shopping

Shopping
$14.98
This film understands something that 99% of Hollywood films dont. Its the journey not the destination that matters. Most films are like inanimate objects these days, skeletal building frames carefully joined together to get to the pre-determined and cliched ending. Boring. Most Hollywood movies make me want to shoot myself in the head they're so trite.
If you breathe life into the characters, setting, and film itself you dont need a destination, you dont need black and white. Everything speaks for itself.
Thats why theres so much hostility towards this film, it doesnt fit in a box.
The hero is an immoral thief, yet his humanity shines through and you cant help but like him. This film is reminscent of Menace II Society in the way you excuse the criminals to some degree for their crimes.
I deduct a point because the film is a bit glossy and the characters sexed up a bit for the screen.
Great film for those who dont need to be spoonfed.

Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience
$27.00
Everything about shopping has changed.

Take it from Pamela N. Danziger, a dedicated power shopper and author.

According to Danziger, "shops that pop" are stores that have a set of unique identifying characteristics that make people love to shop in them.

In part one of her book, Danziger explains the role of the consumer in this new paradigm, which is all about the experience.

"Shoppers don't love a store because they love the merchandise they carry," Danziger says. "They love a store because it touches them personally and emotionally."

A marketing researcher and self-proclaimed passionate shopper, Danziger believes there has been a shift from a products-based business to a people-based business and retailers need to accommodate this shift.

These "shops that pop" have 7 distinctive features that they share that attract consumers:

*Involvement - encourages the customers to touch, feel, taste and try on
*Curiosity - invites consumers to explore and experience
*Contagious - exudes energy and excitement
*Convergence - captures all the tangible and intangible elements
*Authenticity - conceptually driven
*Price/value - superior value at a reasonable cost
*Accessibility- freedom from pretensions and exclusivity

She uses a mathematical formula to describe the Four Essential values that factor into a shopper's decision to buy: P=(N+F+A)E2

P-Propensity for a shopper to buy
N-Need, which simulates shopping (desire drives purchases)
F-Features, the hot button that pushes the shopper to buy, what makes one item more attractive than another
A-Affordabilty, the shopper is more apt to buy even if they don't need it if they will "save money"
E-Emotion, magnifies need and is how retailers manipulate shoppers to buy

"Need often drives consumers to the stores to shop, sets them on a mission, and moves them to action but there really isn't a thing that marketers or retailers can do abut building need," she adds.

Desire is something they can build and is an emotional response, which is significant, because emotion is the dominant factor. In part 2 of her book, Danziger turns her attention from the consumer to the retailers themselves.

She identifies the pop! Equation:

*Encourages high levels of customer involvement and interaction, shoppers are not just passive observers
*Evokes shopper curiosity, invite consumers to explore and experience
*Has a contagious, electric quality, exudes energy and excitement
*Presents a convergence between atmosphere, store design and merchandise, these elements work together to create a special place to shop
*Expresses an authentic concept, has personality and charm
*Priced right for the value, offers good value at a reasonable price
*Offers an environment that is accessible, nonexclusive and free from pretensions, makes the shopper feel welcome

So what exactly does it take to succeed in retail in the future?

"Love your customers by making shopping in your store truly a special experience," Danziger explains. "The focus for retailing success in the future is not so much what you sell but how you sell it."

Finally, in Part 3 of her book, Danziger focuses on HOW to create this ultimate shopping experience.

"The key word for retailers is transformation," she says. "It means examining everything about your store and its operation and reconfiguring it, not for your personal convenience or pleasure, but according to the needs, wants, and desires of the customer. The shopper must be the focus of all retailing objectives."

She believes that people want shopping to be fun. They want an engaging experience. The most important things for retailers to address are the 9 people principles, the 8 product principles, the 4 pricing principles, the 5 promotion principles, and the 5 place principles that Danziger outlines in her book.

"Big retailing companies do a lot of things really well, but what they don't do at all well is innovate and that is what this research and analysis of the new customer and their passion for an extraordinary shopping experience requires." Danziger says.

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).

Just Shopping with Mom (A Golden Look-Look Book)
$3.99
If you practice gentle discipline in your home be advised that the mom in this book threatens a spanking when a child asks for candy in the store.