Book review: "Call of the Mall: How We Shop"

Having not blogged much for months, now I do a few in a few minutes. There is no logic in these things.

Having enjoyed Paco Underhill's "Why we buy: the Science of Shopping" -- you will never walk through a store again without noticing things he points out -- I embarked with pleasurable anticipation on his follow-up "Call of the Mall: How we Shop" (which seems to be also titled "Call of the Mall: The Geography of Shopping" in the US Amazon's catalog but I am pretty sure they are the same book).

However, as is so often the case, the sequel disappoints. Having packed so much into his first book Why We Buy, there isn't as much left that is new and interesting in Call of the Mall.

There is a different focus to the two books. Why We Buy looks at customer behaviour in retail stores in order to relate it to the sales that do or don't result from it, and what the retailer can do to encourage the customer into the behaviours likely to lead to more ringing of cash registers. Call of the Mall looks more at the mall as a collection of stores rather than behaviours in particular stores. He also explores the role of the mall in modern (American) society.

However, where Why We Buy was more evidence-based (his company spends days observing customer behaviours), Call of the Mall is more opinionated (albeit expert opinionated) and of course draws on topics covered in Why We Buy, making it a bit "same old, same old" for me.

Probably the most interesting observation I found in Call of the Mall was that the mall is a private space which means it can exclude precisely the people whose civil liberties we defend to occupy the public spaces.