided if the store was run better. Every Walmart I have ever been to have had around twenty or so registers but only a few cashiers working. This means there is no space restriction causing the back up. The stores have plenty of room and registers to open up more lines when there are lots of customers. This can be aggravating for customers in line as it shows bad management. The wait can become so annoying that customers will give up their items and leave. I have seen this happen several times. It appears especially likely when parents are with their young children. These parents are probably going out to the store to buy some last minute items for dinner or maybe a child’s school project. They have likely already had to work an eight hour day along with helping their children with homework so by evening they are exhausted and just want to get home. This decreases the patience they have remaining. The cheap prices and convenience of one location for many items can only counteract the waiting time so much. This breaking point sends customers and profits away for not only that day but in the future as those individuals will remember the agonizing wait and may think twice before shopping there again. Along with the bad reputation that Walmart then has …show more content…
A few more minimum wage cashiers will not hurt a company as big a Walmart but they will provide customers with a better experience and therefore stronger store loyalty. Even if the managers claim that adding more people to the payroll would burden the store too much, moving employees around is simple enough. The employees walking around the store stalking shelves could easily get on registers for a bit just to speed up the check-out process and then return to their tasks. Since it is known by customer and store owners alike that Walmart is not a high end prestigious store, no one is expecting top notch sales associates throughout the store. If consumers do not require employees to be at their beck and call on the sales floor, there is no reason they cannot be trained to cashier and spend part of their shifts checking people