This is Macy’s Herald Square, the archetypal bricks-and-mortar store–2 million square feet of commerce serving 30,000 customers a day at 34th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. The man is Paco Underhill, author of “Why We Buy,” a primer in “retail anthropology”–the science of getting people who walked in for a spatula to walk out with a Cuisinart. NEWSWEEK recently roamed Macy’s flagship with him to assess how the “biggest department store in the world” is managing to preserve retail values at the dawn of e-commerce.
Inside the revolving doors, he points out red-jacketed guards. “One of those guys is probably bilingual,” he says. “Is there anything to tell you that? No.” In men’s shoes, Underhill counts only 10 chairs. “You can’t try on shoes standing up!” he cries. What bothers him are the missed selling opportunities. The linen department doesn’t seem to be aware it’s Christmas. “Nothing presents linens as a gift solution,” he says. “They should have Pokemon sheets out!” But, he notices approvingly, there are standing full-length mirrors next to a display of designer ball gowns. “They’re getting some things right,” he says.
Later, sipping an egg cream, Underhill regains his optimism about traditional retail. Web sites will never supplant department stores, he says, because shopping remains a sensual experience, dependent on the aroma of coffee and the feel of cashmere. But people need to be seduced into the experience. “If shoppers suddenly ceased to buy on impulse,” Underhill says, “our entire economy would collapse.”
