Calling all shoppers to a faults-and-all look at American retail meccas

Sunday, February 22, 2004

By Teresa F. Lindeman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

If only the Edgar Kaufmanns and John Wanamakers of retail history with their edifice complexes had had a hand in designing the great American mall.

	"Call of the Mall" By Paco Underhill Simon & Schuster ($24.95)

A true merchant would never have designed the bland, beige boxes that real estate developers built with abandon in the 1970s and 1980s to suck up the nation's shopping energy and tuck it neatly out of sight.

Paco Underhill, the retail consultant who had a surprising strong seller with his first analysis of shopping, "Why We Buy," now takes apart -- cinderblock by cinderblock -- the phenomenon of the mall.

Underhill again avoids pretentious, academic discussions that might turn this into an industry-only tome and gets right out in the parking lot with the rest of us.

In fact, he drags mall executives out there, too -- those ignoring whiners who just want to look at the security monitors in the mall office -- so they can see the deadly dull approach to their business through a customer's eyes.

"I march my captives to the farthest extreme of the lot, and then make them stand there a minute."

Beyond the boring issue, there's the battle to get a spot near one of the little mouse-hole doors in the big, blank wall. He advises mall operators to hire a car greeter -- a traffic cop helped by some high school kids who would keep things running smoothly and help people find spots on those wild days before Christmas.

Instead, Underhill points out, management usually stays out of it. "Find your own spot, fight your own battles, it tells us, then come inside."

The author's qualifications to teach us a few things about America's second home come in part from his business, Envirosell. But his ability to bring a fresh eye to the subject may owe just as much to his childhood.

The son of a diplomat, Underhill grew up in Third World nations and behind the Iron Curtain. In Kuala Lumpur in 1963, he couldn't watch "American Bandstand" or depend on his grandmother in the States to choose rock music. The advantage was that when he returned to live in Manhattan, the shopping center was an exotic locale. While it was white-bread median-income America, that wasn't all bad.

"I suddenly understood those 1980s emigres from the Soviet Union who would come to this country and cry tears of joy over the splendor they found in the produce aisle of an average supermarket," he writes. "At last I found what seemed to be the real America, and it was out shopping."

The love affair did not leave Underhill blind to the mall's faults. A book filled with the usual customer complaints would be as dull as being stuck in the food court but he brings a little situation-comedy sensibility to the topic by letting us eavesdrop on shopping trips with archetypal consumers.

A real-live teen from Staten Island explains why she won't buy jeans that don't have back pockets. And we nod in recognition as this shopper ready to spend describes being ignored in those stores seeking an upscale clientele.

Underhill follows a 40-ish female executive as she scoots through a little used mall entrance that offers the fastest route -- through men's underwear -- to the women's shoes and the cosmetics departments. Along the way, she offers sage advice on how to get a few more warm bodies into the empty perfume aisles.

A man shopping half-heartedly for a present for his wife helps us pick apart why Cartier and Tiffany take a haughty tone in their mall store designs even as they neighbor with a discount jeweler happy to serve the customers the dignified facades scare off.

While at points Underhill seems to meander a bit aimlessly without settling on any quick solutions -- rather like a mall rat looking for action -- his clever observations may interest those who have pondered why The Gap store windows are so boring and why the Victoria's Secret store's come-hither architecture lures women, not men.

He brainstorms ideas at rapid pace:

Why couldn't Proctor & Gamble sponsor mall bathrooms for a month and let people do comparisons with no-frills toilet paper and the latest innovation from Charmin; why don't jewelry stores get bigger, better mirrors so women can see themselves; if there's a movie theater in the mall, why isn't there a flashing sign telling people they can still get tickets to the 2:15 p.m. showing of Jackie Chan's flick (Underhill admits a weakness for the actor's movies.)

Stops to munch on Cinnabons and visits to the bathrooms aside, Underhill's book immerses itself in a subject with substance. He estimates America alone has 1,175 malls where consumers spend $308 billion annually.

Fortunately, he doesn't take the opportunity to deliver a long lecture on the matter. He leaves where he started, out in the parking lot, trying to figure out where the heck he parked his car.

Teresa Lindeman can be reached at tlindeman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2018.

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