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February 12, 2004:
Interesting Facts About Shopping Malls
Interview
with Paco Underhill author of Call
Of The Mall
Mike
Carruthers:
Did you know that when you go to your local shopping mall…
Paco
Underhill:
Two-thirds of what you walked out the door with you had no intention
of buying walking in the door.
Paco Underhill,
author of the book Call
Of The Mall, has been studying shopping and shopping malls
for a long time.
The mall
has evolved over about 40 years to it's present form. I think
of it as a circle of wagons, where the focus is on the inside.
Most malls from the outside, I think everyone would agree, are
butt ugly. Most malls in America are more than 20 years old,
and for everyone that has succeeded madly there's at least one
other that's aging badly.
Men and
women approach the shopping mall very differently.
Women
move faster than men do, because men are enjoying the nature
of the public space and are busy looking at other people, whereas
women tending to be there as a vehicle to see stuff.
And you
may not have noticed, but one of the main activities in any
shopping mall is eating.
And I'm
not talking about just eating at the food court. Just stand
in a shopping mall, at some distance from the food court and
watch the number of people walking past that are munching on
something. It's amazing the number of people that you see eating
in a shopping mall.
Tomorrow
why it's almost impossible to buy a baseball glove in a shopping
mall. I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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