Inside the Mind of the Shopper

Herb Sorensen is a preeminent authority on observing and measuring shopping behavior and attitudes within the four walls of the store. He has worked with Fortune 100 retailers and consumer packaged-goods manufacturers for more than 35 years, studying shopper behavior, motivations, and perceptions at the point of purchase. Sorensen’s patented shopper-tracking technology PathTracker® is helping to revolutionize retail marketing strategies from a traditional “product-centric” perspective to a new “shopper-centric” focus. As Baseline magazine commented, “Herb Sorensen and Paco Underhill are the yin and yang of observational research.”   Herb has conducted studies in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America. His research has been published in AMA’s Marketing Research, The Journal of Advertising Research, FMI Advantage Magazine, Progressive Grocer, and Chain Drug Review, and he has been utilized as an expert source for The Wall Street Journal, Supermarket News, and BusinessWeek. Additionally, he is currently a panelist of Retail Wire’s “Brain Trust.”   Herb was named one of the top 50 innovators of 2004 by Fast Company Magazine, and shared the American Marketing Association’s 2007 EXPLOR Award for technological applications that advance research, with Peter Fader and his group at the Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania. Herb has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry.  

Author's Notes and Acknowledgments     xv

About the Author     xxi

Preface: Rethinking Retail     1

Introduction: Twenty Million Opportunities to Buy     5

 

Part I: Active Retailing     23

Chapter 1: The Quick Trip: Eighty Percent of Shopper Time Is Wasted     25

Chapter 2: Three Moments of Truth and Three Currencies     47

Chapter 3: In-Store Migration Patterns: Where Shoppers Go and What They Do     69

Chapter 4: Active Retailing: Putting Products into the Path of Shoppers     97

Chapter 5: Brands, Retailers, and Shoppers: Why the Long Tail Is Wagging the Dog     113

 

Part II: Going Deeper into the Shopper's Mind     131

Chapter 6: The Quick-Trip Paradox: An Interview with Unilever’s Mike Twitty     133

Chapter 7: Integrating Online and Offline Retailing: An Interview with Professors Peter Fader (The Wharton School) and Wendy Moe (University of Maryland)     147

Chapter 8: Multicultural Retailing: An Interview with Emil Morales, Executive Vice President of TNS Multicultural     161

Chapter 9: Insights into Action: A Retailer Responds: An Interview with Mark Heckman of Marsh Supermarkets     179

 

Part III: Conclusions     189

Chapter 10: The Internet Goes Shopping     191

Chapter 11: Game-Changing Retail: A Manifesto     199

 

Part IV: Appendix     205

Appendix: Views on the World of Shoppers, Retailers, and Brands     207

 

Index     213