When a fashionista enters a high-end department store, she feels a sudden jolt of excitement at the sight of all the many different designer brands. Surrounded by luxury items, the temptation to indulge is overwhelming, and leaving the department store spending way more than she could afford is a common occurrence. Why do people do this, knowing that it is harmful to their financial situation? Malcolm Gladwell's article “The Science of Shopping” explains why this happens. The article is based on the interview of Paco Underhill and his explanation of what various marketing strategies stores often use. According to him, these devices are used to manipulate the consumer's shopping experience. In the article, Underhill discusses how retailers “apply science” by using approaches to draw in more customers and to increase their profits. Like Gladwell, Author Charles Duhigg’s book “The Power of Habits” summarizes that every store has “tricks” that are used by the consumer in the hopes that they will spend more money. Nordstrom does a wonderful job executing Gladwell’s and Duhigg’s theories by using market maven, petting, and gender gap to motivate customers to purchase much more than intended.
Nordstrom is well known for their quality customer service, but aside from that, they are able to remain successful at being one of the top high-end department stores out there due to their ability to utilize Underhill’s marketing strategies. While shoppers are becoming more and more complicated, it's important to predict trends and to have knowledge of the products that people purchase or the kind of advertisement they will respond to based on where they live and their lifestyle. According to Gladwell, “Mavens watch more television than almost anyone else does, and they read more magazines and open their junk mail and look closely at advertisements and have an awful lot of influence on everyone else” (8). Retailers and marke...