What do you really do when you shop? The answers are fascinating and, for retailers, they're cash in the bank. In Inside the Mind of the Shopper, world-renowned retail consultant Dr. Herb Sorensen, Ph.D. uncovers the truth about the retail shopper and rips away the myths and mistakes that lead retailers to miss their greatest opportunities. Every year, says Sorensen, shoppers will spend a quadrillion seconds in supermarkets and they'll waste 80% of that time. Drawing on Sorensen's breakthrough second-by-second analysis of millions of shopping trips, this book reveals how consumers actually behave, move, and make buying decisions as they move through supermarkets and other retail stores. Sorensen presents powerful, tested strategies for designing more effective stores, improving merchandising, and driving double-digit sales increases. He identifies simple interventions that can have dramatic sales effects, and shows why many common strategies simply don't work. You'll learn how to appeal to the "quick trip" shopper; make the most of all three "moments of truth"; understand consumers' powerful in-store migration patterns; improve collaboration between manufacturers and retailers; learn the lessons of Stew Leonard's and other innovators; and much more. Then, in Part II, Sorensen presents revealing interviews with several leading in-store retail experts, including crucial insights on using technology and retailing to multicultural communities.
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 40 years, studying
shopper behavior, motivations, and perceptions at the point of
purchase. Sorensen’s methods are 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. He
has also been utilized as an expert source for The Wall Street
Journal, Supermarket News, and BusinessWeek. Herb appeared on the
television show Dr. Oz as an expert on the movement of the eyes as
part of the shopping process. Additionally, he is currently a
panelist of Retail Wire’s “Brain Trust” and blogs at
www.shopperscientist.com.
Herb’s career intertwines the world of science with the world of
business. His Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of
California at Davis, 1970, resulted in publications ranging from
metabolism, to chemical and electron structures. He is also a
Diplomate of the American Board of Clinical Chemistry. In 1972 he
launched a food laboratory, specializing in nutrition, safety, and
HACCP quality programs.
His second company, Sorensen Associates, “The In-store Research
Company,” grew at an annualized rate of nearly 30% from 1979–2009.
In the 90s a mentor, Bob Stevens of P&G, encouraged a sharper
focus on “assessment in context.” This led to the invention and
patenting of PathTracker, a second-by-second method of
electronically studying shopper behavior in stores. Early on,
PathTracker enjoyed mentoring and advice from Peter Fader, and Herb
shared in the honor of the AMA’s EXPLOR award in 2007, with Fader
and his group at the Wharton School of Business of the University
of Pennsylvania.
In 2004 Fast Company Magazine named Herb one of its top 50
innovators. In 2013, he received the Charles Coolidge Parlin
Marketing Research Award, “honoring distinguished academics and
practitioners who have demonstrated outstanding leadership and
sustained impact on the evolving profession of marketing research
over an extended period.” In receiving this prestigious award,
Sorensen joined other marketing research legends such as Robert
Wood Johnson, Peter Drucker, Arthur C. Nielsen, George Gallup,
August A. Busch III, Paul E. Green, John A. Howard, Philip Kotler,
Robert J. Lavidge, and Jagdish Sheth.
Globalization of Herb’s work expanded when he sold his company to
TNS/Kantar and published the first edition of Inside the Mind of
the Shopper and through affiliation with the Ehrenberg-Bass
Institute at the University of South Australia as an Adjunct Senior
Research Fellow. Herb is collaborating with Mark Heckman on
Accelerated Merchandising, increasing sales and profits through
shopper efficiency.
“The Second Edition of Inside the Mind of the Shopper is a goldmine
for anyone trying to wrap their heads around the disruptions
reshaping retail in the 21st Century. It provides much-needed
clarity to a variety of hotly contested issues, from a pragmatic
approach to ‘moments of truth’ to a dispassionate assessment of how
physical and digital retailing can co-exist, compete, and (most
importantly) be managed. But, for me at least, while there is much
new ground broken here, none is more fertile than Sorensen’s
notions of shopping as a ‘directional search’ and the idea of the
retail area as the interface of products’ and shoppers’ competition
for space. The author has given us many things to learn and even
more to think about.”
– Ryan Mathews, CEO, Black Monk Consulting; author of The Myth of
Excellence; The Deviant’s Advantage; and What’s Your Story ?
“The author’s new chapters really contribute to making his ideas
about active retailing even clearer, and making the book more up to
date with the comparisons between online and offline. The book is
so refreshing due to the author’s unique perspective and approach
to retailing. I am used to both the practitioner’s ways of
reasoning as well as academic literature on retailing, but the
author’s perspective is distinct. He seems to have the mind of both
an engineer as well as that of a retailer.”
– Jens Nordfält, Head of Research, Hakon Swenson Research
Foundation; Assistant Professor, Stockholm School of Economics
“The Second Edition of Inside the Mind of the Shopper is version
2.0, not 1.1. Rarely does an update pave so much new ground that it
could be considered an entirely new book. In the first edition, the
author summarized the wisdom he developed from watching shoppers
across close to a million shopping trips. In the second edition,
the author examines today’s most pressing questions for
retailers–how to rapidly evolve into a hybrid world of bricks,
clicks, digital, social, and mobile. The second edition is an
essential read whether or not you’ve read the first edition. Most
of the information is new and virtually all of it is
essential.”
– Neale Martin, CEO, Sublime Marketing; Professor of Innovation,
Coles College of Management, Kennesaw State University; author of
Habit: The 95% of Behavior Marketers Ignore
“Herb Sorensen’s seminal first edition of Inside the Mind of the
Shopper has not only become prescribed reading for our consultants,
but it has also become the go-to read for many of our clients. This
is not a cover-to-cover read but rather a constant companion for
any retail or shopper marketing practitioner, as it is packed with
valuable insights drawn from over 40 years of shopper
understanding. The updated second edition takes into account the
dramatic changes technology has brought about since the launch of
the first edition seven years ago. Technology has not only changed
shopper behavior, but it has also played a significant role in how
retailers and marketers engage the shopper. The author’s
recommendations for how bricks and mortar retail should venture
forth in this digital age are both reassuring and energizing. One
thing that hasn’t changed over the two editions is the message that
the shopper should be at the heart of everything we do as retailers
and brand owners.”
– Peter Wilson, Director, koji
“I found this book to be a very important part of the industry. I
also think it is a must-read for every merchandiser and category
manager and would be the right text book for any retail
merchandizing course for retail management programs, and even for
management trainee programs. I spent time at Grand Union stores
years ago in each of their four phas
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