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Consumers don't know themselves

Consumers, as it turns out, are not so easy to figure out. If you ask customers if they think stores are too cluttered, the answer is a predictable yes. The problem is with the research methodology. Rather than just ask shoppers what they think they would like, I can follow someone through their shopping trip in a grocery or mass merchandise store like Walmart and Sam’s Club and then interview them as they load their bags into the car. Continue reading the main story Recent Comments Indrid Cold Just now I've written a little diddy to the tune of "Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire"Hot dogs roasting on an open fire.They say daddy's plant is... Lola 1 minute ago The price of everything the value of nothing.The problem is not quantity it's quality. Shoppers want something that has true value and... Bob Dobbs 1 minute ago To my mind, it's not the clutter but the scattered organizationd. Go to a department store looking for men's shirts and you might have to... See All Comments Write a comment What is striking is the wide gap between what they say they did, and what I observed. I can ask them how long they spent in-store and the answer is again different from the one on the stopwatch in my pocket. I found that consumers generally reported that time spent in-store was roughly twice that on our stopwatch. One consumer reported the in-store time as approximately one hour; our stopwatch read 28 minutes. Ask them what they bought, and often the throw-ins I saw them buy are somehow forgotten.
It's one thing for frustrated workers to vent anonymously to a media outlet; it's another thing for workers to be so fed up that they disregard their instincts of self-preservation and vent their frustrations directly on the company's internal website— and on a posting that asked them to "share your story about the real Wal-Mart," at that.