Can stores be made safer?

Tuesday, December 09, 2003

By L.A. Johnson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When did shopping become an extreme sport?

Those who study shoppers' behavior and crowd dynamics say the suburbanization of America, human nature and the way sales are structured -- to create a heightened sense of urgency while offering limited amounts of bargain merchandise for limited times -- can foster pandemonium.

"Stop stepping on my sister! She's on the ground!" Linda Ellzey told a crowd at the Orange City, Fla., Wal-Mart as they walked over her sister, Patricia VanLester, who'd been first in line to grab a $29.87 DVD players.

Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette

Paramedics had to fight through a day-after-Thanksgiving throng of sale-crazed shoppers to treat the 41-year-old VanLester, who was hospitalized after suffering a trampling-induced seizure. She was later released. VanLester, a former Wal-Mart employee, reportedly has made numerous injury claims against Wal-Mart and other stores in the past.

Locally, a woman was hit in the head with a DVD player at a North Versailles Wal-Mart that same Black Friday.

What's happening in the world when a bargain-hungry mob at a Wal-Mart knocks a woman to the ground, then tramples her to grab DVD players?

"Shopping has turned into a game and a religion," said Paco Underhill, chief executive officer of Envirosell Inc., a New York-based behavioral market research and consulting company. "We've sort of gone from a consumer culture where we brag about how much something costs to a consumer culture where we brag about how little we pay for it."

Retailers bear some responsibility for the frenzied shopping situations they create, said Julie Downs, a professor in Carnegie Mellon University's social and decision sciences department.

"People are told to show up at 6 a.m. They're waiting outside the door ... There's a huge crowd. They're in a state of physiological arousal, their heart rate is up, and they run in and get their DVD players," Downs said. "This state is about emotional focusing rather than awareness of other people's needs."

Still, the dynamics that resulted in the Wal-Mart crowd trampling the woman probably didn't have sinister beginnings, said Downs.

Many people in the crowd probably didn't even realize there was a problem, and even those who recognized that something was wrong may have misinterpreted what was happening, she said.

"People nearby -- her sister and some employees -- did try to protect [VanLester]," said Downs, who studies norms and how people do what they're expected to do. "The people in the back [who can't see what's happening] are thinking, 'Why are they pushing us back? They're trying to hoard the DVD players.' "

People sometime notice a problem, but aren't sure it's something they should concern themselves with if they don't see anyone else doing anything about it, Downs added.

When it becomes necessary to ask for help when people in crowds run amok, it's important to ask specific people for aid, for example, "You, in the red shirt, can you help me?" rather than just screaming "Help!" to a large group, Downs said.

"One of the things about our fractured suburban life is that we shop anonymously. How many of us go into a Wal-Mart and find somebody we know there versus a community of strangers?" said Underhill, author of a new book, "Call of the Mall: A Walking Tour Through the Crossroads of Our Consumer Culture," and "Why We Buy: The Art and Science of Shopping."

"When we go to the grocery store and other places, there's a sense of community and we respond with behavior that's more communal than individual," Underhill said.

Richard Moreland, a University of Pittsburgh psychology professor, said two theories from psychology -- that of decreased self-awareness and anonymity -- may explain what happened.

When people turn their attention inward and think about themselves, they clean up their behavior and behave better than they normally would.

"Being in a large group where something exciting is happening pulls your attention outward and short circuits your conscience," Moreland said. "You don't take time to stop and introspect, and, for that reason, people behave in ways they wouldn't when they're normally self aware."

It's also easier to behave badly in a large group than in a small one.

"When you're in a [large] group, you feel more anonymous," Moreland said. "You feel you won't be singled out or punished [for bad behavior]."

Good shoppers who do bad things aren't necessarily evil, wilding bands of bargain hunters.

"These aren't heartless people, but all of these factors combine to promote that kind of lack of awareness of something other than what they're thinking about," Downs said. "The kind of situation that's promoted to get more sales is likely to be a more risky situation where people are more focused on the goal they've been hyped into."

To thwart the crazed onslaughts, experts say, retailers may want to consider offering sale merchandise all day instead of during a narrow window of time. They also may want to make sure they have enough merchandise to accommodate shopper demand and have sufficient security.

Moreland suggested decreasing crowd anonymity by taking people's names as they stand in line waiting for merchandise, and increasing self-awareness, possibly by putting people on camera or near mirrors, where they can see themselves.

"Retailers need to be more aware of creating safe situations and not creating riskier situations," Downs said.

Wal-Mart places a high priority on customer safety, said Sharon Weber, spokeswoman for the Bentonville, Ark.-based company, which has close to 3,000 stores nationwide.

For example, this year on that Friday after Thanksgiving, Wal-Marts gave customers tickets for bargain TVs, enabling them to pay for them in the store, then drive around to a loading area outside and have them placed directly in their vehicles. The change helped relieve congestion inside stores.

"When you hear about all this opening up at 6 a.m. or 5 a.m., that just sounds too Wal-Mart or Kmart to me," said Carol Bittner, who has worked at the Downtown Kaufmann's for 36 years.

Bittner works in the shoe stockroom, but has worked the sales floor from time to time and in her day she's seen and heard tales of highly agitated shoppers in full froth.

"People change," said Bittner, 52, of Swissvale. "People get really excitable."

One year when the store was giving out $15 gift cards to the first 300 customers, things got a tad harried. Moments after a store manager handed out his last gift card, a woman shopper who didn't get one bit his hand.

On another occasion, a group of shoppers at the Downtown Kaufmann's were upset that a store employee wasn't at the sky bridge entrance to give out gift cards first thing. Though they didn't have torches or hounds, they ran like a posse in hot pursuit across the sky bridge and into the store on the hunt for someone who could give them gift cards.

"It has the potential to be dangerous," Bittner said. "It's something for free and human nature being what it is, if I'm going to get up at 6 a.m. to get Downtown to get a $15 gift card, I WANT a gift card."

She wishes shoppers could even once experience the sound and fury of shopping from the other side -- the sales associate's side of the counter.

"Hopefully, it would cure them of being rude and trampling on somebody to get a bargain," Bittner said. "Hopefully, the light bulb would come on."

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