Shop-straphobia?

A couple days before the start of classes, I realized that I needed to get my act together. I made a trip to Wal-Mart to casually browse the school section for some useful organizational tools. I didn’t have anything in particular in mind, but I was willing to purchase whatever caught my eye. I stood at the far end of the aisle perusing the different varieties of envelopes and office supplies when a woman appeared at the other end of the aisle. Like me, she did not seem to be intent on finding any specific product. As our searches continued, the space between us became smaller and smaller, until we found ourselves eyeballing the same spot on the shelf. In a moment of utter awkwardness, we both stepped around each other, as I pretended to be captivated by the tape dispenser on the opposite side of the aisle. She continued walking in the other direction. The discomfort of the close proximity to each other put an end to my carefree and willing attitude and caused me to abandon my search for school supplies altogether. I headed to the grocery section. Call me a recluse, but this girl likes her solitude.


It seems that claustrophobia, even in its tamer forms, has the ability to extinguish a desire to buy. In a retail environment, whether it be a grocery store or a shopping mall, the “too close for comfort” principle seems to apply. In the book Why We Buy, Paco Underhill coins his own term for this phenomenon: the butt-brush effect. He describes that in one study he conducted at a department store, he noticed that women in the men’s tie section would consistently get “brushed in the butt” by another shopper due to the unfortunate location of the section directly in front of the store’s entrance. Immediately after this “butt brush” occurred, the women browsing the ties quickly moved to a different department. Nobody likes unwelcome contact with strangers, and shopping settings are no exception. As soon as management changed the layout of the store, sales of men’s ties substantially increased.

What I am offering up is an idea that is one step below the butt-brush effect but still has the same effect on shoppers. It’s like the sixth sense of shopping: Whenever too many shoppers are uncomfortably close by in any given vicinity, everyone involved seems to desert the area and shop elsewhere. Think of it as the strange feeling of heading towards the direction of a fellow shopper examining clothing on a rack. The natural instinct is to avoid any awkwardness with this person by moving to a different aisle or, at least, walking around them to resume perusing on their other side. Even if it means you missed a few pieces of (what looked like) really cute clothes.

If companies want to take this sixth sense of shopping into account, it is important that they design their stores in a way that allows for easy movement and little to no interaction with other shoppers. I expect that this would lead to more “on a whim” buys. Nobody feels compelled to buy after an awkward encounter.

Organizational tools for the new school year may be tempting, but my dignity rules. After all, didn't I need some frozen pizzas?


Erin Devine
BEM Marketing Concentration, Music minor