Shopping

Burban Bags Reusable Grocery Shopping Bag Blue and Lavender All Over Scroll
$5.95
these are the best! it's so nice to have a cute reusable bag that doesn't have a store logo on it!

Addicted to Shopping and Other Issues Women Have with Money
$10.99
Anyone who is attracted to the subject matter of this book will find it insightful.

To Buy or Not to Buy: Why We Overshop and How to Stop
$16.95
This book has been phenomenally helpful in allowing me to understand the "demons" that I have obviously been living with for so many years. I am now 66 years old and finally coming to terms with the underlying reasons for the behaviors that I have struggled with over and over again throughout my life. Thank you Dr. Benson!

Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping--Updated and Revised for the Internet, the Global Consumer, and Beyond
$16.00
Confession: my first contact with Envirosell was to discuss viability of applying defense tracking "technology looking for a problem" to retail environments. Underhill dismissed this entire practice as glibly on page 56 as his staff dismissed my meeting request. I've since read his book for a more nuanced understanding of his perspective.


Underhill rightly criticizes business schools (US in particular). "Among the many pieces missing from an MBA education is an understanding of the fundamentals of the packaging and that affects the brand " (pg 84).


The book is compelling because of its memorably humorous case studies. What is "butt brush" is and how does it impact your bottom line? (no pun intended) How can you discern the gender of a store manager in one glance? He draws from clients in diverse industries and geographies to serve us universal guidelines we can test in our own businesses. Despite a background in architecture and urban planning, most of the suggestions he makes are not big budget redesigns, but tactical tweaks you could begin implementing in less than 24 hours. Even for casual shoppers, this book will make you savvier about the tactics retailers use to decrease your abandon rate as well as giving you tools to be a more perceptive people watcher.


There are just two improvements standing between this book and a full five star rating.

* Match Expository Structure to Audience. This book reads like an Envirosell business development travelogue. As mentioned by a prior reviewer, the "Come Fly With Me" chapter covering Envirosell's international expansion detracts from the flow and would work better as an introduction or postscript. This book should function more like triage in an ER. It should calmly identify quick experiments, benchmark data, and organizational priming that a patient could process while waiting for the Envirosell surgeons to help with more intractable challenges. The material is there, but too scattered to hang together as a coherent how-to guide.

* Soften Luddite Stance on Technology. Underhill's heart is in the right place; we've all felt that "top level executives [crunch] numbers but never even once [bother] to visit the actual floor" (pg 275). He's even added a few additional chapters about eCommerce and technology to this version as a concession to his Amazon reviewers. Yet one can't ignore the potential for technology to nurture a culture that embraces the observation and experimentation he applauds. For instance, Underhill mentions, "Without conversion rates, you can't tell whether you're Mickey Mantle or Mickey Mouse." (pg 31) Fair. However, his current methods of observation limit him to measuring store conversion rates at the per visit level while wistfully speculating about the potential of calculating customer's value based on their in-store and online activity (pg 245).