The Missus and I braved the crowds on Friday to go shopping and personally stimulate the economy. Well, actually, we did some returning and exchanging along with some purchasing. Well going form retail store to retail store, I started thinking about the differences in layout and experience, so I had to pick up Underhill’s How We Buy. I’ll be reading it over the next months (along with other books).
Still, I remember a talk given by Len Riggio, the brains behind Barnes and Noble, in which he said that bricks and motor retail is dead. Based on Friday, it felt like some places are deader than others. Here’s my completely subjective ranking of all the stores that we went to on Friday. My ranking has nothing to do with the sales going on that day, but rather, just a feeling about the stores in general.
Dead: Levis Store; Gap; Paper and Presentation; AI Friedman
Dying: Banana Republic; Barnes and Noble (sorry, Len); Lucky Brand Jeans
Alive: J. Crew; Bed Bath & Beyond; Muji (loved this store); Wired Store; Diesel Jeans
Also, given my short legs, I’m starting to wonder what the distribution of sizes is for people in the Unites States. The way that sizes are in shops, it would seem that every guy in the world is only two-to-four inches different in waist and height than another.
So much for proportion.
One Comment
You can eventually find out what people think the average height of a guy in the US is here: http://www.decisionsciencenews.com/?p=531
It’s a survey by a guy I know who is studying people’s awareness of height and income.