Why We Buy
by Paco Underhill · first published 1999
100% recommend
Why HN recommends it
Field research on how shoppers move, look, and buy in stores, drawn from observing real customers; recommended for anyone designing retail spaces or interested in applying shopper behavior to web and product UX.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…Founters At Work 4. Wikinomics, Wisdom of Crowds, The Tipping Point (Blink! was alright). I am looking forward to reading "The Long Tail" and "The starfish and the spider"...has anyone read them yet? 6. Why We Buy 7. Hackers and Painters 8. The E-Myth revisited 9. The Art of the Start 10. On War, The Art of War by Machiavelli and Sun Tzu (not exactly for startups, but definitely useful) 11. Crossing the Chasm
on “Startup founders, what books did you find most helpful?” ↗…businesses which routinely force you to wait two to eighteen hours for service -- things might be different. For info on shopper behavior from a guy who actually does have data, I recommend Paco Underhill's Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping. UPDATE: I have the answer! You could invent a scheme where customers who want to avoid waiting in line can trade their own labor for a shorter wait -- by scanning and bagging…
on “Ask YC: Profit: $25/user. Customers: satisfied. Competitors: none. Target market: huge. But...” ↗I agree. This reminds me of the book Why we Buy, about the buying habits of retail shoppers. When shoppers walk into a store, there needs to be a threshold where they can acquaint themselves with the surroundings. Anything that is too close to the…
on “Signups increased by 60% after actually removing the signup form” ↗…disagree ;-) Conversion funnels. Split testing. All happened in retail long before all this new fangled on-line nonsense. In fact retail optimisation is fascinating stuff. It's a few years old now but 'Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping' by Paco Underhill is a great read. If you ever get the chance to chat to folk who do data mining for store chains do so. They have fascinating tales to tell.
on “What a startup can learn from a 125 year old business” ↗…product (mostly web) so that your users have the most frictionless experience possible and ensureing that things are made obvious to them. http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Think-Revisited-Usability/dp... Why We Buy by Paco Underhill - This book isn't so much about web or digital focused UX as it is for physical space. Specifically, retail. It gives you great insight into the thought processes behind consumers and…
on “Ask HN: What is the best book that you've ever read on Product Design and UX?” ↗…mall phenomenon took the place of the town square, the public zone." http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2004/02/2... Next time you browse in a bookstore, check out Paco Underhill's "Why We Buy" and "Call of the Mall"
on “Birth, death and shopping: The rise and fall of the shopping mall” ↗…http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/032134... Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large Scale Web Sites, by Paul Rosenfeld and Peter Morville: http://www.amazon.com/Information-Architecture-World-Wide-We... Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, by Paco Underhill http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Buy-Shopping-Updated-Internet/d... And at least one Jakob Nielsen Usability book.
on “Ask HN: Marketing Books for Developers?” ↗If you want to read a good book on studying in-store shopper behavior, you should checkout "Why We Buy" by Paco Underhill. He runs a firm that studies shoppers by secretly following people around in a store and writing down everything they do.
on “Trackers” ↗There's a few good books on the psychology behind this kind of thing in retail by Paco Underhill. Best, I think, is Why We Buy.
on “Gruen transfer” ↗A good book that talks about this is Paco Underhill's "Why We Buy".
on “Google Maps Floor Plans” ↗