Call of the Mall : The Author of Why We Buy on the Geography of Shopping
Author: Paco Underhill
List Price: $24.95
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ISBN: 0743235916
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (09 February, 2004)
Sales Rank: 297
Average Customer Rating: 4.38 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
Engaging and fun to read....
....but perhaps a bit TOO casual. Paco Underhill follows up on his immensely successful "Why We Buy" with an anthropologist's tour of shopping malls and Americans' obsessions with them.Underhill is worth his weight in gold to retailers; many of the simple ideas he throws away in this volume would be incredibly useful to shoppers and thus worth money to retailers (for example, clothes displayed shoulder-out on racks are annoying because you can't see what they look like from the front: why not angle them so they can be seen?)
He eventually takes on the longer-term topic of whether malls have a long-term future in the U.S., at least in their current configuration.
Underhill has adopted a casual conversational tone, as though he were chatting to you as his personal companion (or transcribing an audiotape of his thoughts), perhaps in order to make the book enjoyable to read. He succeeds at this readability goal, but the book seems somehwat insubstantial because of it: there's even one chapter that's only a page and a half long, on Aquamassage stores.
As much as I liked this book, I wish he cut some of this trivia out. Like a nosh at the food court, you end up wishing that you'd had a full meal.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Light and shallow
Underhill has done it again, but what has he done. This is a light read that feels a little too much like being dragged through the mall with a witty uncle. I find his cute asides mildly entertaining, but there is really no meat to his observations. He makes shallow complaints about bad design of malls or stores, but then I kept wondering what malls he visited. Obviously, he's missed the giant ones in Dallas or Atlanta or DC or San Diego which look and feel very different from what he has described. Finally, this book may appeal to retailers, but perhaps that suggests the sorry state of retailing. I mean aren't most people spending their money in either the Targets, Costcos, or Walmarts.
Rating: 5 out of 5
SIX STARS!! MUST READ
Paco Underhill has done it again. This book is educational and entertaining at the same time. You won't be able to put it down. If you want to understand how and what the consumer really thinks and does you need to read this book. No one out there packs in as many insights in as few pages. If you serve customers or you are one -- you should read this book.
Paco Underhill serves up insights that will entertain.
Read it for fun!
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